Of course they're organized blue. They're all businesses! It's very hard (or at least extremely time-consuming) to operate a business without a minimum amount of organizational structure!
That being said, I think that this "IP Theft=Terrorism" bull is just a red herring for Holder to distract from the fact that a) he should have been fired a long time ago, b) he's completely incompetent, and c) he's trying to distract everyone from the whole AP records debacle.
And for the nth time, it's not IP theft. It's IP infringement! You can't steal a copyright, you infringe on a copyright. You can't steal a patent, you infringe on a patent. You can't steal a trademark, you infringe on a trademark.
However, you can steal trade secrets, but that usually falls under "corporate espionage". So while trade secrets are considered Intellectual Property, they're the only one of the four IP categories that is actually considered stealing.
The phrase IP Theft is misleading to the common man, because you turn around and go "copyrights/trademarks/patents are IP", which leads to people incorrectly believing that illegal downloads are considered stealing, when in fact it's actually infringement. There is a big difference.
The fact that the people at the DOJ don't understand this kind of important difference (or they do and keep parroting the "copyright infringement=theft" meme anyway) is rather disturbing.
Now the question is: will Rep. Watts try to get a bill through Congress effectively saying something "IP Theft is helpin teh terrorusts (including copyright in that definition since he supports Hollywood's interests), so we need to make it a a felony, and if you don't support this bill then you're with the terrorists!"?
So in the previous article I suggested (in a half-joking manner) that the Internet should consider crowdfunding the construction of a statue for Judge Wright to honor him for taking down Prenda.
I mentioned the idea over at Ars as well, and apparently someone over there has started a campaign on indiegogo for that very statue!
So, has there been any word on someone crowd-source funding a statue of the Honorable Judge Otis Wright made from [insert precious metal here] with a plaque saying:
Dear Honorable Judge Otis Wright:
You win ALL the Internets.
This. If you're going to use something in a commercial venture, at least ask for permission from the owners first.
On a related note, since this is related to memes in general, I wonder how the whole Slenderman phenomenon factors into this. There's already an independent studio releasing a film named "Entity" into theaters this July that is basing itself on the Slenderman mythos, which makes me wonder: did they ask permission from the makers of Slender/Slenderman's creator to use Slenderman for their movie (doubt he'll be referred to as Slenderman, but it's hard not to instantly recognize tall, dark and faceless at this point.)?
Oddly enough, Macklemore/Ryan Lewis and Alice in Chains are both from Seattle.
And honestly, I can kinda understand the whole twitter aversion (Didn't see the point of it when it came out, still don't now). For popular bands these days, people love hearing constant updates about whatever the band members are doing this very second. Fact is, some people still have this belief that we don't need to get on the Internet bullhorn and shout out whatever is we're doing at the moment just because.
I think Sean's point is pretty much if Alice in Chains is going to let the world know what they're doing, they'll do it the old-fashioned way: with a old-fashioned press-release.
As for their complaints about how much their music is worth these days, considering on how their contract was probably written, they're probably getting under 10% of the income that their songs actually generate (the line from Macklemore's "Jimmy Iovine" popped into my head about "7 percent to split" and whatnot). And with the advent of the Internet, their already tiny slice of the revenue pie may have declined in the past decade or so due to brief lapses in popularity/Internet piracy/rewritten contracts with record labels. so I'm not surprised that Alice In Chains would be unhappy about the apparent worth of their music.
And much as you think that the days of record labels supporting artists is over, here's a little food for thought: Macklemore's singles are getting a lot of radio play in part to the fact that he hired out Time Warner's promotions department to help get his debut album out in the open (y'know, for all those unaware of the awesomeness that is Youtube/still listen to the radio).
The success of The Heist can be attributed to how the relationship between the record label and the artist should be. Not the "I sold my soul to the record label in order to make it to the big time" relationship, but a "I am the artist, the label's job is just to distribute my music on a per album basis".
Still, both groups make great music as far as I'm concerned.
Meh, Norton does an adequate job for a run-of-the-mill anti-virus program.
That said, I have SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes installed and run them every so often just to go through my drives and make sure that Norton didn't miss anything.
But yeah, I burst out laughing when I read that McAfee was the ones patenting this thing. I mean, I don't know anyone in my circle of friends actually uses McAfee these days. It's kinda common knowledge now that it's a shitty anti-virus software.
And now that I think about it, if they implement this patent into their software, aren't they technically selling legal spyware instead of an anti-virus program?
The Ambassador probably specified Game of Thrones (which I've never seen myself) for his "infringement = stealing" rant/mantra is because it's the single-most pirated show to date, so he decided to hold it up as a prime example of his tired, horse-carcass of an argument.
It should be noted though that there are two types of infringement, a civil and a criminal version. I think the arguments trying to equate the criminal version with stealing, but it still fails because even then it's still two different crimes.
Oh, and this just makes the Ambassador look like more of a fool:
Show director David Petrarca said shows like Game of Thrones thrive on “cultural buzz” and piracy, he suggested, helps to move that along. HBO programming president Michael Lombardo and actor Rose Leslie, who plays Ygritte in the show, both described piracy as a “compliment“.
[Quote courtesy of the TF article on the same topic]
Yeah, sounds like the ambassador apparently didn't do any independent research to me.
In addition to the new barriers for public participation, Enbridge’s proposal won’t undergo an environmental assessment, also thanks to Bill C-38 which gutted environmental laws.
So let me get this straight: Canadians who want to publicly participate in the NEB hearings have to do everything most company's require for job applications to simply get their foot in the door, let alone debate the issue? On top of that, they only have 2 weeks in which to do this, which means if that two weeks started on April 5, then the "application period" for the hearing expired last Friday (and if i am right, I'm gonna hold Moody at fault for not reporting on this sooner).
This whole 'applications for debate' malarkey just reeks of the tar sands lobby to me.
So the bigger question is: will this Line 9 get approved?
Nah, in terms of indie, Macklemore's still independent.
Instead of signing with WMG, Macklemore hired ADA to help him and Ryan Lewis distribute The Heist/promote Thrift Shop on the radio waves. This is also (according to Ryan Lewis) a The Heist-only deal.
In other words, the record label (WMG's subsidiary ADA) is doing what record labels should have been doing from the beginning: offering their services out to artists on a project by project basis, doing distribution and promotion for one album at a time.
Here's why:
-the artist wouldn't get locked into a contract that forced them into a deal with a record label 1)that takes a 93% cut of the profit, 2) be pressured by their labels to start churning out new albums and exhaust all their creativity on the earlier ones, and 3) take away the artist's right to select the record label that will treat the artist better than the others.
It would also benefit the record labels, because they wouldn't have to waste time and resources on artists they get in multi-album contracts who turn out to be nothing more than one-hit wonders, and can turn those resources toward promoting new artists or creating more productive ways to provide content......
Who am I kidding, the cash flow would probably go toward the exec's salaries.
The pedophile priests act on their own (and iirc, the total number of priests convicted or even accused of sexually abusing children is less than 1% of the worldwide clergy). And what they do is definitely not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
On the other hand, what Apple is doing is the company policy, just not a bunch of prudish employees playing morality police without the guys at the top knowing about it.
Am I the only one who thinks that ME3's ending kinda made sense given the overall feeling of the game. The whole point of the game was: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war".
Wait, no, that's Warhammer 40k.
But yeah, if EA can't tell that the reason they're so loathed is because... well, they're effectively the corporate version of creativity-killing Necrons without the awesomeness and all the common sense of goddamn Husk.
And they wonder why gamers/the Internet has declared an unending WAAAGH on them, leading them to be voted worst company ever for two years in a row...
Raises the possibility that Microsoft is aware of the SimCity Charlie Foxtrot, or that they haven't fully reached a consensus on whether or not they should have an always-on requirement. [The naive gamer in me would love to believe that the loudest and more influential voices of dissent are coming out of 343i, but the cynic in me knows better].
That said, the rumors that Microsoft are looking at the next-gen Xbox/Durango as more multi-media center than actual gaming console bugs the hell out of me, since it means that it'd be easier for them to justify having an always-online requirement to the general public.
Of course, Microsoft never comments on speculation or rumors, so we still have no bloody idea what we're going to get, and will have to wait until the official release announcement.
Honestly, I honestly believe the reason Microsoft was losing money everywhere except their original bread & butter (OS and Office) and Xbox divisions was because of the guys in marketing/distribution didn't know their head from their ass.
Best example of this is Zune, which had the potential to be a viable competitor to the iDevices if it had been distributed worldwide instead of just a purely US-focused distribution model, and had a much more aggressive marketing campaign than what it had (it was going up against the trendy, well-entrenched iDevices).
Case in point, I misplaced my USB connection cord for my 16GB Touch Zune HD one time and couldn't find a replacement cable at the local electronics store, even in the bundle packages. What did they readily have available? Connection cables for the FUCKING iDevices in every fucking store I visited.
I swear, someone should find the guy who thought that having the Zune as a US-exclusive product for the first two years it was on the market was a good idea and kick him in the balls (among other things) for not understanding the concept of the international marketplace.[/rant]
Although Paul, think about what your saying for a moment. If you give any company a monopoly position (or near-monopoly position in the case of Apple), and the chances of them abusing that position is extremely high.
Kim Dotcom's a statistical outlier in all of this, and given the fact that over 50% of the content hosted on MU was almost never touched after being uploaded or was non-infringing material, your assertion that Dotcom allegedly made his fortune on copyright infringement alone is rather misleading.
Can't believe someone else beat me to posting this (that's what I get for being a slacker on this kind of thing).
Anyway, Macklemore is the kind of artist that other aspiring artists should aspire to be, and not sell their souls to the RIAA.
That said, I'm a Seattle native born & raised so I'm kinda biased. God I feel hipster when I say this, but I was a fan of "Thrift Shop" and made a huge effort to go and buy physical version of The Heist album. [Found it for $12.99 at Fred Meyer's.]
And I confess that I downloaded the "Thrift Shop" single without paying for it, but I deleted the single version as soon as I got bought the full album.
And it is by far the best album I've listened to in a long, long time.
Re: Re: Re:
Pretty much this. If it's the LED is glowin' then it's clearly recordin'.
So yeah, the claim that you wouldn't be able to tell if someone is recording you or not with Glass is a load of bull*.
*Caveat: this statement does not cover the possibility of the person wearing Glass tampering with said device so that the LED doesn't light up.
Re: Well, Rapidshare, Depostfiles, and Mega are ORGANIZED,
Of course they're organized blue. They're all businesses! It's very hard (or at least extremely time-consuming) to operate a business without a minimum amount of organizational structure!
That being said, I think that this "IP Theft=Terrorism" bull is just a red herring for Holder to distract from the fact that a) he should have been fired a long time ago, b) he's completely incompetent, and c) he's trying to distract everyone from the whole AP records debacle.
And for the nth time, it's not IP theft. It's IP infringement! You can't steal a copyright, you infringe on a copyright. You can't steal a patent, you infringe on a patent. You can't steal a trademark, you infringe on a trademark.
However, you can steal trade secrets, but that usually falls under "corporate espionage". So while trade secrets are considered Intellectual Property, they're the only one of the four IP categories that is actually considered stealing.
The phrase IP Theft is misleading to the common man, because you turn around and go "copyrights/trademarks/patents are IP", which leads to people incorrectly believing that illegal downloads are considered stealing, when in fact it's actually infringement. There is a big difference.
The fact that the people at the DOJ don't understand this kind of important difference (or they do and keep parroting the "copyright infringement=theft" meme anyway) is rather disturbing.
Now the question is: will Rep. Watts try to get a bill through Congress effectively saying something "IP Theft is helpin teh terrorusts (including copyright in that definition since he supports Hollywood's interests), so we need to make it a a felony, and if you don't support this bill then you're with the terrorists!"?
As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."
Remember that statue idea?
So in the previous article I suggested (in a half-joking manner) that the Internet should consider crowdfunding the construction of a statue for Judge Wright to honor him for taking down Prenda.
I mentioned the idea over at Ars as well, and apparently someone over there has started a campaign on indiegogo for that very statue!
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-unofficial-otis-d-wright-ii-statue-fundraiser
I' d be pretty amused if this project actually met its goal, to be honest.
Re:
I can already hear the Star Wars references being made.
Statue in his honor
So, has there been any word on someone crowd-source funding a statue of the Honorable Judge Otis Wright made from [insert precious metal here] with a plaque saying:
That would be absolutely awesome.
Re:
This. If you're going to use something in a commercial venture, at least ask for permission from the owners first.
On a related note, since this is related to memes in general, I wonder how the whole Slenderman phenomenon factors into this. There's already an independent studio releasing a film named "Entity" into theaters this July that is basing itself on the Slenderman mythos, which makes me wonder: did they ask permission from the makers of Slender/Slenderman's creator to use Slenderman for their movie (doubt he'll be referred to as Slenderman, but it's hard not to instantly recognize tall, dark and faceless at this point.)?
I can kinda get where they're coming from
Oddly enough, Macklemore/Ryan Lewis and Alice in Chains are both from Seattle.
And honestly, I can kinda understand the whole twitter aversion (Didn't see the point of it when it came out, still don't now). For popular bands these days, people love hearing constant updates about whatever the band members are doing this very second. Fact is, some people still have this belief that we don't need to get on the Internet bullhorn and shout out whatever is we're doing at the moment just because.
I think Sean's point is pretty much if Alice in Chains is going to let the world know what they're doing, they'll do it the old-fashioned way: with a old-fashioned press-release.
As for their complaints about how much their music is worth these days, considering on how their contract was probably written, they're probably getting under 10% of the income that their songs actually generate (the line from Macklemore's "Jimmy Iovine" popped into my head about "7 percent to split" and whatnot). And with the advent of the Internet, their already tiny slice of the revenue pie may have declined in the past decade or so due to brief lapses in popularity/Internet piracy/rewritten contracts with record labels. so I'm not surprised that Alice In Chains would be unhappy about the apparent worth of their music.
And much as you think that the days of record labels supporting artists is over, here's a little food for thought: Macklemore's singles are getting a lot of radio play in part to the fact that he hired out Time Warner's promotions department to help get his debut album out in the open (y'know, for all those unaware of the awesomeness that is Youtube/still listen to the radio).
The success of The Heist can be attributed to how the relationship between the record label and the artist should be. Not the "I sold my soul to the record label in order to make it to the big time" relationship, but a "I am the artist, the label's job is just to distribute my music on a per album basis".
Still, both groups make great music as far as I'm concerned.
Re:
*uses Norton*
Meh, Norton does an adequate job for a run-of-the-mill anti-virus program.
That said, I have SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes installed and run them every so often just to go through my drives and make sure that Norton didn't miss anything.
But yeah, I burst out laughing when I read that McAfee was the ones patenting this thing. I mean, I don't know anyone in my circle of friends actually uses McAfee these days. It's kinda common knowledge now that it's a shitty anti-virus software.
And now that I think about it, if they implement this patent into their software, aren't they technically selling legal spyware instead of an anti-virus program?
Most pirated-show to date.
The Ambassador probably specified Game of Thrones (which I've never seen myself) for his "infringement = stealing" rant/mantra is because it's the single-most pirated show to date, so he decided to hold it up as a prime example of his tired, horse-carcass of an argument.
It should be noted though that there are two types of infringement, a civil and a criminal version. I think the arguments trying to equate the criminal version with stealing, but it still fails because even then it's still two different crimes.
Oh, and this just makes the Ambassador look like more of a fool:
[Quote courtesy of the TF article on the same topic]
Yeah, sounds like the ambassador apparently didn't do any independent research to me.
How will this affect Aussie-US relations?
The Zen Master says, "We'll see."
Here I thought US was the one owned by "Big Oil"
From the source:
So let me get this straight: Canadians who want to publicly participate in the NEB hearings have to do everything most company's require for job applications to simply get their foot in the door, let alone debate the issue? On top of that, they only have 2 weeks in which to do this, which means if that two weeks started on April 5, then the "application period" for the hearing expired last Friday (and if i am right, I'm gonna hold Moody at fault for not reporting on this sooner).
This whole 'applications for debate' malarkey just reeks of the tar sands lobby to me.
So the bigger question is: will this Line 9 get approved?
The Zen Master says, "We'll see."
Re: Re:
In all fairness, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan in 2011. Apparently lot can change in two years.
Re: Re: WMG
Nah, in terms of indie, Macklemore's still independent.
Instead of signing with WMG, Macklemore hired ADA to help him and Ryan Lewis distribute The Heist/promote Thrift Shop on the radio waves. This is also (according to Ryan Lewis) a The Heist-only deal.
In other words, the record label (WMG's subsidiary ADA) is doing what record labels should have been doing from the beginning: offering their services out to artists on a project by project basis, doing distribution and promotion for one album at a time.
Here's why:
-the artist wouldn't get locked into a contract that forced them into a deal with a record label 1)that takes a 93% cut of the profit, 2) be pressured by their labels to start churning out new albums and exhaust all their creativity on the earlier ones, and 3) take away the artist's right to select the record label that will treat the artist better than the others.
It would also benefit the record labels, because they wouldn't have to waste time and resources on artists they get in multi-album contracts who turn out to be nothing more than one-hit wonders, and can turn those resources toward promoting new artists or creating more productive ways to provide content......
Who am I kidding, the cash flow would probably go toward the exec's salaries.
Re:
Bad comparison.
The pedophile priests act on their own (and iirc, the total number of priests convicted or even accused of sexually abusing children is less than 1% of the worldwide clergy). And what they do is definitely not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
On the other hand, what Apple is doing is the company policy, just not a bunch of prudish employees playing morality police without the guys at the top knowing about it.
Uh.... How is it dead again?
Veoh's still online. You can still watch (and from what I can tell, upload) new videos to the site today.
They look pretty healthy to me for a website that's supposed to be dead. And if Veoh's dead, then what does that make Megaupload?
Re: ME Backlash
Am I the only one who thinks that ME3's ending kinda made sense given the overall feeling of the game. The whole point of the game was: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war".
Wait, no, that's Warhammer 40k.
But yeah, if EA can't tell that the reason they're so loathed is because... well, they're effectively the corporate version of creativity-killing Necrons without the awesomeness and all the common sense of goddamn Husk.
And they wonder why gamers/the Internet has declared an unending WAAAGH on them, leading them to be voted worst company ever for two years in a row...
The fact that he's even talking about it
Raises the possibility that Microsoft is aware of the SimCity Charlie Foxtrot, or that they haven't fully reached a consensus on whether or not they should have an always-on requirement. [The naive gamer in me would love to believe that the loudest and more influential voices of dissent are coming out of 343i, but the cynic in me knows better].
That said, the rumors that Microsoft are looking at the next-gen Xbox/Durango as more multi-media center than actual gaming console bugs the hell out of me, since it means that it'd be easier for them to justify having an always-online requirement to the general public.
Of course, Microsoft never comments on speculation or rumors, so we still have no bloody idea what we're going to get, and will have to wait until the official release announcement.
So, as the Zen Master says, "We'll see."
Re: Re: Re:
Honestly, I honestly believe the reason Microsoft was losing money everywhere except their original bread & butter (OS and Office) and Xbox divisions was because of the guys in marketing/distribution didn't know their head from their ass.
Best example of this is Zune, which had the potential to be a viable competitor to the iDevices if it had been distributed worldwide instead of just a purely US-focused distribution model, and had a much more aggressive marketing campaign than what it had (it was going up against the trendy, well-entrenched iDevices).
Case in point, I misplaced my USB connection cord for my 16GB Touch Zune HD one time and couldn't find a replacement cable at the local electronics store, even in the bundle packages. What did they readily have available? Connection cables for the FUCKING iDevices in every fucking store I visited.
I swear, someone should find the guy who thought that having the Zune as a US-exclusive product for the first two years it was on the market was a good idea and kick him in the balls (among other things) for not understanding the concept of the international marketplace.[/rant]
Although Paul, think about what your saying for a moment. If you give any company a monopoly position (or near-monopoly position in the case of Apple), and the chances of them abusing that position is extremely high.
Re: Re: Re:
Kim Dotcom's a statistical outlier in all of this, and given the fact that over 50% of the content hosted on MU was almost never touched after being uploaded or was non-infringing material, your assertion that Dotcom allegedly made his fortune on copyright infringement alone is rather misleading.
Re:
But where does that put Universal in relation to EA?
Re:
Can't believe someone else beat me to posting this (that's what I get for being a slacker on this kind of thing).
Anyway, Macklemore is the kind of artist that other aspiring artists should aspire to be, and not sell their souls to the RIAA.
That said, I'm a Seattle native born & raised so I'm kinda biased. God I feel hipster when I say this, but I was a fan of "Thrift Shop" and made a huge effort to go and buy physical version of The Heist album. [Found it for $12.99 at Fred Meyer's.]
And I confess that I downloaded the "Thrift Shop" single without paying for it, but I deleted the single version as soon as I got bought the full album.
And it is by far the best album I've listened to in a long, long time.