November, 2004
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That clears all that up.
November 18, 2004 by Collin
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Yet more rant! I’m in a mood, can you tell?
November 18, 2004 by Collin
Whenever I see this while driving:
I think of this:
Why is messing with Calvin unacceptable to me when music mashups and filesharing aren’t?
Simple.
Someone other than the creator is making money selling these and other Calvin rips (calvin peeing, calvin mooning, etc.) without significant alteration from the original source. Their weak idea that couldn’t have stood as well as it has on it’s own is coasting on the success and popularity of Calvin and Hobbes, even this long after the strip ended. The people doing the mashups are doing it for a reason other than money. They aren’t charging and they are adding something to the creative commons. I view the Calvin rippers as parasites and the music mashers as artists.
So Bill Watterson never authorized these decals, yet people have been stealing Calvin’s likeness and using it for years without his permission. And the fact that they have been around for years without anyone being able to stamp them out (and his syndicate is trying*) is another testament to the fact that the only way filesharing will be stamped out is to eliminate the ability or the desire to share files.
As long as someone wants to copy something and has the means to do so, there will be copying. And as long as that person is willing to share it with others and they are willing to accept it, there will be sharing.
Making it illegal won’t make it stop. Prohibition anyone? Any pot smokers in the audience? Last I heard stealing cars and killing people was illegal, but that still happens too. All that making it illegal will accomplish is more people being shuffled through the overflowing judiciary system without having committed a crime that hurt any other individual in the nation.
It’s not the average person who happens to download some songs from the internet (rather than purchasing a CD that they weren’t going to anyway) that are hurting these litigious corporations’ bottom lines. It’s the people who are doing it en masse, packaging the resulting CDs they burn from the shared music, and then selling them as legitimate copies. You know. The actual pirates. The ones making their living from it.
Passing laws making filesharing illegal may stop a lot of the individual filesharers who don’t want to be sued or go to jail for something so silly. They will then resume not buying the overpriced products they already weren’t buying. But it won’t stop the real pirates. Like they give a flip about the laws.
So if laws won’t eliminate the desire to steal music, how about eliminating the ability? Install DRM in every product sold from this point on. Cripple computers so that they can’t copy anything without hopping through 50 hoops and getting the approval of God and Jesus. Tag everything to trace back to an originator, so he can be sued into oblivion for letting his copy of Britney Spears’ latest piece of plastic out of his sight for five minutes. Charge everyone in the world a flat, yearly music tax that is shared among the corporations. Fuck the end user seven ways from Sunday.
Beyond the obvious, the problem with this is the people who make their living pirating the product will work their collective asses off to ensure that any blocks that are placed in the path of their money flow will be circumvented. It’s kinda their careers. And the really prolific ones aren’t even in this country.
The average filesharer will just get more and more pissed about the new restrictions placed on their purchased property until they decide they’ve had enough and find a way to fight back, be it through protest, boycott or some other way of letting those in power know that they aren’t pleased with things as they are.
What it comes down to is Pandora’s Music Box has been opened and it’s time to find a way to deal with the contents. Fighting it tooth and nail may eventually work, but at what cost?
One last thing I’m thinking about and then I’m done for today. We are told from early childhood that sharing is good. It’s wrong to be selfish. Sharing with others makes them happy and it makes you happy. Sharing has Jesus’ official seal of approval. Now it’s wrong and illegal? According to corporations and their lawyers and pocket politicians? I don’t think so. As long as sharing is done freely and without profit than it isn’t wrong.
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*For more information about Calvin and Hobbes, consult your local Wikipedia: The Calvin & Hobbes Wikipedia entryCategory Adrift | Tags: | No Comments
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This is keeping in with yesterday’s posts
November 18, 2004 by Collin
Boing Boing: Mashup tools needed for civil disobedience
Sounds good to me. Worth keeping an eye on. Especially for people musically inclined like Trevor and Derek. Not that they will do anything with it, of course. No need to sue us.
The author’s home page is this: Flashenabled
He seems to have all kinds of interesting “stuff” there.
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And breaking news!
November 17, 2004 by Collin
MSNBC – Hollywood sues alleged file swappers
Timely or what?
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And this too:
November 17, 2004 by Collin
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And more annoyance
November 17, 2004 by Collin
Normally I would shove this in my Junk Drawer where I keep most of the bit pieces found on my Internet travels. However I’m posting this one here because it ties in rather nicely (I feel) with my previous post, and also because I really, REALLY like this particular mashup.
If you haven’t heard it yet you still have a few days to grab it before it becomes unavailable and possibly more illegal.
Boing Boing: Legal threats for linking to mashup
Disney, in my opinion at least from having followed their copyright shenanigans for the last several years, is one of the largest obstacles for an artist these days. Art isn’t created in a void and Disney(™®©π∑º) has flooded our popular culture with so many icons, images and sounds for the past few decades that it’s difficult to resist the desire to do something new with some of it.
In my opinion, if someone is using bits of your “stuff” to make more, fun, “reworked so much it feels new” “stuff” and then tossing it into the CC void while not making a dime off it, AND they aren’t doing it as an attack on your company then it’s not hurting anything.
As it is, I didn’t know that Disney held the rights to Queen’s music until I read this. When I first listened to “A night at the Hip Hopera” I didn’t feel that it desecrated the memory of Queen, and I didn’t even give Disney a thought.
Now that I know Disney owns the right AND are threatening to SUE someone for LINKING to this really cool mashup, I do think even less of them then I already did. They are hurting themselves more than the Kleptones are.
They need to be smacked in the mouse.
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An addendum to micro-rant…
November 17, 2004 by Collin
One of our coworkers was burglarized a while back and his entire CD collection was stolen. The thief wasn’t caught, the collection wasn’t returned.
Our coworker recently finished replacing all of his stolen music through P2P file sharing.
If he were caught “stealing” music through the Internet and was prosecuted he would likely owe more money and/or do more jail time than the thief who stole (actually, physically STOLE) all of his original CDs. Assuming the thief is ever caught, since by now the case is cold and nobody is looking for him, for this particular crime, anymore.
So it would seem it’s not so much about the actual crime as it is who you commit the crime against. Steal from a citizen and get a slap on the wrist (assuming the effort to find you is vigorously applied, and you are in fact caught). Steal from a corporation and get sued into destitution.
I see a definite lack of balance here.
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And now for a micro-rant!
November 17, 2004 by Collin
I agree with this:
Wired News: ‘Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread’
Now some questions for “those in power”:
If I buy a CD used, how much of that sale makes it into the pockets of the recording executives or, to a lesser extent, the artist? Yet it’s still legal to buy used music, right?
If I listen to a song in a friend’s car and enjoy the sound of it, but never buy the album that it’s from, is that a lost sale? Am I committing some kind of crime by listening to and enjoying music without buying it?
What if I borrow that CD from that friend and then listen to it on my own player, with no intention of buying a copy for myself? Am I stealing the music then? Or do I actually have to make a physical (or purely digital) copy first? The original disc is still there. I give it back to my friend. Where does the property lie? In the noise or the plastic?
If borrowing from a friend is a crime, then what if I borrow the same CD from the library? What then?
Now some statements to all:
This whole brouhaha about people stealing music via P2P filesharing is not really about lost sales or “stealing” music. It’s about greed. The greed of the people who fear they will lose everything if this isn’t STOPPED! The greed of the millionaires suing college kids for the HIGH CRIME of not having the money to spare on CDs, yet still wanting to be able to listen to a song they like when they feel like it.
It comes down to this, execs: If I like the music that you are selling, I will buy it, even if I can get it for free.
If I find music that I enjoy online I will buy the CD.
For example, I first ran across the Aquabats on the old-school Napster back “in the day”. I probably downloaded….mmmm… 20 or so songs. I was hooked to their sound. Since then I’ve purchased, at full price, two of their CDs, their DVD, and I took my son and girlfriend to their concert in Denver and spent around $150 on tickets and merchandise. This is for a band that I’ve never heard on the radio (I hate to listen to the radio), and would likely have never heard of if it weren’t for file sharing and the internet.
The same with the Bloodhound Gang. I first found their music on Napster as well and I now have all three of their CDs, and their DVD. Purchased legally, although one of the CDs was used. And I’ve heard they have an upcoming CD that I will be buying as well. Because I know I like them (although the DVD was a bit on the nasty side). Because I was able to listen to a wide range of their music without an initial investment, other than my time. All thanks to file sharing.
And finally, to The Industry:
Stop fearing P2P and discover how to use it to your advantage. Offer the consumers music that isn’t cookie-cutter, formula crap. Test new bands on P2P servers first to see who is worth a recording contract and who isn’t. Provide some incentives that you can’t get by file sharing for people who purchase the actual CD, like concert tickets or discounts on band or label related clothing. Stop suing your customers. I can personally say, as someone who doesn’t buy that many CDs anyway, there are at least six bands that I now listen to and have bought from that I never would have found if it weren’t for file sharing.
Yes, there are people that will leech everything for free and never pass along a dime to you and your artists. But do you really think that outlawing P2P file sharing will make them realize what they are doing is wrong? Make them say, “Okay, fine. Here’s my $16 for the one or two songs on the CD that I like and the rest of the crap.” Not a chance. They’ll just steal it a different way. You are trying to destroy a fantastic opportunity for everyone, you greedy, short-sighted, litigious, rich, out-of-touch “men in suits”.
It seems to me that you people won’t be happy until we each have specially encoded earplugs implanted at birth that won’t allow us to hear any music that may be playing anywhere until we’ve put a dollar per song in your pocket.
I’m not even going to start talking about the fear that pirated movies will ruin the movie industry. It’s all one and the same.
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BREAKING NEWS
November 16, 2004 by Collin
on “The Invasion of the Tiny, Fur-bearing Bastards”
Okay, I bought two live mouse traps from WalMart a couple weeks ago, against the advice of everyone earlier to just kill them. I was tired of killing. I figured I would give them a chance to leave the house peacefully.
WalMart only had one brand of live trap available*, and although it didn’t look like a good one to me I shelled out the $11 each and held onto my receipt. The instructions on the box were to wind the trap five or six times (but don’t overwind) and then place the trap on the pathway along the wall where the mouse has been seen. The idea was the mouse would run along through the trap (not supposed to use bait as it may reduce the effectiveness of the trap**) step on the pressure plate and it would quickly flip him like a furry little Indiana Jones into the holding cell and be reset for the next fool mouse to come along. It said it could hold up to 10 mice in comfort and style.***
Apparently I don’t have foolish mice. I put them in the two areas where I knew the mice were frolicking and gave it a week. Nothing caught. So I boxed them back up and took them back to WalMart to return them. The lady at the Customer Service station gave me a look when I handed them over and said, “So they were used.”
I answered, “Only technically since they never caught a mouse.” I guess it mattered as to whether they went back on the shelf or not, but all I know is I got my $22 back.
Then I resumed ignoring the situation until yesterday morning.
I had climbed back in bed to warm up after my morning shower and I happened to be looking over in the direction of one of my DVD towers when a HUGE brown mouse streaked past the tower and ran behind the entertainment center, waving his dangly bits as he went and snickering at me as if to say, “Hah! You humane foooool! I’m off to gobble Cheerios!”.
‘You little…argh!’ I thought. I leaped from my bed and looked behind the entertainment center but he was gone. Still, I knew I had seen him. And he was far too big and smug to tolerate any longer.
So last night I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up four snap traps. And groceries. Because I was there.
When I got home I unpacked everything and my son said, “So you bought some of the killing traps?” This made me feel bad about the whole thing all over again. When I was driving my son to school a couple years ago a squirrel darted out in front of us. I hit the brakes and the squirrel made it across the road. When we got going again I asked him why he was smiling and he said, “Because I have a dad that will stop for squirrels.” And here I was setting up the killing kind of traps.
I explained to him that we tried the live trap method and it didn’t work. I told him about the mouse I had seen that morning, how big it was, and if you see one there are many. I said that we cannot allow them to stay around the whole winter. And that they are disease ridden, spew flame and eat children. He said he understood. His sister was just keen on squishing mice. She still has a cartoon brain though, and doesn’t really understand “death” as a final thing. She thinks traps catch mice by the tails, and then the mouse looks back in annoyance as he munches on the cheese. There’s no final twitching in her world.
I loaded three of the traps with peanut butter, put one in my bathroom, one in my bedroom in the spot wwhere I had seen that morning’s mouse, and one under the kitchen sink. I held one in reserve because as I said before, I’m not going to unload them when they’ve caught a mouse. I checked them all before I went to bed.
Then this morning when I made the rounds I found one dead under the kitchen sink. I loaded the reserve trap, swapped it out with the full one, trashed the full one and was looking calm before any kids noticed anything.
It’s very unlikely that the mouse caught in the kitchen is the same as the one I saw in my room, although it was around the same size, if what I’ve read about them staying within 12-20 feet of their nests is true. I figure that with the distance involved I have around three nests minimum.
I’m gonna need more traps.
Now if there actually is such a thing as an EFFECTIVE live mouse trap I’m willing to pick one up in addition to the snap traps and save the lives of whichever mice are smart enough to choose well, but either way they are going to go.
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*I cannot remember the brand of this trap. I wish I could. Their logo is like a head-on view of a cat that just slashed the customer. I get it now. They also make glue traps and traditional snap traps. And they had a website that was as crappy as the trap. If anyone happens to be in a WalMart and has a better memory for names than I do and a desire to look at the traps and drop me a line I would appreciate it. I tried to Google it, but no luck, so you know they’re a top brand.**By creating more mice, I guess. “One goes in, two come out!”
***It was teasing.
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Answering questions: part 1
November 15, 2004 by Collin
Okay, taking a quick break from trying to fix all the things wrong with the new computer here at work and I thought I would answer a few of the questions that I was asked last week:
el sid asks:
Q: what was your favorite book as a child?
A: “Never Tease a Weasel”. Not really a book, more of a short story, but it was in a fantastic collection of nonsense stories that my mom had bought for me. That was my favorite story in the book. Then she leant it to a friend who wanted to Xerox it (my mom, a pirate pioneer) and the woman never gave it back. Now it’s gone forever.Q: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry?
A: Why certainly! And in large amounts.Q: did you know that those are the only ice cream flavors they have in England?
A: Hmmm. Not sure I believe this. But then again when I was in England back at the end of the 80′s I ordered a chocolate shake at the locally run dive on base my first night there. I nearly vomited. I think I stuck to ice cream purchased from the commissary for the rest of my tour of duty.Q: if you could travel anywhere in the entire world, right now, where would you go and why?
A: Assuming it was a round trip I would pop over to England to load up on all the Terry Pratchett goodies that we can’t get here. And do other stuff as well, while I was there.Heather asks:
Q: Favorite Zim episode?
A: Oh sure, make me choose. Arrgh. I can’t single out one favorite, but up among the top is “Ultra Peepee”.Q: Favorite Terry Pratchett book & character?
A: Again, hard question to answer since he writes about so many different characters. I guess if I would have to choose I would say Commander Vimes is my favorite character, and favorite book would be ‘Guards! Guards!’ followed by ‘Night Watch’Q: Favorite thing about your job?
A: At this moment, it’s having the new computer FINALLY! This thing SCREAMS! Just a bit buggy. Gotta tame it.Q: Favorite thing about your girlfriend?
A: She’s very fun, shares my sense of humor, seems to understand me even when I am at my weirdest, enjoys spending time with my kids and is smoking hot!Q: If you could go back to any point in history, what would it be and why?
A: I would probably go back to my younger self and tell me to relax, it’s not as bad as it seems. I know, lame answer with all of history to travel to, but there you go.And the last set of questions for this break are from nicki:
Q: If you could be any bug in the world what would it be?
A: Mothra.Q: What kind of alcohol have you developed a taste oversion to and why?
A: A long, long time ago I totally went overboard with Crown Royal. I went past drunk, but didn’t pass out. My head just hurt like hell. And then for the next three years anytime I drank alcohol I would get an immediate headache. So I stopped drinking. Don’t know if that counts as an aversion though. Oh yeah, and once I had uzo. Instant taste aversion. Nasty. Blech.Q: Do you have a criminal record, if so what for?
A: Does Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” count? Just kidding. I don’t have anything by MJ. And no actual criminal record either. Nothing that followed me past the age of 18 at least.Q: What is your favourite kind of music/bands?
A: I have a wide, wiiiiide variety of musical taste. Let’s see, top of mind: Modest Mouse, Scissor Sistors, the Cure, Talking Heads, Moody Blues, ICP, the Aquabats, Dance Hall Crashers, No Doubt, Depeche Mode, OMD, Ivor Biggun, Pink Floyd (sorry Heather), The Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Neutral Milk Hotel, Toasters, Elton John, Front 242, Nine Inch Nails, Fleetwood Mac, Kraftwerk, Bran Flakes, various classical musicians, and… a lot more I’m sure.And I’ll answer more next time. Now to lunch!
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