Machina improba

P2P

It reminds me of a bad Capital One Commercial

Posted Fri, 08/03/2007 - 7:19pm by rernst

Sing along with me now: 'Hands in my picket/Hands in my pocket...'.

What was I rambling about? Oh yes: The Mafiaa wants you to pay every time you share or copy media on your local network.

Move that media file? Pay a fee.
Defragment your hard drive? Pay a fee.
Watch that video? Pay a fee.
Watch that video with a friend in the room? Pay another fee.

Where will it end?

Confirmed: The RIAA’s new business model.

Posted Tue, 03/06/2007 - 4:50am by rernst

As if anyone had any doubts, the RIAA has changed their business model from 'producing new music that people will buy' to 'sending threatening letters to poor college students'.

This article On the consumerist has the details of a student who settled through the formerly p2p-ad-laden site p2plawsuits.com (intentionally not linked).

MPAA: Stupid *and* hypocritical

Posted Thu, 10/19/2006 - 4:04pm by rernst

A while ago, many sites in the blogosphere made fun of Lucky and Flo: two black Labs trained to sniff out 'illegal' DVDs. Much fun was made of the fact that they couldn't tell 'legal' and 'illegal' DVDs apart.

Weird Al: “Don’t Download This Song”

Posted Tue, 08/22/2006 - 5:49pm by rernst

No, he hasn't spoken out against file sharing, but that's the title of the first new song from his new album. It's available on his myspace page, apparently, but you can also go to http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com and download it.

Why do my backup disks fund the music industry?

Posted Mon, 02/27/2006 - 1:25pm by rernst

Apparently the blank media tax is coming back -- stupid music industry. Besides, I'm sure that if you look at it from a byte count, the majority of the disks used aren't going towards pirating music (who burns each pirated album to a CD, anyways???). But of course, maybe we're better off this way so we don't have taxes for the music industry, and the game industry, and the pillowcase-stuffing industry.

I guess we shouldn't forget the buggy-whip industry either....

I think it’s stupid that

Posted Fri, 01/06/2006 - 8:33pm by rernst

Bittorrent needs this disclaimer as the first screen on its installer:

Some malicious websites are charging money for BitTorrent,
committing credit card fraud, and infecting computers with
malicious software. If you did not download this copy
of BitTorrent from http://www.bittorrent.com/
PROTECT YOURSELF NOW!

*	Check your computer for malicious software.
*	Check your credit card bill for unauthorized charges
*	Cancel the installation NOW and download BitTorrent for free from  http://www.bittorrent.com/

Now the movie companies won’t even need to change formats to make your disks unusable

Posted Wed, 08/10/2005 - 2:30pm by rernst

check it out... players that can be 'upgraded' to not play disks using a certain encryption scheme, or a player you're forced to keep connected to the Internet. Nice. Is it just me, or do the media companies keep trying to make things harder and harder to *use*. And is a removal of capabilities truely an 'upgrade'? I don't think so.

Intellectual Property as a Concept

Posted Wed, 05/04/2005 - 7:08pm by rernst

A recent blog post I read concerned the concept of intellectual property and pointed out that the very concept of property is an intellectual construct. This got me thinking about how the music industry is always crying poor about people 'stealing' music. I find it no surprise that they are the ones crying the loudest about it, and they are the ones who reap (or perhaps we should say 'rape'...) the most profits from it. If artists truly were being harmed (as the music industry claims), wouldn't the artists themselves be up in arms?