Build Date: Thu Dec 5 23:00:15 2024 UTC
Our Man Zach: genial, Guinness-swilling Schweinhund since ere pig met dog
-- Thom 'Starky' Stark
Hack "This" RIAA
2001-10-16 12:58:25
Ever since the music producers realized that they were behind a digital eight-ball, they've been scrambling to remain relevant in a post-analog world. However, their recent attempts to gain the legal authority to "hack" into computers solely on the belief that the computers are hosting inappropriate copyrighted material are completely obscene and absolutely scandalous.
Broadband connections, music compression algorithms, cheap CD rippers and P2P networks are rapidly changing the comfortable business model that the music labels created over the past 80 years and the labels have begun to panic. So the RIAA recently tried to attach an amendment to the latest anti-terrorism bill working its way though Congress. The proposed amendment (see Wired's story here) would have apparently allowed anyone that has reason to believe that there was illegal copyrighted material on computer to surreptitious and without authorization, log in to the computer. Copyright holders would also have the right to delete any files they believed "stolen" - even though we all know that it perfectly legal to rip your own mp3s and store them on your computer. And most annoying of all, the amendment shielded the perpetrators from any liability, even if they deleted the wrong files or did other damage to your machine.
So now corporate America wants the ability to invade your personal possessions and have free reign to whatever they like - all in an attempt to protect their bottom line. As long as they "believed" that there was stolen copyrighted material, they would be completely shielded and you'd have no recourse to whatever they did. Not even the police can do something like that without a valid search warrant signed by a judge. But a warrant is too much hassle for the RIAA. The absolute gall of those bastards is un - fucking - believable.
Not too mention that I already have a significant distrust of the current copyright "law" as it, in my opinion, is has become seriously unconstitutional. Copyright law was envisions by the Founding Fathers as a necessary evil - the granting of a limited monopoly as an incentive to that a creator. After a brief period, the work enters public domain. Obviously, the more information that is in the public domain the better off society as a whole is. Unfortunately, corporations are now unwilling to allow "their" intellectual property to ever become public domain, so they have been bribing Congress to increase the length of time that a copyright is valid - to the point where I will not live long enough to ever see another piece of music "officially" enter public domain.
As far as I'm concerned, with these attacks on our civil liberties, the RIAA has lost whatever remaining moral high ground they once had concerning intellectual property rights. Not that they had much to begin with. But from here on, I really don't care what the RIAA says they "own". Fuck'em. If the RIAA thinks it's OK to hack my computer when they feel like it and delete files that may or may not be "legal", then I feel it is OK to "borrow" whatever music I want to listen to. If they think that they lock up music forever, then I'll just ignore their bad laws. As far as I'm concerned, their abuse of the Constitution results in the forfeiture of all of their copyrights. All copyrights currently held by RIAA member's are now null and void. So suck on that lemon Hillary Rosen.
If someone ever figures out a way to directly pay royalties to the musicians, I'll gladly compensate them for my enjoyment of their work. But the RIAA and its record companies backers are no longer of interest to me.
It is clear that the RIAA and its members won't go easily as they enjoy their moneymaking oligopoly and have the deep pockets to continue to buy laws and lawyers and make serfs out of musicians. Their attempts to stave off death will definitely result in numerous other attacks on our rights as consumers and citizens, but in the end, they will be completely disintermediated by the Internet, like so many other middlemen. We just need to make sure to remain vigilant to limit the amount of damage they do during their death rattle. That the jaws of obsolescent are rapidly closing around their necks only brings a smile to my face. The sooner these parasites are gone the better.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
'Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch'
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
SF Hippies Can't Get Their Act Together
The annual 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park, where large crowds of hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie poseurs drape themselves in tie dye t-shirts and gather on a hill on 4/20 to smoke weed, was cancelled this year because the organizers couldn't get their act together. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
Albany, CA's homeless hooverville by the Bay, "Hobo Junction," is going to be torn down by The Man. Entrances are already being blocked off, and it's now difficult and dangerous to get there. Worse, these obstacles are making it hard to get to the nearby HORSE TRACK on foot. Local historian, Pao Tzu, has an overview of situation. (More...)
It's winter in Idaho, and Boise personality "Lego-Man" reports on how he celebrated Thanksgiving. "I fed my wife, mother and sister wine slurpies!" (More...)
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
Poor Metallica. All they want is to continue to put out the same weak "Heavy Metal" they've been churning out since the "And Justice For All" days? and make gooey wads of cash in the process. The problem is, people aren't buying their bound for the heavy metal scrap heap, over-produced, uninspired, tired crap. And let's face it, their various commercial endorsements won't pay for the lifestyle they've become comfortably accustomed to. Resorting to lawsuits makes perfect sense, when you need spending money. But just one lawsuit isn't going to pay their bills. So, to aid Metallica, I've composed an open letter to the boys in the band, with suggestions as to whom else they might sic their lapdog lawyers on... (More...)
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
