"We're trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you participate in peer-to-peer file-sharing and that the illegal distribution of copyrighted music has consequences," said Mitch Bainwol, RIAA chairman and chief executive officer. "And as this case illustrates, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing on their computers."
Wow. I agree with the RIAA on something. That's actually kind of scary.
I'd certainly like to be enraged about this stuff, and I certainly find the RIAA's position on twelve-year olds who share music abhorrent - but this has been coming for a long time. I rarely use file-sharing apps anymore, but it's got nothing to do with morality. The labels have done an excellent job of making them almost useless to me by flooding them with dopplegangers that look like real songs but are actually five minutes of beeps, which is fine when I'm looking for techno. The main reason I was using peer-to-peer services wasn't even convenience, it was because buying CDs at the snooty record store down the street was getting too expensive. They'd look down their nose at my selections, and I'd feel so ashamed if I didn't sort of balance it out with an expensive import from some band I'd never heard of.
The sharing of certain files is illegal. The courts have determined that the programs you use to do it are legal, in the same way that a VCR or a photocopy machine is legal, because they have substantial non-infringing uses - there are a lot of things you can do with them that are perfectly fine. You can share my songs from hell to breakfast, for example, and you'll never hear a cross word from me. But it's easy with a program like Kazaa to see that an individual has files owned by RIAA members, and then if the ISP complies it's easy to find out who you are. So as mad as I want to get, we are essentially talking about people being held accountable for breaking the law. I'm certainly not suggesting that you stop doing it, or whatever - it's up to you, but this is a potent bit of Public Relations Theatre they're enacting and I think it's going to work on a lot of people. I am simply going to suggest that you break the law in a more anonymous fashion. In much the way the people at school might suggest that you employ some manner of prophylactic when engaging in "extra-curricular activities," I am suggesting that you employ a similar tactic in your virtual life - by utilizing applications that anonymize.
(CW)TB out.
tastykins
1. This place isn't quite as big as the other Lanwerx, just the forty PCs. Remember, today is pretty much a big-ass LAN party - it's not console based like the other ones, so bring some dough for time on the machines.
2. We'll have S2's graciously offered Savage on sixteen of the machines. I played it a good amount during the beta, and I'm looking forward to how it plays on a LAN. We'll have teams of 8v8, and we'll need commanders savvy with RTS on each team.
3. Our friend and associate Porkfry, whose fascination with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles approaches the weird, will be there all day on the single TV they have playing the game. Not just that, but if you bring a GBA or SP you are welcome to find out what we've been talking about and try it out yourself. We'll have all the cables there, just bring a GBA and you're golden.
(CW)TB
The Cardboard Showdown website has been updated with some brand new artwork from the game. These guys have managed to take PA into the 3rd dimension and still maintain the look and feel of the comic strip. They have really done an amazing job. The new render of the Tron arcade machine is a work of art and should be hanging on a gallery wall in my opinion.
I got some mail asking what games I’m playing right now since I guess I haven’t mentioned it for a while. My first couple of games from Gamefly arrived yesterday which means I am just getting into Disgaea now. Thank you guys for recommending this game to me, it’s totally fucking awesome. Kara and I are taking it back to the year 2000 and playing Final Fantasy IX together. Neither of us has played it before so it’s quite a treat. I don’t understand why Square didn’t implement the ability to have two players control characters during battles in more of their games. Obviously Crystal Chronicles is still played every Thursday night with the rest of the crew. Last night we put a good four hours into it. Pork and I stayed late after the others left just to dick around and ended up finding a whole new continent full of new dungeons. Being 30 hours into the game we had pretty much come to terms with the fact that the dungeons we currently had access to were gonna be it for the rest of the game, and we were totally fine with that. Then we hop a boat and find that the game just got a whole lot bigger. We decided to check out one of these new levels even though we didn’t have any back up. After about a 30 minute boss fight with an extremely angry spectral dragon we came away with a shit ton of money, XP and I scored a heal ring. As one of the groups designated doctors this made me wet myself with glee. Pork and I have decided to collect everything we have learned about the game into a FAQ of sorts. That will probably be something we try and do next week.
I know I said I was gonna do a Pac-Man Mod on my computer but that was before I saw all the bad ass Pac-Man Mods out there. I decided instead to go with the CTS. Sorry for the low quality pictures. I have the oldest digital camera in the world. If you wanna see the real thing I’ll be showing it off in the Case MOD contest at this weekend’s Gameday.
As for my white CD drive, I know it doesn’t match. I never said I was done yet. I still have all kinds of plans for this case.
-Gabe out
(CW)TB
(CW)TB
