I just read a list released by the IFPI, outlining what they claim as the “10 inconvenient truths” of Music Piracy. I have a lot of problems with it.

1. “Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment “free music” rhetoric.”
   Bullshit. The Pirate Bay requires a shitload of bandwidth. Along with other expenses incurred in the process of keeping their servers up and running, retaining lawyers and all the other things that may factor in, I highly doubt a profit, if anything, is being made.
2. “AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.”
   Well, yeah…it’s likely the fucking Russian mob that runs that site. Most people aren’t stupid to trust their credit information to them. But still, let’s compare…AllOfMP3.com “supposedly” is giving their money to a government agency, who is supposed to pass it on to the record companies and artists and for some reason, be it the site or the agency, it’s not happening. Now, let’s take SoundExchange, a former member of the RIAA who aggressively collects royalties, “holds” them and “seeks out” artists to pay them. How many of those artists have been paid? With a such a staggering huge list of unpaid musicians that they seemingly cannot find (including such <sarcasm>totally obscure</sarcasm> groups like Public Enemy, Siouxsie and the Bansees, Loverboy, several artists who are dead and strangely enough, the band I’m listening to as I write this), it doesn’t seem like they’re trying very hard either. Are they criminals too?

(more…)

I was just doing some reading about a new p2p client called Alliance. It’s a cross-platform program (the main project homepage only offers the EXE, but for Linux and Mac jarfile, go here) that marries social networks and file sharing; sort of like instant messaging meets BitTorrent. Instead of joining a large network of unknown peers and sharing a file, you construct your own network of trusted peers.

For example, Joe Q. Paranoid installs Alliance and adds his old college buddy, Hubert P. Piratepants as a trusted peer, as well as a few other people he knows and trusts. Together, they make up a private network that can transfer files back and forth from designated shared directories. If the file is present on more than one peer’s computer, it works like BitTorrent, using the multiple peers to increase the download speeds. There’s also a chat feature, letting you communicate with the people in your network.

Another great feature is encryption. By default, Alliance uses a rather simplistic encryption algorithm. SSL and AES are available as an option, but as of the current version (0.9.8), they are both in an experimental stage.

Overall, Alliance looks really fucking sweet. I haven’t had the chance to install and test it as of yet, but definitely plan on it.

I’m psyched to see that over the holiday weekend a US branch of the Pirate party was established, or at least got their website up and running.

I first read about the Pirate Party after it was first established in Sweden and made news in conjunction with thepiratebay.org’s trials, travails and public snubbing of US corporate bullying. My first thought was “Hell yes, but this party needs to be in the United States, the source of all unfair media restrictions, ridiculous copyright laws and all evils in between”. Thankfully and with hope, it has now arrived.

There’s not much going on yet and hopefully this won’t be one of those lame-ass, never off the ground, dead in the water, psuedo non-projects started mainly to garner attention. I find that really don’t care for the name, “Pirate Party”. While I understand the use and recent history concerning the term pirate in regards to digital media, it’s use is still to grey to me and given it’s historical connections with murder, theft and a whole mess of negative things, I question whether it’s appropriate for a party mainly concerned with copyright and usage reform. Sure it’s catchy, but in today’s buzzword-dependant media, amongst the non-7337, perhaps older and less media and tech savvy population, it sounds bad. Isn’t the whole purpose about freeing media, liberating ideas and fostering creativity? If so, why chose a word that denotes thievery?

Looking at the site, I was suprised to see that the pirate party also has branches in Belgium, Italy and France as well, which is great. I’d really like to see more countries join as well.

I am easily distracted by noise. Specifically, eating noises. From crisp, crunchy, staccato sounds of potato chips and crackling of cellophane packaging to the moist and mushy mastication of smooshy cupcakes and confections—I am rendered unable to concentrate on anything other than the noises generated from eating. They grab my unwilling attention at the expense of anything I may have been trying to apply my attention to and drive me to a near-murderous fit of irritation.

This is most problematic whenever I go to a movie theater. Truth told, at my advanced and geriatric age of thirty, I’ve near completely sworn off movie theaters, preferring to netflix everything and watch films from the comfort of my apartment of doom—doors locked, shades drawn and shotgun loaded. However, there are some films that beg to be seen in the theater. I’m referring to the big, special-effects laden behemoths like Star Wars or, most recently, King Kong. For a rare film such as this, I’ll deign to mingle with the circus and the plebs, but honestly, it’s not worth it. I pay eleven bucks to sit in a room with a bunch of walleyed, cud-chewing beasts who sit there all bloated with one hand supplying a steady stream of junk food, while the other hand fields phone calls and text messages. From that first crunch, that smack of the lip, the bleep of a 50 Cent ringtone, or blatant “What’s poppin’? Oh no he didn’t!” of a cell phone call—it’s over and I might as well go home. I can no longer focus on anything in the film, my mind suddenly taken hostage by these loathsome human noises. I’ve essentially paid eleven bucks to be serenaded by the music of hippos grazing because no matter how hard I try, I can’t avoid focusing on these sounds.

At times I suspect a conspiracy against me, being that the main food export of movie theaters is popcorn, the bane of my sanity. Sitting amongst the buffalo and cattle as they feed their faces kernel after maddening kernel incites near-epic violent urges.

I want to grab the bag of doritos from the asshole next to me, flinging them like shuriken into the eyes of these corpulent cockroaches. I want to drop hand grenades into these fuckwad’s super-sized soft drinks. I want to carve out their eyes and replace them with artificially buttered popcorn and wear their shrunken heads about my neck as a warning to others about to pop open that next box of Mike & Ikes.

With these sad facts in mind, I’m sure you can see how excited I was upon learning that Steven Soderbergh’s new film, “Bubble” is being released simultaneously in theaters, DVD, pay-per-view and some premium cable channels. I’ve always believed that if films were made available on pay-per-view or any other format immediately upon first release, I would gladly pay for it. If the average theater ticket is ten to eleven dollars, I’d happily pay fifteen to twenty for the ability to stay at home and watch it. Movie theaters should be relegated to the stigma of cheap seats at the opera. Those willing or able to pay should have the option of staying home without being penalized by having to wait months for the DVD to arrive. It’s absolutely ass-backwards the way movie releases are handled now.

Movie theater corporations believe that they have a divine right to hold films hostage for a set amount of time before releasing them to any other medium so that they can make their money. They feel that since they came first, they deserve special and exclusive treatment. This just flies in the face of all things right and sensible, in my opinion. They force this release method to be the norm so that they can stay in business, because if everything followed Soderbergh’s release method, the theater industry would tank faster than saying “Ishtar” five times fast because they suck Attila the Hun’s nut-sack. They rely on you being forced to use them to see films so that they don’t have to compete. They don’t feel that they need to be clean, civilized and worth the money you pay. In the sensible world of natural selection, these would mix together to form a recipe for an industry just begging to be phased out but they work hard to make sure you don’t get that chance.

I’m not the only person who eschews theaters in favor of home systems and DVDs. By not catering to my preferences and instead kow-towing to theater groups, movie industries are losing money. Did I not mention that I would pay more—practically the price of purchasing a DVD in a store, for the ability to see first run films in my living room? There will always be some asshole that’s willing to wait four hours in line for a chance to sit in a movie theater on opening day, but not this asshole. Don’t you want my money too? If not, then does that mean it’s okay for me to steal your films via P2P? I mean, here I am, offering a legal and lucrative option for delivering your schlock to my optic nerve. Don’t pass on it and then run about decrying those who download movies on the sly. The niche is more than there, it’s screaming to be filled.