LemurZone News

Sunday, September 07, 2003

what's hot what's not

Amnesty is a power usually reserved for governments. It is used as mechanism by governments for saying that they are sorry about unjust or illegal punishments under regimes that are overthrown, whether by force of arms or by ballot.

In published reports around the web, as yet unconfirmed, the RIAA may be getting into the amnesty game. This arrogance is astounding. They are already embarking upon a Jihad against their customers that puts them on par with the September 11th terrorists.

In the name of protecting 'their' Intellectual Property, which in the guise of recording contracts, require artists to assign the rights to their work to the recording companies in order to publish and hopefully make a living. Most Recording contracts are just one step up from protection rackets that are usually prosecuted in the US under the RICO Statutes.

From their coloring copyright infringement as digital Piracy, and labeling everyone on the Internet as a criminal for sharing files, using a number of novel legal theories backed by questionable legislation that is being tested as you read, to breaking and entering computer systems looking for folks to sue, spending large sums of money to congressional sock puppets in an attempt to save an industry whose practices both to the artists and to retailers of music have been found to be illegal as in the recent price fixing settlement with the FTC.

This Gang of Five who settled up with the FTC are the same group of folks who may want to try to offer amnesty under the theory that they can. The RIAA is a private industry trade group whose whole representation are the Five Major Music Distributors. They are not the Entire Music Industry as a lot of the published reports would lead you to believe. Any deal that you might possibly make with the RIAA is stupid in the first place, probably not binding in the second place, and may have your ass served up on a platter by ASCAP, BMI, or even the artists themselves. To repeat: The RIAA is NOT the Entire Music Industry, but only the mouthpiece of Five Music Companies.

If they want to offer amnesty, let them offer it to the artists, in the form of independent accounting of their accounts, payments of royalties and a system of checks and balances so that all parties are fairly compensated.

Repent, and All Is Forgiven Wired News
Peace Offering for File Traders Wired News
RIAA amnesty a good deal? Seattle Post Intelligencer

Hiding Content [Posted] 12/11/02

One of the re-occurring themes that appear on design lists is 'hiding content', or making one's code invisible. Most of the solutions just don't work. The internet is not about hiding stuff. But in the interest of fairness I can offer a proven method of hiding content.

Mitch Ratcliffe is definitely an other. The 21st century holds the promise of rich multimedia across the web. Mitch was blazing this trail in the 20th century. From code to finance.

p i x e l v i e w - behind the screen with Mitch Ratcliffe
read here - go there