Pirates vs legal ninjas

April 17, 2009 on 2:55 pm | In Geeky, News | No Comments

The Pirate Bay Pros:

• Don’t appear to support the commercial exploitation of copyright infringement.
• Don’t appear to profit from copyright infringement in the way that counterfeiters and the guys selling DVDs in the local market profit.

The Pirate Bay Cons:

• Called themselves “The Pirate Bay”.
• Arranged their site in a way which clearly endorses copyright violation – their TV Shows section lists modern shows, of which none are in the public domain.

The music/movie industry Pros:

• Spend vast amounts of money producing music and movies for the entertainment of the masses – some of which isn’t pure junk.

The music/movie industry Cons:

• Spend vast amounts of money producing music and movies for the entertainment of the masses – most of which is pure junk.
• Spend vast amounts of money litigating against teenagers and claim ludicrous losses whilst continuing to be profitable.
• Failed completely to update their business model to account for digital media and digital distribution instead opting to legally protect their pre-internet business model.
• Insist on charging increasing amounts for their content whilst the distribution and manufacturing costs have dropped – I remember when they said the lower cost of CDs would reduce the price of music – £20 for a blu-ray!
• Trying to control the world so they can control the content – forcing the computer and electronics industry to adopt HDCP, AACS et al – thou shall only watch that purchases blu-ray movie on a blu-ray player!
• Pay “stars” insane amounts to appear in their content.
• Pay non-”stars” as little as possible (writers strike, bands who make very little from their music sales etc).

Sure, I want to see great movies and listen to great music and i’m willing to pay a reasonable amount for it, but the media companies need join us in the 21st century. If they are not going to adopt more reasonable pricing (how can a digital download cost more than a physical CD delivered to your door?) and allow more freedom for us to use the content we paid for (you think I should pay again to watch my 1080p blu-ray movie I bought on my iPhone?). In an age of 160GB iPods and multi terabyte media servers that need filling and very fast internet connections, what do media companies think is going to happen if they don’t provide what the market wants how it wants it?

Just familiarising myself…

February 1, 2006 on 2:11 pm | In News | No Comments

I read a while back about a copper who had been driving an unmarked police car without sirens or flashing lights at 159MPH on the M54 motorway and 91MPH in a 30MPH area – not chasing a criminal or getting to the scene of an accident but while he was familiarising himself with a new vehicle and “honing his driving skills”. The case went to court and PC Milton was acquitted on the basis his driving wasn’t dangerous!

Surely if you are familiarising yourself with something or are honing your skills at something means that you are unfamiliar with the thing in question or you believe your skills need to be honed – in which case you shouldn’t be practicing on a public road. If anything were to go wrong at 159MPH, then doing so on a public road would have a significant element of needless risk which could only be described as dangerous driving. At the very least he should have had his lights on just so the public doesn’t think that the average person is flying around at over twice or three times the speed limit.

So today, I was please to read on the BBC News website that PC Milton’s acquittal has been overturned by the High Court and that the case would be tried again. Hopefully this time the court will decide that egregious acts of endangering the public safety cannot be carried out whenever a copper fancies honing his skills. Afterall by that logic, you should be on the lookout when police marksmen decide to failiarise themselves with their new sniper rifles!