Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
What record companies say about file-sharing….
… Is really quite irrelevant to reality. But this article on the topic which I found on Steven Grant’s excellent ‘Permanent Damage’ really shows how fucking ridiculous record companies and more importantly, how greedy they are. Talking about H.R. 4279 & SEC. 104. COMPUTATION OF STATUTORY DAMAGES IN COPYRIGHT CASES in the article it is pointed out that:
This provision is one of the most gluttonous in the whole bill. It seeks to expand radically the amount of statutory damages that can be recovered, and in cases where there are zero actual damages. The provision is intended to benefit the record industry but will have terrible consequences for many others; the provision has nothing to do with piracy and counterfeiting; instead it seeks to undo rulings in the 2000 MP3.com litigation, a decidedly non-piracy or counterfeiting case, instead involving the use of digital storage lockers. Under the original MP3.com decision, where a CD had twelve tracks, there was only one award of statutory damages possible. Under the bill, there may be 25: there would be 12 for each track on the sound recording, 1 for the sound recording as a whole, and 12 for each musical composition. Under this approach, for one CD the minimum award for non-innocent infringement must be $18,750 (my emphasis), for a CD that sells in some stores at an inflated price of $18.99 and may be had for much less from amazon.com or iTunes. The maximum amount of $150,000 then becomes three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per CD. Now multiple that times a mere ten albums, and one gets a glimpse at the staggering amount that will be routinely sought, not just in suits filed, but more importantly in thousands for cease and desist letters, where grandmothers and parents are shaken down for the acts of their wayward offspring. These private non-negotiable demands don’t see the light of day, but they have resulted in “settlements” wherein ordinary people have paid abnormal amounts of money rather than be hauled into court and thereby incur costs that will bankrupt them. One only wishes Congress would hold a hearing on this practice.
Even limiting claims to 12 tracks, this equals a minimum award of $9,000 per CD. Is there any doubt that $9,000 per CD will be demanded and described as a metzia sparing parents and grandparents from the far greater expenses of litigation? It is no answer to say, well, we are only talking about those involved in file sharing, they’re bad people who deserve to pay; when was proportionality abandoned as a principle of law? During a death penalty argument in 1981, Justice Rehnquist suggested that the inmate’s repeated appeals had cost the taxpayers too much money. Justice Marshall interrupted, saying, “It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn’t it?” Imposing the death penalty on a few file sharers might discourage others, but that hardly forms the basis for sound policy, nor do statutory damage penalties that will result in economic death.
While the article talks about American law, given that American law is the default in this topic and that you can be prosecuted through similar mechanisms in many other countries I think it’s well worth a look.
18,750 dollars per album, I mean, bloody hell….
Update:
Re-reading this article there are a few other paragraphs that are just astonishing Read the rest of this entry »
Is Garfield Dead?
Came across this ‘Garfield is dead’ flash movie somewhat randomly today.. its a flash movie that is based off a series of ‘garfield’ strips form 1989… they’re rather dark as the feature Garfield being left alone in the house after everyone has moved away, which one would assume resulted in Garfield starving to death…
Interestingly enough,it’s lead to a group of people believing that given that the strips end with Garfield retreating into his imagination that it implies that all the Garfield strips since about 1990 (when Garfield would have starved to death) are now the result of Garfield’s ghost which is trapped in the house and refuses to realise that he’s dead.
Which is a load of bollocks really, but it’s a cool idea. And the strips are wonderfully dark….
While the strips I’m uploading are in colour, the b&w one’s that the flash movie uses are somewhat better so I’d advise people to take a look at that first…
And while we’re on the subject of depressing comic strips - this is actually worse I think and this is another great example of ‘is that actually real and written by the real author’ style comics where Walt Disney has Mickey Mouse trying to kill himself
UpdateThis site has a lot of the information about the strips as well as a really cool animation that is very similar to the actual strip and its story Read the rest of this entry »
George Bush don’t like black people
Man, I hadn’t heard this before but it’s great… A remix of the Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger’ …
Gutsville #1 - the full issue
One of the best single comic issues of last year recently became available online here. It’s always good to see such unique and talented voices like Frazer Irving and Simon Spurrier *make it* across in the U.S comic scene. And that final page … Genius.
Does Snuff Exist?
Surprisingly good documentary on horror movies and supposed ’snuff’ movies. Granted, at the start it’s more of a history of certain types of ‘video nasties’ than about snuff itself but as it goes along it shows how there have been ‘possible examples’ of snuff. Interesting also is the ‘chicken or egg’ question. Does demand creaty supply or supply demand? The moors murders example was one I hadn’t heard before.
Some nice moments of Sunday morning zen while I’m supposed to be writing an essay
You know, I actaually don’t know how to feel about Dustin getting Ireland’s Eurovision entry. It’s such a stupid event but that song is even worse than the normal crap…
I’m always amazed when you see this sort of short-sighted reporting
From ABC.Net
A Japanese father has called for his own son to hang after a gruesome murder spree in which the teenager killed three family members before slashing open his mother’s belly and putting a doll inside. The father says he will seek the death penalty for his 18-year-old son, who is a fan of the grisly Hannibal Lecter novels and has written horror stories himself.
Now the part I have emphasised suggests that it was the ‘horror interest’ that made that kid bad no? But further down the article:
The father, who divorced the boy’s mother a decade ago and has been in and out of prison on blackmail charges, admitted he was partly responsible for his son’s poor upbringing.
I really hate the fact that the way that article is written is done in such a way that it clearly places more emphasis on the ‘interests’ of the child than in his upbringing, I mean this sort of crap always happens in the analysis of these ‘youth violence’ incidents, especially in the American media, I mean you can just see this event being used by some ‘moral majority’ jackass to ‘prove’ how ‘horror movies corrupt children’..
Bah, I’m tired and cranky but still… This crap really pisses me off..
Two rather entertaining lists:
The Evil Overlord list featuring such classics as:
My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant
Along with The 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S army such as:
14.Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
17. God may not contradict any of my orders
29. The Irish MPs are not after “Me frosted lucky charms”.
33. Not allowed to chew gum at formation, unless I brought enough for everybody.
34. (Next day) Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody.
48. I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.
And so on… There’s a pretty good website with this list explaining some of these stories here.