--- Courtesy of the husband. If I were a recording artiste, I would
have to question whether the RIAA is actually looking out for my best
interest or if they're just looking after themselves. {/sarcasm}
Read this.
THEN, read this.
And then try to tell me file sharing hurts the recording industry and
its artists. The Harvard study is proof of what I've been saying all
along: that file sharing is a tool to be used to promote sales. But the
RIAA is so shortsighted, so blindly ignorant of the facts that they
dismiss this study. Now it seems as if the Austrialian version of the
RIAA---the ARIA is willfully manipulating their sales numbers to
further their case against file sharing. Has the RIAA already done
this? Methinks its a distinct possibility. After all, this is an
organization who sues twelve-year olds to further its cause; who's to
say they'll stop there? To quote Morpheus: "I'm trying to free your mind."
And how ironic is it that the name of one of the biggest file sharing program is also the name of the man who freed The One?
Hmmmmm.
--- Another link courtesy of the husband.
What the hell?
So, if I'm reading this correctly, the child porn laws are now going to
be used just like the laws against suicide? Is that right? That,
because she's underage, this girl can be charged with sexual abuse---of herself?
Kinda makes you wonder if they're going to start going after the
chronic masturbators sometime soon. After all, they're abusing
themselves---it's time for government to step in!
I don't know about this one. I really don't. Something seems really off
here, if you ask me. I hate child pornography. It's vile. And I don't
know if "vile" is a strong enough word for it, but it seems to suit.
The Internet has to be a seriously scary place for parents nowadays. I
don't have kids, but I don't know if the good outweighs the bad here.
If I did have a kid, I wouldn't allow them on any chat servers. I just
wouldn't. Last year I babysat two nieces and a nephew for three weeks.
I was in charge of two teenagers and one tween for three whole weeks,
and everytime they logged onto AIM, I just about freaked out. Not only
could I NOT read their conversations when I peeked over their shoulders
(they were filled with symbols and abbreviations. Their chats made no
sense to me---the girl who likes plain English), I didn't know who the
hell they were talking to, and it would have been REALLY easy for them
to have eluded even my heightened snooping skills. Fortunately, they're
Mormon, so I could trust that they weren't going to get into too much
trouble. But still...it was worrying. I would have to think parents are
scared silly. It seems a hollow consolation that the Internet is
actually serving a flypaperish purpose and is bringing the pedophiles
out of the closet, from whence they can be caught---but I certainly
don't know if I'd want my kid to be used as bait. But this? This seems
over the top to me. Charging a girl who'd posted pictures of her
underaged-self on the internet with sexual abuse violates the spirit of
the law to me. Why didn't they just call the parents and tell them
about what was going on? Obviously they weren't aware. I can't imagine
ANY set of parents who would have said that this was ok behavior and
then argued that this was a flagrant violation of their daughter's
privacy and then have stood up for her on those grounds---encouraging
the government to charge her and they'd fight it in the courts. That
seems ridiculous. What the hell is going on here? If the child porn
laws were intended to prevent child pornography, and to protect
children---what kind of a message does it send to arrest a child for
violating those laws? I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head
around this one. It smacks of a nanny state.