I was hoping for the Final Countdown.

dugitman: What a good day, and FWIW- you farkers rock. No community I'd rather be a part of.

Nice choice! :-D

"I don't get it. Why support people who dishonestly download? Downloaders are not thinking about the lives which are risked to make movies. All somebody has to do is click a couple of buttons, and a family loses a lot of money. Don't they understand that copyright infringement hurts people? It hurts groups of people -- corporations. Intellectual property is the last pillar of our culture and way of life. File sharers need to be locked up in a cage for the rest of their lives, have any assets confiscated, and their children castrated to prevent the propagation of larcenous genetics. Any extended family should be tattooed, shunned, banished and exiled to the Gobi desert to die of thirst."
-Ted Turner, 1982

Just so there is no confusion on this whole piracy issue, here are some characters that Warner Bros "saved" from free domain to explain the situation.

http://youtu.be/7vZMLEND7y4

//Pay no attention to the irony behind the curtain.

ugh, at least put that shiat in 720P. Linking that low-rez crap makes me want to not pirate it.

It's bad enough it's REM, but REM mumbling what I must conclude to be english is even worse. And what does "radio free europe" have in relation to the noise in the video? Are those words supposedly IN the sound track of this video?

Is he trying to not pee on-stage??

the_chief: "I don't get it. Why support people who dishonestly download? Downloaders are not thinking about the lives which are risked to make movies. All somebody has to do is click a couple of buttons, and a family loses a lot of money. Don't they understand that copyright infringement hurts people? It hurts groups of people -- corporations. Intellectual property is the last pillar of our culture and way of life. File sharers need to be locked up in a cage for the rest of their lives, have any assets confiscated, and their children castrated to prevent the propagation of larcenous genetics. Any extended family should be tattooed, shunned, banished and exiled to the Gobi desert to die of thirst."
-Ted Turner, 1982

But "colorizing" other people's creations and profiting on it is cool, I guess.

Colin O'Scopy: It's bad enough it's REM, but REM mumbling what I must conclude to be english is even worse. And what does "radio free europe" have in relation to the noise in the video? Are those words supposedly IN the sound track of this video?

Is he trying to not pee on-stage??

I think what you're trying to say is "dis is gay and retarded".

I don't know what the video is since I am at work.

But I am hoping its "Don't Copy that Floppy".

If not - someone get it here, STAT.

Thank you.

I cross-posted:

Something is very wrong when the majority of people (and we were the majority, obviously) object to a law and our "representatives" still continue to push it through. They knew we didn't want it, and we all know why they ignored us. They got greedy and their corporate handlers were able to keep them in line until they saw a horde of people with pitchforks, at which point they caved in the interest of survival or re-election. Either way, none of the people who originally supported this bill is worthy of your vote ever again. I would like to say that democracy won out today but our politicians were going to sell us all out had they not been handed their collective asses.

While I don't want to credit any of the original co-sponsors and representatives who supported the bill(s) for today's victory, I think they deserve something. For the part they played I will give them this: You are the scum which produced the slime we used to make oil for our democracy wheel. It's turning much better now. Thank you.

Brings a tear to my eye, every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvXo4sGB7zM&feature=youtube_gdata_play e r

vonmatrices: I don't know what the video is since I am at work.

But I am hoping its "Don't Copy that Floppy".

If not - someone get it here, STAT.

Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

And done.

mike4688: Brings a tear to my eye, every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvXo4sGB7zM&feature=youtube_gdata_play e r

Brilliant, as was the original R.E.M. video (c'mon folks, it's from video tape over 30 years old...don't expect HD quality).


Anyway, thank you, Drew and Fark, and everyone who called and emailed their elected officials on this POS bill. You people rock!

italie: Just so there is no confusion on this whole piracy issue, here are some characters that Warner Bros "saved" from free domain to explain the situation.

http://youtu.be/7vZMLEND7y4

//Pay no attention to the irony behind the curtain.

I always liked this one.

/Laughed like a goon the first time I saw that

I think it all started with Disney, when the copyright for Mickey Mouse was about to expire.
Disney basically bought congress and got copyrights extended to 95 years.

Congress of course, saw opportunity to make lots of money and sold out the public to the interests of the movie and music industries as well. ( as well as the computer software industry later on )

As to movies and music, I've got loads of videotape movies.
Likewise music. I have several hundred albums, very possibly over a thousand.
I have tapes. Many tapes. I have CDs. I can make copies of them for my own use.

There are tons of movies on television, ranging from totally free on broadcast TV, to relatively free on cable, to inexpensive on cable or satellite based movie channels.
There are digital internet sources like netflix, or hulu with varying degrees of availability dependent on your personal budget.

Anyone that has any knowledge of the music industry knows that the popularity of most music is managed and manipulated, to the tune of cash to promote certain artists. Artists that rarely see their fair share of profit from their own creations.
The idea that someone could actually become a popular artist in this country or the world for that matter, was non-existent until the internet and file sharing became the "people's press".

The internet must remain free from meddling from the government and from corporate interests.
If anything, copyright law needs less regulation not more.

/ done ranting now.
// about this particular subject
/// at this particular time.

We're the infrastructure people, right? We're tech support, sys admins, network admins, web site creators. We make this entire thing keep working, and clearly there is enough money in what we do. We're not working for free -- we work for corporations.

Meanwhile the folks in Congress can't get along except when they've been bribed. Suddenly they're sponsored by Sony and ready to act -- in a way that would kill creative arts and business in America. We're in a recession and they're ready to make it worse.

If our parent companies don't understand, then we surely should. If our government has gone for bid, then we should start bidding. Perhaps we can buy them into sanity.

We can't let this happen again. We need to buy our own congresscritters.

/not even certain I'm kidding anymore. Going to bed.

It's not over until the bill is officially completely dead, and its sponsors are voted out of office.

I have been really bothered by the fact that all these "What can I do?" end with writing a strongly worded letter to congress.

These bills were introduced by people to whom the industry has donated tens of thousands of dollars toward their re-election.

It is an election year.

The way to send these bad politicians a message they can understand and will not forget, is.

get Lamar Smith, R-TX, sponsor of SOPA, out of office this year, ideally in the primary.
the primary sponsor of PIPA in the Senate isn't up for re-election this year, but a few of the co-sponsors are. Look them up when Wikipedia is back online
donate $5 to a political opponent who is running against congressional SOPA/PIPA supporters. If the millions of people who turned out for blackout day give a couple dollars for the cause of getting bad politicians out of office, that will be a MUCH bigger financial dent than the tens of thousands of dollars contributed by the industry.

Congress will hear the calls and strongly worded letters and feel like they need to be sneakier next time. Congressional reps see their peers or themselves voted out of office or drastically out-campaign-funded because of this issue and they will actually be forced to reconsider their position on this, and perhaps many other corporate crony type issues.

dugitman: What a good day, and FWIW- you farkers rock. No community I'd rather be a part of.

Right back at ya. Well done all.

Every time i read SOPA/PIPA i think Sopapillas. And then i think about Sopapillas with sage honey. And then i really miss seeing the agelfire at dawn in New Mexico. I want to go back.

the_chief: "...File sharers need to be locked up..."
-Ted Turner, 1982

There were "file sharers" in 1982? Where? On Compuserve @ 300 baud? My local BBS? Maybe via sneakernet on 5.25" floppies I guess. Now I feel old.

No one says it better than Al.

Don't Download This Song

FWIW, any young 'uns that want to check out R.E.M.'s early stuff should start with Eponymous. It's a "greatest hits" collection that provides a really good overview of their first 6 or so releases...it's the album that got me into R.E.M., and remains one of my absolute favorites.

I'm always amazed at the people who feel entitled to unlawfully distribute copies of music, movies and software, like going on to e-beast-of-burden or IRC and pulling the entire eighteenth season of Family Dad is the reason the net was born and anyone who tries to stop that is oppressing our free speech, man. The very rational argument that SOPA/PIPA are excessively oppressive bills that won't actually accomplish their stated purpose would be a lot easier to make if all of these people got the fark off my Internet.

Its kind of choosing the lesser of two evil to me. I preached to my kids about why downloading stuff was stealing. That someone else did all that work and they don't get payed.

I listened to this guy saying if something is too expensive, its going to get pirated. So whats "too" expensive? If you can get t for free now, then even charging a dime for it would be..."too" expensive. Maybe that guy should have what he does stolen for free from him..because I'm sure what he does isn't done for free.

However I looking at governments hating the internet. All those middle men, who make nothing, and all those lawyers are seeing dollar signs. They might go in after a few pirates but it would just grow and be taken over. At least that's enough of a risk to me.

Movement sneak through the back door and take over. What they say they are against is not the whole picture here. e get something for free and the wealthy just are not wealthy enough and want to work in a way to charge us for that too.

We got con men on either side of this. Too me the internet is more good than bad as it is. Go after the pirates with the laws that already exist. Dont give some "smaller government" republican a reason to social engineer their values down every bodies throat...and keep those bastard middle men big business types out of it. Dnt let them near it...or we might be paying for downloads or monthly charges to get onto fark some day.

Olympus Mons: I listened to this guy saying if something is too expensive, its going to get pirated. So whats "too" expensive? If you can get t for free now, then even charging a dime for it would be..."too" expensive. Maybe that guy should have what he does stolen for free from him..because I'm sure what he does isn't done for free..

Steam and iTunes as platforms flat-out prove that every person who thinks a dime is two much, a dozen people will buy shiat they never would have considered for a couple bucks.

snowybunting: IQof20: the_chief: "...File sharers need to be locked up..."
-Ted Turner, 1982

There were "file sharers" in 1982? Where? On Compuserve @ 300 baud? My local BBS? Maybe via sneakernet on 5.25" floppies I guess. Now I feel old.

[www.cosmicbuddha.com image 440x275]

The point being that "file sharing" wasn't really the term at the time so I'm dubious of the quote's timeline. ;)

sniderman: No one says it better than Al.

Don't Download This Song

This is what I was hoping to see here...

Don't take away money
From artists just like me
How else can I afford another solid gold Humvee
And diamond studded swimming pools
These things don't grow on trees
So all I ask is everybody Pleaseeeeee

Perfect.