Copyright

I've been following the #spectrial in Sweden where the datanörds from The Pirate Bay are up on charges of copyright infringement. Strike that, just making available the ability to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to infringe copyright, or maybe just pissing in someone’s ear too many times. I am strangely fascinated by this case and I can’t figure out why. I don’t download every song I listen to or every movie I watch via torrents. These guys live in Sweden so it’s not like they’re my friends. However, I do download music and I think that’s what has caught my attention.

There seem to be some big and complex questions here: Should copyright laws even exist, is file “sharing” the equivalent of stealing, should the internets be “free”? I think it boils down to something much simpler. Bjorn Ulvaeus, better know as “that guy from ABBA,” wrote “It is easier and cheaper to steal than to download legally” in a whiney tirade against filesharers et. al. I leave aside some rich bastard complaining that people are not paying him to listen to “Dancing Queen” that he released 30 years ago. He has hit the nail on the head: definitely cheaper but also EASIER, Bjorn!

Several years ago, back before I even had an MP3 player, I had just few hundred CDs and a couple hundred DVDs, and my wife wanted a copy of a CD by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I know, your first reaction was, “Who?” He’s the guy that does the ukulele backed covers of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” mixed into “What a Wonderful World”. Yeah, the one they played over the montage at the end of ER when that one tall guy left the show. Try to buy a copy of that at your local Wal-Mart. Notice I said Wal-mart because your local record store is GONE. People want easy and cheap. They want to pick up a copy of Black Ice, bag of chips and a twelve pack, all at once, in the same store, for cheap.

Being somewhat technically savvy, I figured I’d just download a copy of IZ’s album and burn it for her. Since I already had Windows Media Player on my computer and a Microsoft Live account, I tried MSN Music. Everyone who knows what that is just yelled: “FUCTARD!” When that buggy, Digital Rights Management ridden service went belly up, I damn near lost $100 worth of downloaded music. Luckily, it was so nearly impossible to download and listen to any music from MSN that I immediately burned everything I got from them to CD minus any form of DRM. I tried several other services but they all require registration, software downloads, licensing, blah, blah, blah. If anyone who owns a copyright is listening, I don’t want to screw around with my computer, I want to listen to music. I want to listen in my car on a CD, streamed from my PC to my kids’ Playstation3 and blasted on the home theater, on my MP3 player at the top of a mountain or while I dig holes in my yard. Your music delivery system makes it harder if not downright impossible to do that. Amazon MP3 delivers DRM free music as cheaply as it gets (legally) but you still have to download and run their downloader to get an entire album and it still costs 99 cents a song. Because the music industry is so afraid that you will copy something if it doesn't have DRM (too late - rolls eyes), their selection is extremely limited.

Meanwhile, the torrent crowd has figured out how to deliver a complete album, DRM free, already tagged and stored in an appropriately named folder - for no charge. Set up properly, it will be on your MP3 player the next time you plug it in. Listen up, Bjorn, and all the rest of you industry types: people do not pay extra money to buy a quirky, hard to use product. Hell, most of the time they don’t pay extra money for easy to use products with all the features. It better be on a price drop at Wal-Mart.

You are not competing with free but you are competing with easier and cheaper. It takes a lot of time and effort to buy a computer, install software and figure out how to get music without paying for it. It is much easier and cheaper to buy a CD at Wal-Mart and shove it in the CD player in your car. Unfortunately, much of your younger demographic has access to Daddy’s computer. They don’t have access to his car or his money. Once they are set up to download all their entertainment for free, why the hell would they blow their date money on CDs? The problem is you are competing with EASIER and CHEAPER. If you don’t figure out how to deliver content to the masses in a very simple way, for way less than a dollar a song you are going to go the way of the horse drawn buggy. You’ll still be around but only as a quaint anachronism, like vinyl records or Betamax tapes.

The Election

Like most of the material on this blog, I got this idea while trying to determine What's a Delmer Look Like. Plus it has pictures. But no flirting, I'm married.

There is a polling location right a across the street from my house. It is the township hall for my unincorporated township. It's what passes for government when you live in the boondocks. I can walk there in 2 minutes but it's not where I vote because I am in a different precinct. The dividing line is the road between the Icy Estate and the Township Hall. I vote at a church that is 1.5 miles from my house and located in the same precinct. So the basic units of government go like this: Precinct -> Township -> Village or City (if applicable) -> County -> State -> USA. Any questions? Good, because that's not what I want to talk about.

The polling location (right across the street from my house) isn't really near any of the voters in the precinct so almost everyone must drive to get there. Usually, this isn't a problem because nobody goes to the township hall unless they need a permit to build a deck or they are retired and have nothing else to do but go to the monthly Township Trustees meeting. On voting day, however, the parking lot overflows into the grass, up the driveway and out onto the main road. It continues from 6 AM when the polls open until about 6:30 PM, about an hour before the polls close. This creates quite a traffic jam, but only every 4 years when we elect a President because otherwise all the voters fit in the parking lot quite nicely. The way the people act, you would think that every single one of them has a burning desire to vote that absolutely will not be denied. We always wonder where they all are when we're voting for the school levy in May.

But that's still not what I want to talk about. Four years ago, when we elected George W. to his second term, we had more excitement than usual. Being a township hall, located in the boonies, it doesn't have a brightly lit entrance with big imposing signs. It's right across the street, remember, I would have to mount a protest against light pollution. Here's a picture:



That's the entrance up on the left after the telephone pole. Not exactly well marked but there is a sign set back off the road with subtle lighting and the mailbox has reflective numbers on it. A half hour before the polls close, about 7PM, it is beginning to get dark since we have just set our clocks back one hour to save daylight. It was a nice day so Mrs. Icy and I were sitting on the front stoop and basking in our freedom to vote and then sit on a stoop. Gradually, in complete counterpoint to most of the traffic that day, a large sedan drove east, signalled a left turn and promptly turned left into the creekbed that you see on the left of the picture. The brake lights flared briefly and then the emergency flashers started. He must have called for help on a mobile phone because the ambulance beat us to the scene and the paramedics helped the guy out of his car. His family showed up a few minutes later and drove him home.

Unfortunately for him, by the time he regained his wits, the polls were closed and he could not cast his ballot. If he had, then Al Gore would have won Ohio and subsequently the Presidency. World history would have been completely different. Sorry, Delmer.

Just Plain Reason

God, this blog is awful. Can someone make him write some more entertaining stuff? Or can someone make him start writing something entertaining?

Your Careful Example

I was over at Non-Working Monkey's blog (see blogroll on right) reading the archives and was reminded of this story. I can only be non-working in a spiritual sense. But, oh, how I long to be literally non-working.

Years ago, at another company of course, I was being groomed to be a Manager. As such, I was requested (read required) to attend the annual strategic planning session for my company. A number of other up-and-coming types had also been summoned as we would also have training on how to go about strategic planning. One of the exercises was to put in chronological order a list of twenty project management steps. These were basic steps required to see any project to a successful completion. First, each person filled in the paper and turned it in for analysis. Next, teams were assembled and the paper filled out by teams. These papers were then turned in for analysis. In the analysis, we found that all of the teams (except one) out-performed the average of all the individuals by a wide margin. A number of people also learned the twenty basic steps for project management.

The moral of the story: When we work together as a team, we will usually do far better than working individually. I was one of three people in the company that completed the list perfectly and thus out-performed all of the teams. I think I learned a different lesson than what they were trying to teach.

There is no "I" in Team. But there is most certainly a "ME".

My Spare Time

Sorry for the hiatus (that's posh-speak for taking a vacation from your vacation). I had to return to work and that has taken up a significant amount of the time previously spent fucking off. I had the final visit with my primary physician on the 8th. The bloodwork (iron study) is back and my hemocrit levels are back in the normal range. My hemoglobin is still just below normal but is higher than the last reading. I haven't smoked since September 2nd. Combined with the increased iron levels I am finding that I can walk up 6 flights of stairs without getting winded. I worked 4 days last week and I'm back full time this week. I'm still on restrictions and I'm not supposed to engage in vigorous activities or lift more than a gallon of milk in each hand until my next visit to the surgeon at the end of December.

My oldest son, Hilltopper, acquired his driver's license on October 4th. He also acquired a cell phone on October 6th so his mother can keep track of him. I have lost a son but gained a gopher. He can go for milk. He can go for Chinese food. He can go for an oil change. We no longer have to drive him to church 2 times a week.

The rest of my spare time is being usurped by studying for a comprehensive exam in a Christian Growth and Christian Ministry class at my church. I went to a 3 hour class every week for the past year and I now have about 50 pages of material and over 80 bible verses that I need to know backwards and forwards. This is not leaving much room in my overtaxed brain for much of anything else!

My Convalescence

Had an appointment with the yes-answer-question-asking-surgeon yesterday. He is very happy with his work and released me to go back to work at my discretion. Booooo.

The Mystery

I got nothin'.
Lady Penelope keeps bugging me to post a picture. So, here's Icy Mountain. This picture was taken after the Indianapolis 500 (i.e. the Greatest Spectacle in Racing for the uninitiated).

If this guy looks like the cat that swallowed the canary, that is because it is so.