Subject URL: RIAA is watching me

I jumped on Napster last night and downloaded CD rips of Powderfinger's first EP to replace my hiss filled taped copy. I don't care if the RIAA saw me do it (see link above). I don't care if they knock on my door and demand I pay for downloading those tracks because there was absolutely no other way to get good quality versions of these tracks. If I could have paid 99c per track to download them by-gum I would have.

There are a lot of sites out there with archives of famous bands music. I've discovered one for Smashing Pumpkins and one for Tori Amos to name a couple. The one thing you'll notice is that they only 'stock' MP3s of tracks YOU CAN NO LONGER OR NEVER COULD BUY.

It's so supidly simple it makes me want to make a building sized banner and tell the world.

Subject URL: More Napster crap

A Webnoize survey tells us that Napster use has dropped by 25%. Fair enough.

But the reply from Napster? "But Napster Inc. says there has been no decline in users, even as the service has blocked more than 225,000 songs, accounting for about half the files available for sharing."

Yes.... that's because you don't delete your users. My test user I never used when I was first trying to get onto Napster at the start of last year is still there.

I am so sick of Marketing lies and bullshit. It's so frustrating knowing that we will never have a bunch of sensible people sit down and properly discuss this issue. It will be decided by two sides lying and lying to a court / country that just doesn't understand.

Subject URL: DVD Region Coding Illegal

The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has warned DVD Region coding could be an "anti-competitive agreement breaching not only Australian law but laws in other countries".

(yes, I know I've mentioned this before)

The only reason I see for DVD encoding is preventing movies coming out on DVD before they hit cinema. I believe most people (including myself) would prefer to see a film at the cinema before spending the money on a DVD I havn't seen... but I can see their point with that. Until the cost of world wide simultanious film release comes down with digital distribution/projection.

However, the studios are encoding old re-release films too and that doesn't make any sense. These products should be region 0 (world wide unrestricted).

The article also brings up another sore point...

"Another reason [for DVD encoding] was compliance with national censorship ratings. "The Australian release could have cuts of scenes with violence and sex," he said."

But we don't want cuts to our frigging DVDs you idiots. People purchasing a DVD are purchasing the damn thing for themselves, to watch at home, are most likely going to know the content and don't need your stupid censorship protection OK!

Moronic quote of the day :
"Consumers keen to watch imported movies could always buy a second DVD player for the appropriate zone."

The article explains that the ACCC's would prefer to see Australia a region 0 country.

If the ACCC does force Australia into a region 0 only situation there will be carnage. I can't see the studios accepting this for long and the small amount of US releases we do see in Australia will dry up completely and we Australian's may have to import all of our DVDs in shitty NTSC R1 quality.

The video/audio content distribution is in damage control and it's going to be very very very messy real soon.