Hola everyone!

It’s been awhile since I sat down and chatted with you all. But I have been tinkering away in the wizard’s lair trying to come up with a vaccine for all of these disgusting RIAA/MPAA employees, but to their luck they are some form of hybrid disease. So we have to stay vigilant in our quest to smite these foul creatures.

Enough with the wizard talk. Do you own an iPod, Zen, Zune or any device that you have to rip from a CD so you can play your purchased CD on that device? I know there are not that many people that own these crazy futuristic devices, but if you’re like me you like to stay ahead of the times. If your answer is “Yes”, then the RIAA thinks you are a thief. So I guess I should not come out and tell you about my laser disc copying cluster I have in the basement. Even if you make a copy of your purchased CD then they think you are stealing. So backing up your music is a definitely a no, no.

“After years of battling in court and close to 30,000 lawsuits, making a copy of a CD you bought for your own personal usage is still a concept that the recording industry is apparently uncomfortable with. During the Jammie Thomas trial this fall, the head of litigation from Sony BMG testified that she believed that ripping your own CDs is stealing.

When asked by the RIAA’s lead counsel whether it was wrong for consumers to make copies of CDs they have purchased, Jennifer Pariser replied in the negative. “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” said Pariser. Making “a copy” of a song you own is just “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’,” according to Pariser. ” Via ars technica

All of this leaves me to believe that once again the RIAA is scum. It makes sense to come after the end user, the small guy. It’s not like they are going after the companies that are making these things possible, like manufacturers of CDRW/DVDRW drives. The small guy does not have the type of money to fend these bloodsuckers off, but the large manufacturing companies do. That question has always been lying back in my head, why don’t we hear about any lawsuits anymore about the RIAA going after the source of what they call
“destruction of their media”. It started with CDR technology and the actual media. Why don’t they go after Microsoft, Apple, and many others for creating ripping tools built in to their software?

Maybe they have in the past, but I could not dig it up. But now all we hear is the RIAA attacking the little people. We can’t really use that excuse for Grokster, and Napster, but the majority of these attacks are against the end user, never against big business.

But once again the RIAA tries to take us all down a peg. But soon we will overcome!

If you have all been keeping up with the whole MediaDefender fallout you might have heard about this story. It seems like Interscope Records are using P2P networks as marketing tools. Some more outrageous emails have been uncovered from the MediaDefender debacle, but in an email transcribed from an Interscope Records exec to a MediaDefender employee asking if a new single of their artist was gaining traction on P2P networks. They quote saying:

“Nicole from pussy cat dolls has a single called “whatever u like”. It’s not selling well on itunes or playing that great on radio. A song called “Baby Love” just leaked (I don’t know how long ago). Interscope wants to know if Baby Love is picking up steam on p2p. They need to make a decision by early next week on whether they should switch to this song as the single. Please get me a score comparison on Monday for these two tracks. Also, please put beyonces, fergie, gwen, and nelly furtado singles as comparisons.”

We are fairly certain other record companies are doing this as well, they leak a song and they want to see how well it performs in an open market. So P2P users and networks are being used as a tool, providing record companies with valuable marketing information. It seems a little hypocritical if you ask us. So while innocent people are being sued by the RIAA, record companies are doing the same thing P2P users are doing and more. It sure tells you how much they love an artist when they leak tracks for them.  The war continues….

Cesar Menendez, the Zune Insider, has announced the price of a Zune is being cut to $199 starting tomorrow. He also says that customer satisfaction for the 30GB Zune device is at 94%. I have to admit I’m in that 94% - the Zune rocks. The software - not so much.

I wouldn’t read into this price drop too much. Cesar says “It?s part of the normal product lifecycle, something we?ve had on the books for months”.