This isn’t really recent news, but after reading an opinion article in the University of Washington’s newspaper, the Daily, I felt I needed to say something. Anyways, over the summer, the university agreed to pass along “pre-settlement” letters from the Recording Industry Association of America notifying students who have committed copyright infringement that they have the option to pay $3000 to $5000 (or more) to the RIAA. If the person doesn’t pay (or doesn’t get the letter), the RIAA will file a lawsuit for even more money.
As you can very well imagine, this produced varied reactions from students when they found out. With the UW being the liberal bastion any major public university is, the reactions were mainly negative. That’s because most students are too stupid to look any farther into the story. All they see is UW forwarding RIAA letters and they scream “Oh noes! Our college is cooperating with the evil RIAA to steal all our money!” Here’s the real story: the university agreed to forward the letters to students when there is reasonable evidence that a student has illegally downloaded copyrighted material. They’re actually doing students a favor. If UW refused to forward the letters (much like the University of Wisconsin did), students wouldn’t be aware of the chance to settle with the RIAA. They’d only find out when the RIAA presents them with a lawsuit for a lot of money with no chance to settle for less. Which is better: paying $3000 or paying $10,000 plus court fees?
Continue reading ‘UW hearts RIAA’
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DRM-free music and higher quality? Seriously, iTunes Plus is a no-brainer. There’s not a big selection, yet, but I highly recommend upgrading your current library if you can. At only 30 cents extra, it’s a steal (no pun intended).
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I don’t like downloading programs using other programs. Yeah, that made a lot of sense. Take the new Google Pack, a compilation of various Google and third-party applications that you can download using the nifty Google Updater. None of the apps are very big. The biggest is Norton AntiVirus 2005 SE, which is 24 megs. I could download that in about five minutes on my current Internet connection. But it’s taken Google almost all afternoon, and the little thingy says it’s got fifty-four minutes to go. Gar. I’d download it seperately, but I can’t figure out how. But this is all beside the point because I don’t like Norton and use avast! instead. It’s free.
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don’t break it
Love was made for me and you
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don’t break it
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
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Hmm, I can’t seem to use the rich text editing box. Probably a problem with Firefox, but I just can’t figure it out…oh well.
I’m off to PLU tomorrow for a glorious two-day adventure in playing music I’ve probably never seen before! And I’m still rusty on my audition materials! Big surprise there. Anyways, I’ll be gone all day Friday (we leave at 5:00 in the morning… *groan*) and most of Saturday, so if I don’t return your calls, don’t think I hate you. It’s just that my agent is an anti-social person. Kidding.
So who watched the Rose Bowl? Oh, I don’t care about the game. I just watched it for the USC band. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be doing. I’m serious. I’ve always wanted to dance like Michael Jackson in the middle of a football field. Really.
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Bad news for all you copyright infringers out there. WinMX has shut down its operations, according to a Slyck News article. No word yet on if this is permanent or not, but there are reports that FrontCode Technologies (the people behind WinMX) have renamed, relocated, and re-registered. They’re now called WinMX Technologies, and instead of operating out of Canada, they’ve moved operations to Vanuatu, most likely to avoid prosecution by Canada and its litigation-happy neighbor, the United States.
I suppose this means I’ll have to get my music from legitimate sources now…
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