Accumulative Effect

I actually only discovered this extremely recently, so good timing for me because I don't have to wait. But lol, you have to check this out. A must see for all Buffy, Angel and Firefly flans.

http://drhorrible.com/act_III.html

For those who have never heard of this, I got this explanation from Wikipedia:

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 40-minute, 3-part musical comedy produced for the Internet, telling the story of a low-rent supervillain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he's too shy to talk to. The movie was written by Joss Whedon and his brothers Zack Whedon (a television writer), Jed Whedon (a composer) and Jed's fiancée, Maurissa Tancharoen (an actress). The writing team penned the musical during the WGA Writer's Strike. The idea was to create something small and inexpensive, yet professionally done, in a way that would circumvent the issues that were being protested during the strike.

Articles like this really piss me off!
Media Companies (records ones in particular) make up a major part of the wealthiest companies in the world.

They are also the first ones to cry foul when something goes "wrong".

If they would stop releasing shit music, perhaps people would buy the albums. Also notice, that they do not count LEGALLY downloaded tunes in the figure. Sure album sales may have dropped howevermuch%, but how many magnitudes of 10 did legal music downloads go up? The media companies get a slice of these! As media becomes more diversified in nature, people have to shift the focus of their disposable income. How many people bought DVDs in 1996?

I believe in free-market. If the market likes your product - they will buy it. It's really that simple. Most people understand that the advantages of purcahsing media speak for themselves. No mess! No fuss!

If I like something, I will consume it. And, pay for it. But, like most people, I only have so many dollars to go around and once it's gone - it's gone. No matter how much the media companies complain, it will not make me spend anymore money. It's (for most people) a finite resource.

So, before people start accusing the 'net for the drop in album sales, perhaps they should check reality first!

I often complain about Apple products. The recent launch of the iPhone 3G is merely just another example of this. Not only is the Apple Reality Distortion Field at full strength again, and now apparently the field has grown so strong that Apple doesn't even have to advertise with it's own cash anymore!

Is this honest to god "frontpage news"? Or have they considered making Apple pay for its own advertising, rather than letting it replace actual news content?

Update: Firstly I'd like to point out that I do understand the irony of posting this, since I am effectively providing free advertising to Apple as well. Secondly, I think the iPhone is just another phone; however I do think that the web browsing on it is second to none.

Update II: Thanks to Ben for pointing out this sweet clip from YouTube:

In the ongoing copyright litigation between Google and Viacom, a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered Google (PDF) to hand over data on every YouTube user, including username, the associated IP address, and a list of all the the videos that user ever watched.

In this lawsuit, Viacom is seeking more than $1 billion in damages because of alleged copyright violations on YouTube.

(Source: ReadWriteWeb, Frederic Lardinois, July 3, 2008 9:53 AM)

This is truly shocking. England's Statute of Anne (1710) is widely regarded as the first copyright law. The statute's full title was "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned." This statute first accorded exclusive rights to authors (i.e., creators) rather than publishers, and it included protections for consumers of printed work ensuring that publishers could not control their use after sale. It also limited the duration of such exclusive rights to 28 years.

You see, the point is that copyright laws have been bastardized and twisted so much, that instead of protecting the creators of works, they exist (almost solely) to protect the investment of publishers. In fact in many developed nations in the world (most notably the UK and US) lobby groups are pressuring the governments to increase the current cap on copyright from 50 - to 100+ years!

I think that while it's important for companies to protect their Intellectual Property, copyright is becoming more and more difficult to define; and more importantly, in an age where the barrier to produce new and creative works is so low - the original needs of "copyright" to protect creators is almost needless.

Like many things, I turn to the internet.  It gives me great comfort to know that people can protect and define copyright themselves with a simple little license.txt file outlining the wishes of the author., and I think we have the Open Source community to thank for this.  Creative Commons, under which nearly every blog operates, is an example of this.

But, as far as Viacom lawsuit is concerned - when any company violates the privacy and rights of users, it really pisses me off. What will be next? Google for indexing CNN.com? No I don't think so, and I think we all know why!

If you have a Media Center PC, and you use Skype, then you really need to see this!