Sunday, May 30, 2010

Woman sentenced for illegal lending of books

Onionville, MN - A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old single mother guilty of illegally loaning books to friends and family members without paying royalties and fined her $1.9 million. The criminal, Jammie Thisis-Redunkulous, is also suspected of clipping magazine articles and cartoons and illegally distributing them to the same posse.

RIAA (Reading Industrialist Association of America) has brought more than 35,000 lawsuits against alleged illegal book lenders. "We feel this fine is completely reasonable and in line with the severity of the crime" RIAA spokesperson Carol McDuck said. She cited Minnesota statute 609.205 which sets the maximum penalty for intoxicated vehicular manslaughter at no more than $20,000. "If community standards allow for a $20,000 fine for such a comparatively minor infraction, surely one would expect at least $2 million for such vile, unauthorized 'lending'!"

The RIAA now plans to go after people who browse in bookstores and don't buy any books. McDuck said she believes the problem has reached epidemic proportions. "People are blatantly stealing words from books in bookstores all over the country. The authors don't get paid a penny for these thefts," McDuck claims.

Reports have recently surfaced that the defendant may have a long history of skirting the law. A photo found on Facebook allegedly shows her posing next to the Mona Lisa while on vacation in Paris, smiling smugly and defiantly. A spokesman for the estate of Leonardo DeVinchi claims no records can be found of the defendant having paid for the legal rights to use image.

McDuck went on to say that illegal lending could bring the publishing industry down in the same way cassette tapes destroyed the music industry. "We must be vigilant!"

Note: this is a parody of the equally ridiculous prosecution of Jammie Thomas-Rasset's for illegally downloading music.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Downloading is not a crime - it's good for business!


Turns out the brilliant Chicago musician Saul Williams is also quite a businessman as well. He gave away his best album and was rewarded handsomely. He released The Inevitbale Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust online with two payment options. One could download it for absolutely free, or one could pay $5 for a high fidelity version that also included a .pdf file of original art and some other goodies - but the same exact songs. Over 200,000 downloaded it for free and only 60,000 paid for it, so he lost out on a lot of revenue - right? Well, actually he had never sold more than 30,000 copies of any of his previous releases, and his live shows started frequently selling out. And, most importantly, he reached thousands of new ears who had never heard him before - and likely would not have otherwise. He says he has also had the added under-the-table revenue of a bunch of kids at his shows who give him $5 bills saying they didn't have a credit card, so they couldn't pay to download it online. When is the record industry going to realize that downloading isn't a threat? In fact, they might still be saved if they rise from their death bed and use their remaining energy and resources to fight for downloading instead of against it! Why are so many artists able to figure out how to make money through free and cheap downloading, while the buggy-whip selling industry execs can only waste their time siccing their lawyers on people they should be courting as customers? And BTW, if you haven't heard the album - you really need to download it, buy it, steal it, rip it or do whatever you have to do - it's a masterpiece!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Best songs of the decade


Here are my picks for the best songs of the decade.
Note: I limited myself to only one song per artist.

1. Dead leaves and the dirty ground - The White Stripes
2. The District sleeps alone tonight - The Postal Service
3. Jesus, etc - Wilco
4. Fill me with your light - Clem Snide
5. Black like me - Spoon
6. Can you feel it? - The Apples in Stereo
7. Caring is creepy - The Shins
8. Chemicals collide - Cloud Cult
9. 2 + 2 = 5 - Radiohead
10. The chills - Peter Bjorn & John
11. A sentence of sorts in Kongsvinger - Of Montreal
12. Broken boy soldier - Raconteurs
13. Kids - MGMT
14. Soldier's grin - Wolf Parade
15. I was a lover - TV On The Radio
16. Chips Ahoy - The Hold Steady
17. Float on - Modest Mouse
18. It's gonna be a long night - Ween
19. Ragged wood - The Fleet Foxes
20. The man who loved beer - David Byrne
21. I like giants - Kimya Dawson
22. Our love will change the world - Outrageous Cherry
23. Sly - The Cat Empire
24. New English - Ambulance LTD
25. Untrust us - Crystal Castles
26. Is this love? - Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah
27. The ark - Dr Dog
28. Dig! Lazurus, dig! - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
29. Inner peace- Nellie McKay
30. The Golden Age - Beck
31. The Iliad - Tapes 'n Tapes
32. Bohemian like me - The Dandy Warhols
33. Crazy - Gnarls Barkely
34. Crescendolls - Daft Punk
35. Ten years ahead - Soundtrack of our Lives
36. Are you gonna be my girl? - Jet
37. I'll bet you look good on the dance floor - Arctic Monkeys
38. Skinny love - Bon Iver
39. My Girls - Animal Collective
40. The greatest - Cat Power
41. Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
42. Mirrorball - Elbow
43. Another lost summer - Blanche
44. Panic open string - Calexico
45. Wild Mountain Nation - Blitzen Trapper
46. The Modern Age - The Strokes
47. Art is hard - Cursive
48. Photobooth - Death Cab for Cutie
49. 99 - Black Bottom Collective
50. Hey man (now you're really living) - Eels
51. Elevate myself - Grandaddy
52. Two weeks - Grizzly Bear
53. The yeah yeah song - Flaming Lips
54. Formed a band - Art Brut
55. Up the bracket - The Libertines
56. Extraordinary machine - Fiona Apple
57. Spit it out - Brendan Benson
58. Worlds apart - ...And you will know us by the trail of dead
59. Imitosis - Andrew Bird
60. Now, now - St Vincent
61. I changed my mind - Lyrics Born
62. Get it while you can - The Dirtbombs
63. We are rock stars - Does It Offend You, Yeah?
64. Cherry blossom girl -Air
65. Never stops - Deerhunter
66. The light - Common
67. My heart is breaking down - Caesars
68. Karen - The National
69. Jenny & the ess-dog - Stephen Malkmus
70. Get in or get out - Hot Hot Heat
71. Highly evolved - The Vines
72. Smokers outside the hospital doors - The Editors
73. Hate to say I told you so - The Hives
74. Our life is not a movie or maybe - Okkervil River
75. Gold digger - Supreme Beings of Leisure
76. The shinning- Badly Drawn Boy
77. Notice of Eviction - Saul Williams
78. My superman - Santogold
79. Sweet talk - Spiritualized
80. Where's your head at? - Basement Jaxx
81. Sidewalk serfer girl - Super Furry Animals
82. No one knows - Queens of the Stone Age
83. Life is long - David Byrne & Brian Eno
84. Blind - Hercules and Love Affair
85. Sunrise - Yeasayer
86. Cobrastyle - Robyn
87. Brothers & sisters - Blur
88. Maps - Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs
89. Careful - Hot Chip
90. Soldier girl - The Polyphonic Spree
91. Out of my system - Jamie Lidell
92. We're from Barcelona - I'm from Barcelona
93. Gay Bar - Electric Six
94. Idle ties - Vetiver
95. To go home - M. Ward
96. Crack the skye - Mastodon
97. Ghosts under rocks - Ra Ra Riot
98. Amen - Jolie Holland
99. Doorman - Stereophonics
100. Geraldine - Glasvegas