SUCK IT, RIAA!

In a decision sure to please music and file sharing fans everywhere (and give Lars Ulrich a rash), the judge in the Jammie Thomas vs. the Recording Industry Assholes of America (RIAA-holes) tossed out the verdict that sentenced her to pay $222,000 for having mp3 music files on her computer uploaded through the infamous KaZaA software.

A federal judge dealt the Recording Industry Association of America and record labels a setback Wednesday by throwing out a $222,000 verdict against a mom who was convicted of illegally sharing music over the Internet.

U.S. District of Minnesota Chief Judge Michael Davis ordered a new trial for Jammie Thomas, saying the jury's punishment was "unprecedented and oppressive." Davis said that the term "distribution" does not apply to simply making music available. It requires actual dissemination, he said.

A jury convicted her of putting 24 songs on Kazaa's file-sharing network and ordered her to pay $9,250 per song.

24 songs at $9,250 per, which is "more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs"? This was a ridiculous case with an even more ridiculous verdict, and the overturned verdict is a crushing blow to the RIAA and its slimy lawyers, who no doubt wished to make an example of the Minnesota mother.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of backwards-thinking, price-fixing, copyright-changing, money-grubbing assholes, who incidentally won the coveted Open Hockey Blog 2007 Dicktards Of The Year Award.

The website RIAA Radar is fantastic, and allows you to search for music acts and songs that are NOT affiliated with the RIAA, so you can purchase with a clear conscience knowing that your money is not lining their greedy pockets.

As a basic rule of thumb, most independent labels (Sub Pop, Merge) and indie rock bands are usually not part of the RIAA, whereas the big labels are (Sony, Geffen). Hence, the early albums by the Black Keys are not RIAA-affiliated ("Rubber Factory") where the newer ones are ("Magic Potion"). The site also has great charts (including an Indie Top 100 list) and is directly linked to the AMAZON.com store for purchasing discs and mp3s. Sure, most major artists are RIAA members, but you can find some decent new bands on here. I think I'll be buying that Robyn Hitchcock collection and Fleet Foxes EP I've been meaning to add to my mp3 collection. I already picked up Black Mountain's "In The Future".

SUCK IT, RIAA!

RANDOM YOUTUBERY: WE'RE ALL DOOMED

Today's the last day of April. To celebrate this non-event, I'm posting the most watched video on Youtube for the month.

10,558,655 people watched Centrium-Silver-consumer-Madonna dance with her could-be son, Justin Timberlake over the past month...That's probably more people than watched playoff hockey.

I didn't like Madonna in the 80s. I didn't like her in the 90s and I hoped that moving to England and popping out Guy Ritchie's spawn would mean that I would have to avoid her in the latter part of the this decade. Meh.

I didn't watch this, but I'm sure it's terrible

GUITAR ZEROS: THE MUSICAL PARODIES OF SANTERI OJALA

These videos crack me up. It's a simple premise: Finnish guitarist Santeri Ojala has taken live performance videos of famous guitarists (Clapton, Santana, Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Malmsteen) and overdubbed his own intentionally awful playing. The results are hilarious, and expertly synched up as well.

However, some of the targets of the parodies aren't laughing at these as hard as I am: three of the humorless guitarists have allegedly threatened to sue, and his account on YouTube was suspended due to "copyright infringement" (god I'm so fucking sick of lawyers). Vai and Malmsteen are thought to be the likely whiners.

Anyway, since Wired has decided to host the videos, I've decided to post two of my favorites. I couldn't choose just one, so let's start with Eric Clapton at MSG:

Shredded to a Pulp: Eric Clapton (opens in a new window)

Even the overdubbed drums and sax on that one are perfect. However this is the piece de resistance, as Ojala dubs pretty much every instrument (and voice) during an Yngwie Malmsteen performance with the Japan Philharmonic in 2003:



The "Close Encounters" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" interludes had me rolling.

Also check out the Rob E. Lee/Ozzy Osbourne (whose overdubbed clapping is priceless) and Carlos Santana clips from the Wired Video site.

WEEKLY TOP 10: BECAUSE KRIS HATES TOP 10 LISTS

10. I put a mirror in my living room so I can quickly poke my head out of the kitchen while I'm cooking to see what's on TV. This was a genius move, and I don't know why it took me 6 years of living in my apartment to figure this out.

9. Kris put up a fuckatively funny post the other day which made me think about, among other things, the Rotten Tomatoes "Tomatometer" ratings. Regardless of the fact that he didn't like "Knocked Up", I think we should use the percentages to pay the actors for their work. For example, if someone signs a $1 million contract to star in a flick, a 87% rating would net them 87% of that amount ($870,000), while a 3% rating would earn them only $30,000. That's still decent pay day, and they could also get a percentage of the box office receipts if they so choose, but it would make actors think twice before agreeing to make a piece of shit movie.

8. There's officially no difference in value between the US dollar and the Canadian loonie, as US$1.00000 now equals C$1.00507. I guess the Quebecois strippers won't be getting my money after all--they're probably all Russians anyway.

7. It's Halloween candy buying time, and it's already an undisputed fact that Brach's makes the best candy corn; it's not open for debate. But I discovered that they also make a fantastic "caramel candy corn", which I give 9 thumbs up.

6. I'm not sure why I didn't look into this before: Planet Fitness only charges $10 a month (after a $59 initiation fee, at the newly opened Nanuet location). Wow, I was paying $57 at my previous gym before I quit. Plus, they're open 24 hours on the weekdays, so I can run on the treadmill at 2 AM! Finally! Okay, maybe not. I'll still hate the gym, but the lower price will make it much less painful.

5. Here's a fantastic golf story. Bruce Crampton, who had a reputation as being a bit ornery, was partnered at a pro-am with a woman. At the beginning of the round she told him that a friend bet her $10 that he wouldn't say 5 words to her all day. His response was: "Sorry lady, you lose". He didn't speak to her again. A perfect demonstration of douchebaggery if I've ever heard one.

4. The season premiere of HEROES featured one of the more egregious product placements that I've ever seen. When dropping off Claire at her new cliche-ridden high school (the head cheerleader is so mean to newbies!), the camera sweeps across the front bumper of the family car in such a way that not only can we tell it's a NISSAN their driving, but it fills my entire widescreen HDTV and obscures the actors. Then he hands her the keys and she excitedly shrieks, "The Rogue?!?" Uhm, the what? Why, it's the new NISSAN Rogue crossover vehicle, which 3 identical commercials in a row informed us several minutes later. The trade-off for less ads is more NISSAN logos shoved in your face during the show? Pretty disgusting.

3. I read this with alarm: ad blocking plug-ins like AdBlock might be illegal. Fuck you, internet advertisers, I'll block ads in Firefox if I want to. The only thing that incessant web ads do is make me NOT want to buy your product (or tune into your show, like NBC's Chuck). You know what I hate? Those irritating Lowermybills.com ads with some dancing thing on it telling me I can easily put my house into foreclosure RIGHT FROM MY COMPUTER! Ugh.

2. Tiger Woods will be playing this weekend in the "USA vs. The Others" Presidents Cup. I guess I'll tune in, but I'm honestly worn out after the "playoffs". So since that's over, is this like the PGA equivalent of the Pro Bowl?

1. AMAZON has finally announced its online digital music download service called, well, AMAZONmp3. There are several things that make it better than iTunes: the tracks are DRM-free to use on any player, nice sounding 256kbps mp3s, the tracks are always cheaper (ranging from $0.49-$0.99), and you get a discount for buying the entire album at once. It's just been released into public beta and several record companies haven't signed on, but the selection is growing every day. Very promising, and a welcome alternative to the iAppleTunes.

INTERNET RADIO: NATIONAL DAY OF SILENCE

Many internet radio stations have declared today a "National Day of Silence". Several stations are not broadcasting today (my favorite, WOXY.com, being one) to protest the impending bill that will substantially increase music royalties (a 300 - 1200% increase!) and could subsequently put many small stations out of business on July 15, 2007.

If you enjoy music like I do, it's about time you clicked on SaveNetRadio.org and did something about it! I've already contacted my senators (Chuck & Hillary!) about it and hope something can be done to amend this bill. The first stations to fold will likely be "personalized" ones like Pandora and Finetune (although probably not Last.fm, who was just bought by CBS). The music industry is so backwards, they don't realize that these stations actually HELP stimulate music sales (I know I've found some great new stuff just from listening to net radio). In trying to create more revenue for musicians, instead this could have the unintended effect of driving music listeners to turn to illegal ways of obtaining music. Good work, idiots!

Here's a good article from a legal website (hey, not all lawyers are useless!) that agrees that this is a horrible idea:

A Look at Radio Silence: When Copyright Law Reform Goes Terribly Wrong

SAVE NET RADIO!

(Otherwise, I might have to listen to my coworkers all day instead. *shiver*)