Pjerky's Place » Music and Movies

Anti-Smoking Campaigning Going To A New Level Of Absurdity

pjerky — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:06:13 +0000

I will be the first one to tell you how much I appreciate the anti-smoking laws being a non-smoker. Though the arguments against them are just as pertinent as those for them, especially when talking about our rights. However, now anti-smoking groups are trying to force movie studios to give an automatic R rating for any movie that includes smoking. They say that watching smoking in movies encourages children to smoke and so they want to expose fewer children to it. While that may be true about children and teens being more likely to smoke after seeing their favorite movie stars do it, shouldn’t the responsibility be put on the parents not everyone else?

Our society has more and more become a nanny society with everyone but parents being blamed for the actions, morals, and attitudes of our children. Parents demand that schools teach their children about sex because they are afraid to, but then turn around and complain about how and what they are taught in sex education. Parents blame violent video games and movies and music for teenagers committing more acts of violence.

For once can our society get to the root of the problem, bad parenting? Stop blaming everyone else for not paying enough attention to your children and taking the time to educate them about right and wrong. To teach them about smoking and drinking and sex. To explain to them the cautions they should take, including moderation. Instead of attacking everyone in sight, how about we send a better message. The message about being a better parent and taking responsibility for your mistakes as a parent.

When did parenting in America become litigating and lawmaking? Grow up and place the blame where it belongs, on poor parenting.

Major Broadband Providers Determined to Squeeze More Money Out Of Their Customers

pjerky — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:24:54 +0000

This has been a busy week for broadband providers. First Time Warner announces that they will be rolling out tiered internet access to markets in Texas and New York. Tiers which give extremely low consumption caps (5, 10, 20, and 40GB plans). Then AT&T has decided to completely ignore any concept of Net Neutrality on their wireless data plans. They have done this by blocking Peer To Peer file sharing, blocking competitive online video and audio services, and by charging users excessively for going over their (relatively small) data limits on their plans. Then in Congress, several legislators have spoken out saying they won’t support and/or push Net Neutrality bills. Cable executives must be dancing in the streets right now over that one.

This, in part, may be related to news from cable executives that say that market saturation is the real cause of recent slowdowns in subscriber growth and not the worldwide economic woes nor increased competition from telephone companies. If this is true then they should instead focus on opening markets for free-for-all style competition instead of lobbying to limit the number of cable operators that can serve an area (often forming local monopolies). They should also increase their competitiveness by offering new and creative services, especially those related to music and movies (accessible over their networks and not blocking competition). There are a finite number of consumers on this planet. Eventually you have to reach critical mass where it is simply not possible to have any more subscribers than you already have. Before that happens they should diversify their offerings and find new revenue sources (excluding using ridiculous service limitations to create overage charges for internet usage).

It is unreasonable for any business, or economy for that matter, to expect perpetual growth. There is a finite number of resources on this planet. Resources used to create products and provide necessities for consumers to survive and even thrive. This, of course, limits the number of humans this planet can support and thus the number of customers a business can have. This drive for perpetual economic growth on all scales is part of what is causing this global economic meltdown. The unreasonable expectation that money will continue to grow without end. Instead an expectation of maintaining a stable level of income seems to be a lot more practical for everyone. That or create interstellar space travel to find new life and new civilizations to turn into customers.

Betraying Your Customers Trust And Privacy Is No Way To Run A Business

pjerky — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:48:06 +0000

It seems that every day we are hearing about more and more situations where businesses prove to be not only unreliable, but untrustworthy as well. Recently the RIAA has started a 3-strikes project. They would have ISPs ban users from connecting to the internet after they have been accused of piracy three times. The plan requires only accusation, not proof, to disconnect users. It is essentially about criminalizing the customer to try to grab more money.

The RIAA has been paranoid about online piracy for the better part of a decade. During which they have schemed and sued, lobbied Congress, created advertising campaigns full of falicies, and spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). They persistantly ignore the fact that the advent of the original Napster saw unprecedented climbs in music sales after years of declining sales. Instead accusing Napster of stealing their money, while blindly ignoring the enormous value that music piracy involved. The more actions they take, the more the walls close in around them. While the internet and its many content pirates are not actually stealing sales away from musicians what it is doing is providing a new (and cheaper) way for artists to expose themselves to vast audiences around the world. This exposure and the new distribution methods it provides makes the RIAA, the middlemen, obsolete. Big record labels are now just an evil of the past that is in its terrible death-throes.

The new 3-strikes project from the RIAA is one of those last-ditch efforts to save themselves. They refuse to adapt and so now they expect others to hold up their business model. For that they look to politicians and ISPs. This is not surprising considering their track record. What is surprising is that the ISPs, whom have all the real leverage here, are working with the RIAA to help them with their project. The ISPs are not required by law, their only real motivation are the empty legal threats that the RIAA has been making. However despite not being required we are still seeing stories of multiple ISPs that are working with the RIAA to implement this program. This includes AT&T, Comcast, and Cox.

What I don’t get though is why? Why would these companies give into these demands? What are they getting out of it aside from a bunch of angry customers? These are all good questions. And while we continue to mull them over there is some good news on this front. For some time now Verizon has out and out refused to have anything to do with this and other related projects from the RIAA or the MPAA. Not only that, but now an Australian ISP is standing up and fighting for its customers. I see this as a good sign that there is a major pushback happening even on the corporate level. Though it does bring up fears that the record labels will just go crying to some politicians and make the cooperation legally required.

I would encourage everyone to contact their ISP and tell them that they will not agree to this. Tell them to just say no to greedy, self-serving record labels. Contact your local political representatives and protest these actions. Get your voice heard.