"Gaming the system" is a huge pet peeve of mine, in case you haven't noticed.
"Gaming the system" is what led to John Kennedy O'Hara's unwarranted triple-prosecution, probation and disbarrment.
"Gaming the system" is what led to the eventual death of the Kung-Fu Judge, the Honorable Judge John Phillips, alone in an elevator.
"Gaming the system" is what led to John Giuca's arrest, when it was clear to Helen Keller, Ray Charles and to Stevie Wonder that Albert Cleary was a much better suspect.
I can go on and on with examples, but I believe I've adequately illustrated my point.
I wrote recently about SOPA and PIPA last week, and along with a number of websites, we were able to stop that load of fascistic garbage in its tracks.
The scumbags, however, didn't get to where they are by not having contigency plans in place; hence, ACTA.
From Wikipedia:
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.[1] It would establish an international legal framework for countries to join voluntarily,[2] and would create a governing body outside international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.[1][3] Negotiating countries have described it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works."[2] The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on theInternet.[4] Groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) oppose ACTA,[5] stating that civil society groups and developing countries were excluded from discussion during ACTA's development in an example of policy laundering.[6]
Opponents have argued that the treaty will restrict fundamental civil and digital rights, including freedom of expression and communication privacy.[7] "The bulk of the WTO's 153 members" have raised concerns that the treaty could distort trade and goes beyond the existing Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.[8] Opponents also criticize ACTA's removal of "legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers" in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions.[9]According to an analysis by the Free Software Foundation, ACTA would require that existing ISPs no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media, andDRM-protected media would not be legally playable with free or open source software.[10]
Many of the file sharing services were spooked; only one suffered:
Why was MegaUpload really shut down?
In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of
#Megauploadwere about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (
http://goo.gl/A7wUZ)
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
More photos from Shauna Myers
Read more at
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111314089359991626869/posts/HQJxDRiwAWq
Get the point of this?
This means that one could download freely and NOT infringe on copyrighted material; no threatening letters from the RIAA and/or the MPAA; no being called a criminal.
This is the new face of the music industry.
How many of you bought copies of stuff on tape, then on CD, now on DVD, soon to be on Blu-Ray?
Kodak, once a pioneer in the field of photography, filed for bankruptcy.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/eastman-kodak-files-for-bankruptcy/
Somehow, they missed the trend of digital photography.
Think about that.
The music industry is in the same rut.
If they cannot compete fairly, they should not be allowed to compete, period.
No one is too big to fail. We need to replace the big banks with state-owned banks and end the foreclosure mills. Too many Americans are becoming homeless on the land our forefathers conquered.
Let's make America great again.
Here are the last two paragraphs of the article:
That's all one should consider. Well, let's consider said points:
"a character who would conspire to profit off of white supremacy" - so, of course, we are still going with the meme of his "authorizing" the racist bent of the newsletters that bore his name. Never mind that he disavows these ideas with his words and actions. Conversely, Rick Santorum makes up some stupid-ass story about how he wasn't referring to BLACK PEOPLE - eat me with that crap, Rick. What about Newt's assertion that Black people don't wish to work for their money, but have the hand out for food stamps? Never mind that a greater percentage of NON-BLACK PEOPLE are on public assistance; let's not let REALITY get in the way, right?
"anti-gay bigotry" - more nonsense from the newsletters he didn't write - too easy.
"anti-Semitism is the best vehicle for convincing the country to end the drug war" - what does this even mean? Seriously...has anyone actually read this beyond the empty canard of "anti-Semitism"? First of all, if you take the example of Portugal, you can see that what we call the "War on Drugs" is a COLOSSAL FAILURE, and is in fact the "War on U.S. Citizens". We have troops in Afghanistan guarding poppy fields, from which comes our heroin, which is then shipped to our shores and sold, whereupon the buyers are arrested and their lives UTTERLY RUINED. You tell me if this isn't the perfect business model. For more of my analysis, see my article, http://www.r8ny.com/blog/vincent_nunes/the_octopus_revealed.html - it's a bit of fun. Also, see http://whatreallyhappened.com/ru/content/afghanistan-troops-guarding-poppy-fields
"to end our romance with interventionism" - and what a romance it has been, right? It's been more like an escort service where you don't get a happy ending, after paying up the wazoo for a pig with lipstick.
"to encourage serious scrutiny of state violence, at every level" - oh, sure...no one should be paying attention to THAT.
Wow.
If you truly read this article, and avoid the "jumping together" arguments which actually don't even coalesce to a coherent point, this is the best reason to avoid Mitt "Bain Capital's vulture capitalism's gonna make me rich, baybee!" Romney, Newt "Get In My BED!" Gingrich and "Rick "I said BLAH people! Really!" Santorum, and select Ron Paul as the Republican nominee for the 2012 election.
Please remember, I don't drink the Kool-Aid, but I definitely don't like the taste of what the Three Stooges are serving.