Hard to starboard!

Dyarrr, maties, welcome aboard. It's time to have a nice long chat about piracy. First, however, I would like to say that anyone involved in upper management at Electronic Arts Studios can go straight to hell, where I hope the burn in their own special level of hell, reserved for child molesters and people who talk in movie theatres. I know software development is a long, stressful endevour, but when you make you're employees work for 90 hours a week with no overtime or comp time, you become an evil tyrant. I hope EA CEO Larry Probst chokes on his fillet mignon, and some big ol' biker dude sticks his dick in Probst's ass while he's choking. Seriously, what the fuck?

Now that I have that off my chest, let's talk a bit about the MPAA, the RIAA, the software industry, and piracy. Now don't shake your head like that, you've pirated something. Yes you have. Frankly, I don't care, because everyone wants something for free, and if you can get it, well, what the hell, they won't notice one, right? Oh, yes, it is stealing, too. When you pirate software, you are stealing out of the pockets of software developers, who probably have no other source of income. "Well, what about music and movies," I hear you question, "isn't that theivery just as bad?" Well, yes and no. Yes, it's still stealing, there is no question about that... but... the movie industry and recording industry can suck my dick. First, the MPAA can fellate me. If they stopped overpaying their "talent", movie costs would sure as hell go down, and increase profit ratios. This, however, is not their most horrendous error. Simply put, their biggest money loser is they keep making shitty movies. Now, granted, not every movie can be "The Incredibles" or something like that, but why oh why do you keep producing stupid, pandering CRAP? Seriously, it's shit. This is the same problem with the music industry, actually. Crap crap crap crap, you keep signing crappy bands, and promoting crappy bands. Blink-182? Fuck those guys, the only thing they have going for them is the drummer from the Aquabats, who is a monstrosity. Britney? Christina? Timberlake? Fuck ALL that shit. It's all shit. However, this is not the main problem I have with the RIAA. Now, I'm a musician, as most of you know, so I play out quite a bit. I have recorded on a few albums, and it's a lot of fun, but I don't make any money off of those albums, and I don't really care. I don't like recording, it's too artificial, there's no interaction. Live music is where it's at. So, when major labels start giving you the guilt trip about how you're taking money from musicians by downloading their albums, it's wrong. Musicians shouldn't be making a majority of their money on albums, it should be coming from PLAYING MUSIC. You wanna sell merch at the concert? Go right to it, but for God's sakes, make your money PLAYING LIVE. (Now we can get into the RIAA Artists Treatment issue, but I've done that before. Let's just say I hope the RIAA and all the management associated with it gets a level lower than EA execs in hell. Fuckwads.)

This is all leading into my main point, though. My main point is that the RIAA and the MPAA need to take a nod from the software industry when it comes down to products. Software piracy is HUGE. Lets say I download 1,000 albums. That'll work out to something like $20,000 retail (over)price. I can beat that with three software downloads, something like, say, Lightwave 3-D, Microsoft SQL Business Server and, oh, I don't know, let's say SpeedRazor GL. Thats REAL close to $20,000 in piracy right there, and while a lot of people wouldn't download specialty programs like that, it's possible. What does the software industry do to keep piracy numbers down? Well, they sue all their users... no, wait, they don't. That would be the wrong way to do it. They innovate. They release new and better software, and they LISTEN to the people who buy their products (except Microsoft. They suck). Now, there are lawsuits and C&D's, but they aren't nearly as prevelant as with the RIAA and the MPAA. Open Source software is a step in the right direction, too. Competition is huge, so it drives numbers, and everything skims along. So, basically, the RIAA and the MPAA can sue anyone they want, but if they keep this up, they'll be out of business in the next 10 years, and indy labels/movies will rule again.

When it really comes down to it, though, I just hate anyone that sues their customers because they were too slow/stupid to adapt to technology.

Dumb-asses.