NA-144-2009-11-01

I once had a lot of respect for Blair. He was articulate and made Bush sound like a total bozo (although Bozo would make Bush sound like a bozo).

Somewhere along the way, Blair whacked out on me. I wonder what happened? I used to enjoy watching him take on the British Parliament on CSPAN and wondered what Bush would say under the same circumstances.

Don’t look over here……nothin to see here.

The baby Taylor guitar has been out for years. They actually make great sounding guitars. It’s a shame they have to sign Taylor Swift as an endorser but if it gets more people interested in becoming musicians then so be it (kind of like those lame Twilight books are getting kids to read BOOKS [granted it ain't Shakespeare but at least it's a book and they might discover real literature when they mature]).

And now back to real news…

CBS’s “60 Minutes ran a piece on how the MPAA is fighting movie bootleggers using Bit Torrent. But the guys uploading brand new movies on the internet, are mostly “tapping” them with digital cameras, in the back theater seats. Which makes for pretty crappy looking copies. Who would waste they time or money on these things, knowing how lousy they were. And why does the MPAA even care?! Wasting our tightly stretched law enforcement resources, to catch a bunch of petty ante movie bootleggers. Meanwhile really serious criminals are still on the loose! But never mind, the world is safer now that a couple dozen movie thieves are behind bars. Pul-lease.

Maybe “60 Minutes” should have done their report about how much tax dollars are being wasted just to protect the bottom line of a small sector of industry. Who will probably use this piece as an excuse to justify eliminating Bit Torrent, or the ISPs throttling all internet BT traffic.

I’ve never bought a bootleg movie in my life. But before VHS was even available, I managed to audio tape a few movies I saw. So I’d have something to listen to, and re-enjoy the experience. I use to have a audio tape of Star Wars, long before any VHS tapes appeared of it. I never sold or gave away any tapes to anyone. They were only for my personal use. I had a lot more of those tapes of old Tv shows, before I could afford a VCR machine.

My point is, a lot of people taping media now, are probably just tired of having to wait for the industry to have it’s most expensive and limited exhibition of something. Whether it be movies or tunes. They’re filling the need that the entertainment media industry isn’t. Especially went it comes to the older stuff, that’s out of print, or never was in print.

And I’ve got an old VHS tape copy of a Tv series pilot movie, that’s better than the DVD I paid for of it. All the original music is intact on the VHS copy. They subbed out the music on the DVD, to make more profit not paying for music royalties. And they wonder why people pirate this stuff? Because they’re tired of being screwed. I’ve been waiting years for a few BBC-Tv DVDs to “cross the pond” and be sold as Region 1. But as “A&E” doesn’t seem interested in doing this. I might just start looking for a bootleg set, for US players. Then, only after they see that there is indeed a demand for it. They’ll jump to filling it, and complain about the bootleggers. It was the same way with all the early Japanese Anime, that took years to get marketted in the States. The bootleggers woke the industry up.

Hears a way to combat movie piracy. Sell the damn movie on legal DVDs, with weeks of leaving the theaters. Not 6 to 8 months later, for whatever marketing season is convenient. If people didn’t have to wait a half year (or more) to see these over-hyped movies. Because they didn’t feel like catching the flu in the crowded theaters. Maybe they wouldn’t be buying the bootlegs. The theater chains would still make some money for the month they had exclusively exhibiting the films. They’d just lose a small percentage of the viewers, who’d know they could wait a month to buy or rent it.

Frankly I’d rather go to a Drive-in than a theater. But the advent of SUVs and Minivans, killed them off. And I’m sure the MPAA was paranoid about their movies being copied by people with camcorders in their vehicles.

Yo Crackpot, don’t try the laser trick. The cops won’t like to have to explain to you that lasers are often mounted on guns for aiming purposes.