A double standard is better than no standard

I figured this would be a more cheerful way of presenting news & views, this time the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act", a bill proposing that the US Department of Justice can shut down any site that is accused of being involved in copyright infringement.

This site is "optimized" for users within the USA

That's what they call it these days...

Because clearly no European user would be interested in any American music. And obviously we wouldn't want to promote that music to fans around the world anyway. They could end up buying a CD or some merchandise, or even - God forbid - go see an artist in concert.

The entertainment mafia just never ceases to amaze me.

A taste of what is to come

The Americans got a little taste of what is to come in the near future when due to a DNS error they ended up behind China's "Great Firewall". This meant websites with inappropriate content were blocked.

Personally I don't understand what the fuzz is all about. I mean, they better get used to it as both the US and the EU are planning to incorporate similar Internet filtering, where the governments will be able to decide what information their citizens should be allowed to part-take in, and what should be considered "inappropriate" and blocked.

If all goes according to plan, the EU will join the likes of Iran, North Korea, Australia and China by 2012, with the US probably not far behind. Congratulations, you miserable enemies of freedom.

More Google evil

As if deleting blogs due to a claim of copyright infringement and censorship in China isn't enough, Google are now even censoring critics of the US government.

Seriously, Google, that "don't be evil" motto just seems out of date. Why don't you just change it to something more believable, like "don't be free" or "be censored"?

Plotting new evil

The "axis of evil" are gathered in the White House and plotting new evil in collaboration with the US government. What kind of insanity can we expect as an outcome of this meeting? More censorship? More oppressive legislation? More "guilty until proven innocent"?

Among those expected are Sony's Michael Lynton, Warner Bros.' Barry Meyer, Viacom's Philippe Dauman, NBC Universal's Jeffrey Zucker, Warner Music Group's Edgar Bronfman, Harper Collins CEO Brian Murray, Universal Music Group's Zachary Horowitz, the MPAA's Dan Glickman, the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol, IATSE's international president Matthew Leob, AFTRA'S Kim Roberts Hedgepeth, DGA president Taylor Hackford, DGA exec director Jay Roth and SAG's David White.

Yup, the whole "family" is here, ready to take on new acts of extortion, threats, bullying and corruption. In more civilized countries these bullies are actually convicted for their crime instead of given a carte blanche by the government to do whatever they want. Well, I guess if they refuse to give the "family" this carte blanche at this point they'll each receive a friendly reminder in the middle of the night, consisting of a severed horse head or something.

And why does it come as no surprise that there's no-one from the consumer and human rights side present at this meeting? Goddamn criminals the lot of them.

Recreation my ass

I don't know about you, but I find few things are as annoying as having to pay fees for every stupid thing you do or don't do. I find mandatory fees on top of something I've already purchased particularly fascinating - and stupid. Unfortunately the Americans have refined this fee-policy into an art form. Where else would you stay at a hotel and be charged a mandatory recreation fee of $15 a day upon check-out??? I mean, what the hell is a recreation fee anyway? A "thank you for letting me borrow a sundeck chair and a towel, and have access to the pool, obviously such a service couldn't be included in the $150 a night room rate"-fee? Why not have a room rate of $165, since this completely insane fee is mandatory anyway - recreation or not?

Add this to the ridiculous additional car hire fees and insurances (that are often not included in your booking price, and need to be paid at the counter when picking up the car), the annoying habit of never including sales tax on the price tags, and of course the fluctuating exchange rate of the dollar, and it all makes planning that US vacation a real pain in the ass.

Viva megalomania

American senator Jay "I wish the Internet had never been invented" Rockefeller wants to give the American president power to shut down the Internet "in case of emergency".

I'm guessing an emergency is this case is a single mom sharing a couple of mp3-files...

Crazy megalomanic bastard.