Lawsuits in Music

Sorry that I missed yesterday's post! I was out all night last night, and didn't get home until like 12:30 AM. I tried out for the merengue dance at TLD, but I don't think I got in. Oh well, I had a blast and I'll try out for salsa. Anyway, it turns out that I didn't miss a whole lot, but there were some litigation that arose. There's a patent troll called Texas MP3 Technologies who's claiming a patent on the mp3 player and suing all the big boys. I'd be livid if the courts ruled in favor of this company. Can they really wait so long to file a case like this? More importantly, how valid is their claim on this patent? It sounds shaky, at best. Then, Microsoft gets fined a ridiculous $1.5 billion for infringement of a patent on a technology that converts music to the mp3 format despite them already paying Fraunhofer. I'm on Microsoft's side, this sounds ridiculous. Are Apple and others also paying off this random Alcatel-Lucent company? I hadn't heard of this issue before. Irregardless, the fine is preposterous. Even further, I just don't like seeing bickering about who owns ideas like this. To have to pay to convert to a format they're already paying to use is just crazy to me. I guess that's always a gray area in technology though.

BitTorrent has added some content to its store, including pornography! Before you bust out your bibles now, it really isn't that bad. It's only softcore stuff, and it's $4 to watch it in 24 hours. I don't see the market for that though. Any person who buys porn is not doing it for the storyline, so the 24 hour limit just doesn't make sense. For the shocked, I'm talking about this because the adult film industry has always been a ridiculously important impetus for technology, and I think they just need to take a better direction than this with torrents.

The whole idea of an open dictionary has been around since at least Urban Dictionary, but Word Source has taken it a step further with tagging, voting, photo uploads, and more. It actually looks like a really neat site and stands out UI wise from other Web 2.0 sites, in my opinion.

Speaking of Web 2.0, want to download your favorite online videos? Try Zamzar then. It can convert other files online to another format for you to download, and I think it's actually pretty sweet. Not sure how legal the online video site thing is, but for other content even it's quite useful.

One more thing: what if operating systems ran airlines? This is a funny exploration of that. I thought it was pretty funny, maybe you won't, but I hope that most nerds will enjoy it.

Obviously, the Oscars were last night. If you were busy like me and missed them, you can see all the winners here. As you can see, Pan's Labyrinth was robbed in Best Foreign Language Film. Oh well, at least Scorcese took home some little golden men! The Razzies are up as well, and spot-on as always.

Once again, the box office made no sense. Not only is the critically defamed Ghost Rider still on top, but Reno 911: Miami barely made more than $10 million. It didn't get the best reviews itself, but it looked actually entertaining. Though Bridge to Terabithia did fairly well with a low drop. Good thing we'll have Black Snake Moan and Zodiac next week, one of which had better dethrone Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes.

MySpace has a teaser trailer for The Ten, which is a movie that features ten storylines to explore the ten comandments, and it looks pretty interesting. The early buzz hasn't been all that great, but I'll keep hope alive anyway. I really hope it isn't self-indulgent.

Aaron Eckhart has said a few words about being Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, and it has me all tingly inside. I'm very excited to see what he does with this role, even though he won't be Two Face quite yet. The fact that they're investing so much in Harvey Dent's character is a very good sign.

We have a new poster for Hostel 2, and it's so messed up and weird that I'm not even going to put it up here. If you really want to see it, click here. Be warned that there is nudity, as well. How can any theater possibly show this poster? Instead, I'll just show you this G-rated poster for Silver Surfer:



Now for some Monday Madness:

1. Do you ever use all caps when typing online messages?
Not really. If ever, it's extremely rare. It evokes yelling, in my mind, so I think it's kind of rude.
2. Does it bother you when other people use all caps in their messages?
Only if it's on purpose and for something stupid.
3. Do you use abbreviations (i.e. lol, brb, etc.) when typing email messages or text messages?
I don't send many text messages on my phone, but I use it in IM. I don't know that I ever use those abbreviations in e-mails, because I tend to follow proper English.
4. Do you ever receive faxes or other correspondence from a professional office that are typed in all caps? If so, what do you think of that?
I haven't when I've worked in an office.
5. Do you rely on the computer program to catch your typing errors, or do you proofread your material before sending it out?
All programs for me involving typing catch my mistakes. I have a plugin for Gaim, Firefox 2.0 does it now, Microsoft Word obviously does it, and my programming IDEs usually show weird colors when I screw up syntax.