Skinny Puppy Wants Compensation For Music Used in US Interrogations 271
First time accepted submitter time_lords_almanac writes "A Canadian band has sent an invoice to the U.S. Department of Defense after learning that its music was used without permission in 'interrogations' of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The members of Skinny Puppy, who specialize in electronic music, were originally going to make the invoice the cover of their next album until they discovered they could bring legal action against the department. They were also none to happy to learn the purpose their music was being employed for, let alone illegally. The amount of compensation requested? $666,000, of course."
Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:5, Insightful)
On a more serious note, I see Skinny Puppy's billing of the government to be a sign that they condone the use of their music in such a way. I know that's not true but a C&D letter would have been a much better political statement.
Still, boycott the Beta. Fight Dice.
Now thats a performance... (Score:5, Insightful)
So are they considering interrogations a "performance" that needs to be licensed? I'm sure the guys in black vans will show up shortly to assist them.
fuckbeta
Buck Feta (Score:3, Insightful)
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Captcha: fuckbeta
Beta woes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a long-time reader but rarely log in these days. I made an exception to voice my displeasure at the beta version of Slashdot. The new layout wastes space and moves the comments to the background.
I, along with many others, come here for the comments. If the beta is the default design, I will stop coming here. I imagine many others will do the same.
Your move, Slashdot.
Re:Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm "none to happy" about Beta.
Re:Now thats a performance... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this would be different from playing it in a bar how?
Unless there is an explicit exemption in copyright law which says "except during interrogations", the copyright laws as bought by the media lobby still apply.
If we can be sued by the copyright holders for crap like this, I fail to see why it should be any different for the feds.
Re:Everyone reads the comments, idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:5, Insightful)
Beta hides details of dates and times, user ids, post ids etc.
Seems like it is designed for the sort of people who are afraid of "ugly numbers" and can't handle technical information unlike real slashdotters.
So if you see Beta, go do something else for a few hours, repeat till you get "Classic". Or just give up on Slashdot.
Re:Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:1, Insightful)
Can we get over it already? The beta look is not that bad. If you don't like it, there are browser plugins you can use to change the look. Or, less talk, more action, GTFO. I'm tired of scrolling through pages of Beta nagging and filtering actual comments from all the bitching.
Re:Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been here awhile (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been here awhile, and have watched Slashdot go through a lot. Every time there's been a major change, a significant section of the user base has left and eventually been replaced. (The significance has not always been in terms of sheer numbers, but more often in longevity, character, personality and other less tangible demographics.)
I'm sure it will "survive" beta in the same way, which makes me sad. More pillars of the Slashdot community will leave, to be replaced with shills, trolls and youths who simply don't have the history to carry on anymore.
There are (at least) two things Dice fails to understand:
1.) 1,000,000 users != 1,000,000 users. Every UID is different, and when someone leaves, you can't simply "undo" that by getting another person to sign up.
2.) We don't want change. We're happy not being reddit, or 4chan, or (ugh) web 2.0, or whatever social media site or crap technology is the current buzzword this week. We're Slashdot. We come here because it's an old and familiar community. If you change too much, it's no longer familiar and we leave. Or if too many people leave, it's no longer a community and people stop coming back.
Please, I seriously recommend you keep the old UI codebase around for those of us who use classic mode. It's not going to kill your servers and we've been here long enough to deserve this little concession. Remember, each of us are a vital part of the conversations that happen here, and it is the comments that make Slashdot. Don't force us old-timers away with unnecessary change. Thank you.
Re:Why must this be{ta}? (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking for myself, the uid tells me about the shared context that users have. I'll have some idea what events we were both around for, what in-jokes we'll both get, and so on. It's a cultural signifier in the same way that graduating classes and the like can be.
For those who are way low, it tells me that they're they're the sort of people who were here before discussion boards were mainstream. That doesn't make old-timers inherently wise or whatever, but I'll pay a little more attention to what they have to say on that basis.
Slashdot users create compelling content / adverti (Score:4, Insightful)
NO WAIT!! IT IS CREATED BY THE USER INTERFACE!! THE SLASHDOT INTERFACE AND META-MODERATION SYSTEM IS WHY I COME HERE.
Now fuck off with your godawful site redesign. I am definitely boycotting Feb 10 to 17 and likely longer. I have enjoyed being a multi view user, practically every day since I signed up.
Why the hell would I buy a computer screen to look at the blank colour white? Let alone giant images of the incorrect aspect and the rest of the lame features.
Yeah... It sucks ass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck beta.
It's everything you don't want in a discussion OR news delivery system and more.
Re:Now thats a performance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, there's nothing at all wrong with liking those bands ... and I'm not saying there is.
I was responding to a post which more or less said "wow, your music must really suck if they use it to induce mental stress".
I can drive my mom away with punk rock, and malls routinely use classical music to drive away teenagers.
I'm guessing Skinny Puppy was deemed to be about as far removed from anything the detainees would have ever heard. But just because you use it to stress out someone, doesn't mean it sucks or there's anything wrong with it.
Re:Now thats a performance... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Gitmo would qualify as public. I don't think the detainees could be considered to be social acquaintances or family.
Re:I've been here awhile (Score:5, Insightful)
Concur 100% ! Well said Rival !
It is NOT about us "grumpy old men" saying "get off my LAN" because we hate change. We hate change for the sake OF change. The first rule: "Don't Fuck With It!" Translation for the layman: Don't fix what isn't broken! The wheel has been around _thousands_ of years because it _works_. Sure there are minor improvements here and there but the basic design & implementation doesn't leave people guessing.
I've been on /. since ~1999. IMHO, the only FEW things that /. needs to change in order to go from good to great are: (Sorted by priority)
* Editors to do their actual freaking JOB of fixing typos, spelling, grammar, dupes, bad/inaccurate headlines /. innovated moderation .. PLEASE innovate again.
* Add UTF-8 support. Only of these I'll be able to post diacritics and über -- that is "Uber" with two umlauts. WTF is this 1997?
* Allow us to edit our posts -- BUT show the original post so we can do a _visual_ DIFF of what has changed !
* If they actually fixed their broken 'ecode' tag -- I'm a programmer yet still can't post properly aligned code!?
* Fix their lame-ass lameness filter -- against I've been here years, I want to post CODE but I can't. WTF.
* Allow us to private message (PM) other members like every other forum does.
* Lastly, stop with the shitty Betteridge's Law of Headlines -- that is, stop trolling us just to get more "ad revenue"
That's IT ! (Please feel free to chime in what you would like to see in /.) Obviously the ad hominem arguments will go away but for the most part this is (or was) a mostly civilized and intelligent part of the internet before it got popular. If I want those stupid lolcat memes/articles I know where to go for emo-news.
All this extra whitespace crap and bad UI with /. beta? Do. Not. Want.
I've written about the "life cycle" of online social sites in the heck just 2 months ago in Dec 2013 ...
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
Sorry for bad netiquette of quoting myself ...
Thoughts?
--
Only Cowards Censor
Re:Forget the music. Use the Slashdot Beta! (Score:4, Insightful)
The other, more serious problem is that it is inevitable, barring Dice coming to their senses, that the Beta will eventually be released, and thus no more Classic mode at all, save for the shitty little "Classic Mode" they added which removes the pictures, leaving the rest of the god awful, butt-ugly, clusterfuck that is Slashdot Beta.