Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sh ... death.html

So Bruce Willis is "taking Apple to court" over the right to pass his digital downloads onto his kids after his death. Interesting.

I saw the link on reddit. I don't actively read The Sun.



Quoted so you don't have to bother visiting. That's the full lot.

Top comment on reddit. I lol'd.

I don't know what I think about this.

Do I class digital content as the same as physical content? No.
Should I? I'm not sure I should.

Maybe that's why I'm such a horrendous pirate.

Wasn't this basically the ruling the European Court made a few months back regarding software? That you should have the right to resell/give away digital downloads?

The ECJ say a lot of things.

"Willis has asked advisers to set up a trust that holds his downloads, which reportedly include classics from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin, to get around this rule."

This was the best line, as if those "classics" could be thought of in the same way as a 1st run of a Beatles single or the like. What they are has no bearing when they are available to all, at any point, at the same quality, for the same price. There is no prestige factor in digital downloads. There is no rarity or even physical content based value, when that content can be reproduced exactly, for as close to free as makes no difference. The only value is in the licencing, take that away and what have you got?

A really rare first pressing mp3 of The White Album.

They really knew how to make those 1s and 0s back in those days, a recent download just doesn't sound the same.

The only physical media I care about these days are records. In hindsight, CDs were a transitional media that was the worst of both worlds. Much like paperbacks, jewel cases are shitty to look at and take up valuable shelf space. If I want digital music, I want it conveniently.

However, I'm not really down with piracy as I believe in rewarding the artists for their work. If I really want something I'll buy it; if I don't, why am I bothering? (Please note, I'm not casting aspersions on anyone here who does pirate as I used to do it a lot, it's just how I feel about it these days)

However however, I want to own my music too - so it's all a bit shit.

You can't "catch" Asperger's, can you? Can you?!

Ask my wife.

Weirdly, I actually pay for the vast majority of my music these days, just like I pay for the vast majority of games I play. Because iTunes and Steam make downloading convenient and cheap enough, and console games i've always bought, because anything else is too much hassle.

Do I think that I own the stuff I have downloaded? Actually, thinking about it, regardless of what the licences say, yes I do. However I don't think a digital copy is something that I can sell to anyone else, or give to anyone else. I'm not sure why though, it just doesn't seem the same.

Where my own morailty stands is that, regardless of what the publishers say or write in their licences, is that if I have bought something, then I now own it on my own personal licence. I accept that I don't physically own it as such and can't sell it on, but I don't accept that I have to the pay for the same thing again if the medium changes.

i.e. If i've bought a song on CD, i'm going to download it free if I want it and haven't had time to rip it yet, or if it is a box in the loft or whatever. Or if I have bought a physical book I will happily get the pirate version of the ebook if the price on amazon is too high. However if the price on Amazon is cheap enough (i.e less than £3 to pick a random figure) then i'll buy it due to convenience and price.

I accept that i'm of low morals when it comes to piracy, and my driver is purely convenience. I expect there are a lot of people like me out there.

There was an interesting point raised in one of the comments in the dgraunia. Is Mr Willis intending to give one track to three people, or just divide the collection into thirds?

That's not interesting.

I found it interesting.

Damn it, Trooper!

Has anyone seen a credible source for this?

*kicks dirt*

*shrugs*

Note that the Sun and Daily Mail writeups (and, apparently, the Sunday Times one) contain no direct quotes from anyone involved in the story. Suspicious.

They probably got it from his voicemail.

Did he Music Magpie all his CDs or something? Times can't be that tough.

*watches advert he's on*

Ah, right.

Debunked on Twitter by Willis's wife: https://twitter.com/EmmaHeming/statuses ... tweetembed

Shame.

BRUCE WILLIS JUST THE GUY FROM DIE HARD

It's Wincey Willis whose taking Apple to the cleaners.

..........................................

I was totally cracking an inappropriate joke. Sorry about that. I know you can't catch it. My girlfriend's cousin has Asperger's (or more specifically, autism at the severe end of the spectrum) and I understand how terrible it can be - particularly in cases like hers.

Again, apologies if I offended anyone. I was trying to be funny with a rubbish play on words.

I wonder how many people reporting that story also didn't realise iTunes music downloads have no DRM, and so getting your loved one's files isn't exactly tricky. (Legally you may not have the rights to them, of course, but… SWAN!)

I could really do with borrowing someone autistic for about half an hour. When we moved house over the weekend, MrsChap unpacked my carefully packed DVDs (all 414 of them) and put them back on the shelves in what can only be described as a "fuck it, just put them anywhere" order rather than the alphabetical order I'd made sure to pack them away in. It'll take me hours to sort it out.

In all seriousness though, it's a fascinating condition but must be hell to live with.

I can't really phrase this tactfully enough without someone taking unwarrented offence, but I'll give it a go anyway:

Would a person necessarily know that they are suffering from a mental illness, or would they just think "That's what the world is like?" and accept it and carry on? I assume it must be the latter as there's lots of years before mental health issues became part of medicines carpet bag.

I think the answer to that is "it depends what mental illness it is".

Someone with some form of psychosis may not know. Someone with OCD almost certainly will.

Huh, interesting. Would it be better to know, or not know? I think I'd prefer to not know.

My friend was unlucky enough to have both of her grandmothers go senile at about the same time (within a few months of each other).

One was always repeating herself and changing her mind (she would go shopping to the supermarket with her, and her nan would point at something and scoff at it, the come back to the same item a bit later and exclaim about its cheapness and put it in her basket, only to look in her basket a little later and ask who had put it in there) and was constantly in a state of confusion.

The other grandmother was almost exactly the same, save for occasional periods of lucidity when she remembered perfectly the events of the days before, including things like the shopping above, which (understandably) made her very upset.

I'm fairly sure I'd rather be in the first category.

Yeah, my Mum's MS has fucked about with her memory and general lucidity something chronic - I'm amazed she doesn't spend the entire day in tears to be honest, she handles it very well.

"Do you like being a girl?"
"Its gotta be better than the alternative."
"Whats it like? Is it like being a bug?"
"Like a WHAT?"
"I imagine bugs and girls have a dim perception that nature played a crual trick on them, but they lack the intelligence to really comprehend the magnitude of it."


Not that being a girl is a mental illness, but this conversation reminded me of that Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, for some reason.

I'm going to remember that, and adapt it for use at some point in the future. That's phrased wonderfully.

You're such a cunt.