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The remaining original Kiss band members, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, discussed with USA Today their first new album in a decade.  The album Sonic Boom, released yesterday exclusively at WalMart, is a three-disc set with a CD of re-recorded hits, a live DVD of a Buenos Aires concert, and 11 new songs.  It’s only $12, “the price of a sandwich,” says Simmons.

The pair also talked about the current state of the music biz and piracy.  “Anybody who says, ‘I’m only in it for the music’ will find himself washing cars and wondering where the money went,” said Paul Stanley.  “Gene and I believe in working hard and making no apologies for what we get for the hard work.”

Touring and merchandise are necessary for the band to offset losses from music piracy.  “You grab an album and leave a store, they put you in handcuffs,” said Stanley.  “And yet someone on the Internet can decide whether or not I get paid.  File-sharing, that’s like me stealing your car and telling you I’m sharing your transportation.”

Illicit downloading is one reason the band had resisted recording new material for a decade.  Says a sneering Simmons: “These freckle-faced college kids have destroyed an entire industry by stealing.  I don’t believe in socialism and, the last time I checked, what we do isn’t charity.”

We reap what we sow.  If we continue to demand that our music, movies and software be free, and steal anything that is not free, eventually all that will remain is free crap and corporate-sponsored product.  Is this really what we want?

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Many people steal software because they are too stupid to know that it’s wrong, or too dumb to get a job so they can pay for what they are stealing.

Though many pirates will tell you how smart they are because they’re getting stuff for free while the rest of us have to pay.  It does sound smart, I guess, if you can get beyond that whole moral “stealing is bad” thing and the threat of bad karma.

But the stupidest pirate of all is the one that asks the software maker to help them steal their own software.  Dushyant was dim enough to join the CodeSmith forums on the CodeSmith website and ask, “can any one post me the serial key to trick the CodeSmith Professional 5.1.1.8242”.

The CodeSmith moderator answered straight at first: “You will need to contact sales for a key (sales@codesmithtools.com).”

But the stupid pirate asked again.  So the CodeSmith people decided to play with this dolt and responded:  “enter this as the key: CS50P-0NLY4-1D10T-W0ULD-TRYT0-45KU5-TH15Q” which loosely translates as “only an idiot would try to ask us this question.”

You think Dushyant would finally realize he’s been served, but staying true to form, he responded, “The key you provided does not work to as serial key to crack the version.”

Read the thread at CodeSmith.com
Stupid-Is-As-Stupid-Does

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Most of my friends don’t pay for their music.  Sure, they’ll buy and receive CDs for birthdays and Christmas.  But when they hear a song on the radio that they like, they simply download it for free from one of the hundreds of peer-to-peer, torrent or pirate networks.

These friends enjoy access to the most comprehensive music catalog in the world that includes The Beatles and many obscure acts.  They own tens of thousands of songs.  They can play their music on any computer, stereo, automobile or portable device without worrying about copy protection or play limits.  Their music is high-fidelity 256 kbps MP3s, a sound that’s fairly close to the original recordings.  They own their music forever, with no expired subscriptions to worry about.  And the best part is they didn’t have to pay a cent for this incredible restriction-free collection of music.

Then there’s me.  No doubt I am the stupid one of the group for actually paying for my music.  Every one of the 5,645 songs in my catalog was fully paid for, either by purchasing a physical CD or a digital download from Apple iTunes.

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There’s an image making its rounds on the Web that says “Piracy is Not Theft” because it makes a copy and leaves the original intact:

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In the “old days” of typewriters, forensic scientists could match a ransom note to the typewriter that produced it to apprehend the kidnappers.  This was possible because microscopic differences in the metal letters produced a “typographical fingerprint” that could be identified from any page printed on that typewriter. 

As a result, it became fashionable to produce ransom notes with disparate letters cut from a magazine, such as:

Today, computer printers are highly precise instruments that make it nearly impossible to distinguish between pages printed on the same brand printer.  However, an article in USA Today describes how many color laser printers leave microscopic yellow dots on each printed page to identify the printer’s serial number and ultimately, you.

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Tags: Color Laser Printers, Yellow Dots

Although PC software piracy declined in many countries in 2007, piracy increased in fast-growing PC markets, resulting in an overall rise of piracy from 35% to 38%, and dollar losses that increased by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion.  The annual study was conducted by IDC and released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

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About one-third of all software installed on personal computers globally in 2006 was pirated, according to a study from IDC.  This resulted in a worldwide software revenue loss of $40 billion, an increase of more than $5 billion or 15% over 2005.  The software piracy rate exceeded 60% in more than half of the 102 countries studied, and exceeded 75% in about one-third of the countries.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Tags: Anti-Piracy, BSA, Business, Piracy, SIIA, Software-Piracy