In Good Company (2005)
Rated PG-13
110 minutes
Dennis Quaid …. Dan Foreman
Topher Grace …. Carter Duryea
Scarlett Johansson …. Alex Foreman
Dan Foreman is an ad sales executive for a sports publication who is demoted after a corporate takeover. His new boss, Carter Duryea, is half his age and doesn’t know much about ad sales but […]

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“When the history of the recording industry is written, they will cite the RIAA’s [Recording Industrry Association of America] lawsuits against their customers as their darkest hour….[M]ost people think of it as winning the battle and losing the war.

“The recording industry is now an enemy of the public and this is truly sad. Consumers love the artists and hate the unbranded, faceless, nameless distributors that keep them from accessing what they now believe should be totally free. Of all the battles caused by the transition to networked media, the most bloodied and most devastated industry will be recorded music.

“The missed opportunity to understand the consumer and the unwillingness to adjust its thinking almost pale by comparison to the cultural and societal damage that the industry’s collective ‘head in the sand’ position has caused…..It is a business nightmare from which the industry will not awake…..”

(more…)

The public foots much of the bill when the entertainment and software cartels go on anti-counterfeit rampages, their targets often including their own customers.
It’s now routine, for example, for law enforcement and other tax-payer funded agencies to be used in various corporate national and international ‘operations,’ and for elected politicians to provide loud support.

Now, in Britain, “The most costly criminal case clocked up legal aid fees of £18.4m (about $34,714,108),” says the Guardian Online.

The case? Operation Blossom, “a prosecution of six men on charges of international software piracy,” says the story.

And, “legal aid payments to the defence team,” added on more than £19 million.
“Fifteen barristers were paid for working on the piracy case,” states the Guardian Online. “Their full fees are not stated but three received brief fees of £450,000 (about $848,188) or more for preparing the case.”
Via p2pnet.net

The VoIP market is expanding fast and in a bid to lure consumers away from services such as Vonage and iPhox or Alcatel, until the end of the year, eBay’s Skype is offering free calls within Canada and the US.
PC-to-PC calls were already free but users had to pay for calls to land-line or mobiles.
However, Skype will still charge for numbers dialed from any phone to Skype users, says reports.

And, “Caution!” - warns a p2pnet reader below. “Many users from IP address 7x.x.x.x are unable to use the service for free.
“Skype users might want to look up their IP address and city first. http://www.ip2location.com.”