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In honor of Sixteen Candles...

The Song Quote of the Day...

if you were here
i could deceive you
and if you were here
you would believe
but would you suspect
my emotion wandering, yeah
do not want a part of this anymore
The rain water drips
through a crack in the ceiling
and i'll have to spend
my time on repair
But just like the rain
i'll be always falling, yeah
only to rise and fall again

From "If You Were Here"
by the Thompson Twins

Violating rule #223...

This is a funny story and just another example of what a thrill it is to watch me hit on the opposite sex. My old roomate, Big Fred, and I roll into one of our old haunts Billy's a couple of weeks ago. It's a little slow so we belly up to the bar to order a few drinks. So I start talking with the bartender and get her to make all of us a round of shots. So Fred and I keep drinking and chattin' with the bartender as the night goes on. Now I'm really starting to get a little likkered up because I'm seriously considering violating rule #223. That rule states: "Never hit on waitstaff at the bar." Not only does it never work but you can't go back to the bar for like 2 weeks. Doesn't matter though I'm getting fueled up with more shots and now Fred and his date are eggin' me on to go ask her out. Amazingly enough, I agree to do it. So I roll up to the bar and whip out my best line and she replies, "I'm married." Now since I'm a LOT fueled up I go into Sixteen Candles mode. You know the scene where Jake rolls up to Samantha's house to find her and Long Duck Dong answers the door and tells Jake that she is getting married. That is the conversation I have with the bartender. She says I'm married. My reply in Jake mode "MARRIED?????" Her reply, "married." My reply, "MARRIED?????" Her reply, "Married, Geesh!"

Absolutely classic. On a plus note I did get an astounding ovation of clapping as I returned to the table. The moral of this post? Don't violate rule 223. Never ever violate rule 223.

Whew...

Well what was supposed to be a friendly little visit to Albuquerque for a couple of weeks has turned into a month long stay. In that time I've been to a bachelor's party, a rehearsal dinner, and a wedding. All of them were a HELL of a lot of fun. Obviously, what happens at the bachelor's party stays at the party so no comments on it. The wedding in particular was awesome, since I got to see a lot of old friends. It was great to see Bonner and finally meet his brother Mark (oh what a great slow dancer he was :D). Jeff and Joy made a rare visit outside of Tucson and it was great to see them. Also got to see ALLLLLLL, in uniform even (that is still a scary thought). Always good to see J.E.D. Later that night, The 20 bucks I paid to Jimmy to run across America's Parkway (outside of the Marriott) in the buff was well worth every penny. Ended staying up until 8am the next morning watching movies with Chet on his BAD ASS 61 inch HDTV. I have got to get me one of those.

Along the way I've gotten a few freelancing gigs, so the trip in more than one way has paid for itself. I've also gotten in touch with a bunch of old law school friends and catching up has been a real treat. Not real sure what the next month has in store. Possibly back to Dallas or possibly helping my sister and cousin move to Seattle. That should be interesting considering how loopy I get when it is cloudly for more than 3 days in a row. I know, I know it is sunny there a lot. I'll believe it when I see it.

Lots of pictures from Albuquerque and I'll hopefully be able to post this next week when I get my hands on broadband. Well gotta get ready for happy hour and poker night.

Update from the ...

HOME, errr temporary, office in Albuquerque. Wild new year so far, but having fun. In Albuquerque for various reasons, but most importantly the bachelor party and wedding of my friend Holt. The bachelor festivities are tomorrow night and the wedding is the first weekend in February. I'm looking forward to both since I get to hang out with some of my good college friends. My best friend Jeff and his wife Joy are coming in for the wedding. It will be good to get the posse out once again.

When I move to something faster than dialup I'll post some more.

Last Song Quote of the Year

New Resolution by Azure Ray

NEW RESOLUTION

follow blind
heavy eyes hold position
you were right on time
it was a lucky prediction
move on move on
it's like the clock is pacing
the break of dawn and our hearts are racing
move on move on
no there's nothing changing
don't undermine
my new resolution
just to find
a different light a new direction
move on move on
now the records skipping
i won't forget i won't forget the way you said
move on move on
there's no point in waiting

Happy New Year!!!

Or soon to be new year!!!
Sorry for the lack of posting in December. This past December was a wild month for a lot of reasons I'll explore later. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to 2005.

Should have more time in the next couple of weeks while I'm in Albuquerque.

More soon.

Won't see this again for about 3 more years.  

A real rarity in Big D.  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... 

Clouds in Albuquerque 

From the lobby looking straight up at the Guggenheim. NYC.  

Lobby of the Guggenheim in NYC.  

Microsoft started a new blogging service..

and Jeremy over at Ensight.org has a very NICE how to video. If you have ever thought about starting a blog, I recommend you check out the video. Jeremy does a great job of taking you through the process from start to finish. Just from watching the video there are many things to like about this product. It looks to be very simple and there isn't any HTML coding which can stop a lot of users in their tracks. One thing I didn't really like is the obnoxious URL. I mean you guys are freakin' Microsoft and the best you can come up with is: "spaces.msn.com/members/user". Too bad they didn't come up with something shorter. Oh well those will be really fun to remember.

Nonetheless, check out the video and great job Jeremy!

Kind of like...

Milton Waddams in Office Space, I really like a certain office tool. Milton loved his red Swingline stapler and I love tracking packages. Whenever my family or I order a package, they will give me the tracking number so that I can entertain myself for hours. Christmas, being the time of purchasing many gifts, is the best time of the year for tracking packages. Right now, I'm tracking no less than 5 packages on various carriers. I'm tracking my new scanner via Fed Ex, black printer ink via USPS and a hard drive for my sister.

So where am I going with all this? Did you know that you can track packages by using Google? Just take the tracking number and put it into Google, hit return and voila. Google will come up with a link so that you can see where your package is. Very cool!!! For someone who loves to track packages, Google can't be more helpful. It works for sure with UPS, Federal Express, and the U.S. Postal Service.

ENJOY!!!

Song Quote of the Morning

Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light
Pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle, fight dark forces
In the clear moon light
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep

I used to worry, thought I was goin' mad in a hurry
Gettin' stress, makin' excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, greasy
Insomnia please release me and let me dream of
Makin' mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearin' off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks
Since I last slept, kept takin' sleepers
But now I keep myself pepped
Deeper still, that night I write by candle light
I find insight, fundamental movement, uh
So when it's black this insomniac take an original tack
Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack
I gets no sleep
I can't get no sleep

I can't get no sleep
I can't get no sleep
I need to sleep, I can't get no sleep
I need to sleep, I can't get no sleep

"Insomnia" by Faithless

A Cadillac Escalade Golf Cart...

Yes you read that right. Apparently there is a market for golf carts based on their much larger counterpart. Go check it out here.

via the new blog Luxist.

The Best of 2004

through LISTS... TONS OF LISTS...

Every year Rex at fimoculous.com compiles the "Best of" lists.

This list will be huge by the end of the year, so check it out now and watch it grow.

His list will be updated here.

A cool travel link...

The Cloud Travel Blog has this post which lists a lot of cool links if you are traveling abroad. Heck, even if you're dreaming of traveling abroad the links are still cool.

Check it out here.

Tip o' the hat to Ernie the Attorney.

If you want to know about a country check out the CIA Factbook.

Packers still in first and other football news...

The Packers won another game last and are still first in the NFC North. Again, the offense was great. Najeh Davenport filled in admirably for Ahman Green and the running game will be simply insane with his return. Brett Favre was vintage Favre playing in his 200th straight regular season game, increasing his record to 37-1 when game time temperature is less than 35, and broke Dan Marino's record of at least 20 touchdowns in 11 consecutive seasons. Unfortunately, the defense couldn't stop the Rams offense which amassed over 400 yards in offense. Though they did have a few turnovers I'm still not inspired by their pass defense. This week's game at Philly is going to be ugly for us Packers fans.

On a side note, NMSU recently fired Tony Samuel after an 8 season run. Add in today's firing of Tyrone Willingham of Notre Dame and that leaves the NCAA division I with TWO African-American head coaches. That is simply amazing and not in a good way. It is deplorable that there are only 2 African American coaches coaching division I football. Just for reference division I is made up of all the big schools like Notre Dame, USC, etc. and has more than 150 schools involved. TWO out of that many positions? School presidents it's time to step up to the plate.

Back to Tony Samuel who I think did a good job as head coach. In 1996 he brought the first winning season in 35 years to NMSU and attendance had increased dramatically. Unfortunately, all this wasn't enough to save his job. NMSU moves into the WAC next year and hopefully NMSU will make a run for a really good coach. Will NMSU ever be a powerhouse? Probably not but, I hope that NMSU will again step up to the plate and take the lead in hiring a minority coach.

Song Quote of the Day!!!

Boxing shadows in my sleep
It's the company I keep
The perfect exercise
As I grow older

I can't believe what God has done
He took the heat out of the sun
And now it seems the world
Is growing colder

Between the pleasure and the pain
Wishing your life away
No more sinister than sane
Briefing your life away
Between the flicker and the flame
No one can explain
Baby blue is born again

From "Baby Blue" by Emiliana Torrini

The only beer in our list from a truly national brand. The Sam Adams winter lager has been hit and miss in the last 3 or 4 years. This year I like it quite a bit. It has a nice head, good aroma, and a great deep amber color. This is heavier than the Abita but lighter than the others. The flavors aren't as nuanced as the Abita though they are more nuanced. This is a holiday beer that doesn't use a lot of spices. At least not that I can detect. No aftertaste on this beer. Overall, the flavor is pleasant with flavorful hops. If the price stays around 5.50/six pack or so this is a keeper.  

Follow up on Copyright Follies...

Timera raised a few questions which I think will add to the understand of this whole RIAA vs. downloaders mess. Her first question is, "Why was the RIAA not very concerned about piracy when we didn't have computers?" Well actually the RIAA has been notorious for trying to impede every technology that has been created for recording music. It was with much fighting and debating that Congress passed the Home Audio Recording Act which allowed in statutory form the right to record music off the radio and for personal use. Note that it didn't allow for dubbing audio cassettes that would forgo original purchase.

It also instituted a royalty scheme into blank media and products. So the stand alone CD-R that you might have, a small portion of the price is paid in royalties. Also, the media such as blank tapes and so-called music CD-R's (not the ones that work in computers) have a small part of the price set aside for royalties. Another thing that you have to remember is that whenever a song is played on the radio a royalty fee is again paid (here though there is a blanket license scheme.) So that is the small trade-off that the RIAA has accepted. It will allow recording of music off the radio as long as royalties are paid and the radio stations don't announce when the music will be played(this is why you always here in the next 30 minutes we have Korn, Neil Diamond, etc.)

The thing about digital music that scares the RIAA so much is that they are PERFECT copies of the original. They didn't much care about cassette recording because the sound quality noticeably degrades with each subsequent dub. This is definitely not the case with digital audio. On a side note the RIAA pretty much destroyed the early digital market by making sure that the Digital Compact Cassette and the Minidisc never become dominate music playback devices. The same is also true for DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD (for surround playback of music) which the RIAA has pushed for major DRM capabilities in the disc.

Quick note on flea markets which are notorious hotbeds for physical music piracy. The RIAA does enforce copyrights in those venues and goes for the operator of the flea market as well as the vendor.

Second question was "Why the difference between the store-bought CD and the CD I download legally online?" This is a part where I may not have been very clear. With music purchased at a store, that music is covered by copyright regulations and thus you have all the statutory fair use abilities. With music purchased online you are subject to the license agreement. It has been ruled that in most cases, the license agreement trumps copyright regulations. So Itunes and their ilk can decide what you do with the music that you buy online. When you use Itunes you are subject to their license agreement which says you can burn a song to cd 7 times. After that the program won't let you burn any more copies. Thus the joys of license agreements and DRM.

Hopefully that clears some things up.

Here's a Holiday Beer I Would LOVE to try..

go here just for the beer label.

via the Trademark Blog.

With production of only around 300 cases, looks like I'm going to be out of luck unless I can get to Bethelem, PA. Oh well plenty of others to try. Stay tuned.

Last of catching up; FCC, CIA, etc..

The FCC is at it again. If you care about free speech and what you can watch/listen to then go check out this article at Buzzmachine. My take? This isn't that suprising. The FCC has been itching to get in on this for a while now and will be stretching their authority broadly if they are allowed to do it. Further take from Fred Wilson (A VC) here.

The CIA is also at it. I will have to brush up on what the CIA is allowed to do domestically, but I'm pretty sure they can't use their resources to spy domestically. Now this may have changed with the Patriot Act, so I'm not absolutely positive. I'll have to research this at some point.

Finally, a nice article on how to research all the information that the government has.

Catching up: Computers and Internet...

On the computer software front comes these two nice FREE programs. First, is a program called Eraser that truly erases data from your computer. For those of you that don't know when you delete a file in Windows it doesn't truly delete it. It merely puts in the recycle bin so you can restore if need be. Now when you empty the recycle bin the file isn't deleted then either. Windows merely "flags" the hard drive as an area that can have data written on it. So if you have sensitive data on your hard drive and you just deleted it, chances are that it can be recovered pretty easily. So when you want to really delete a file try this little program called Eraser. I've been using it the past week so far and it works very quickly which is a definite plus. Tip o' the hat to I/P Updates.

Another little program for those of you, including me, that can't come up with new passwords all the time. This little program will generate passwords for you. Tip o' the hat to Researchbuzz.

Finally, from the people over at Google is the ability to make a wish list in Froogle. Check it out here.From the Google Blog.

Catching up: HDTV and High Def DVD's

I really, really want to buy a HDTV but have held off because I don't really have the money to afford a good one yet. Many of my friends know that I love to keep current on home entertainment including home theaters. One of the most frequent questions I get is what is the difference between 720p and 1080i. The answer from Home Theater Blog is here. My personal fav for the money are the Toshiba HDTV CRT models (you have a tv that is few years old? That is a CRT TV). If I had a lot of money, I like the looks of Digital Light Processing (DLP) TV's. If I had to hang it on the wall I would go with a front projection TV on a screen.

On another high definition front is the ongoing debate on what will replace the regular ol' DVD. What, replace DVD's you are asking yourself? Yep, hope you didn't buy a whole lot of DVD's in the last 5 years or so. You see regular ol' DVD's only have a resolution of 480p which is known as Enhanced Definition TV. In other words with a progressive scan DVD player and a EDTV you can watch DVD's at their theoretical optimum. Now with the advent of HDTV, regular ol' 480p doesn't look so good. So electronic companies and our good ol' friends, the content providers, decided something more was needed. A couple of issues had to be overcome in order to put High Def material on a 5-inch disc. Basically, you needed a new laser and medium that could transfer lots of data quickly. Since you can only compress this information so much you needed a disc that has lots and lots of room on it. So instead of settling on one format, the electronic companies decided to create two competing, non-compatible formats a la Beta and VHS, and DVD-Audio and SACD. Did I mention you will have to get a new DVD player too? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

So now these two competing formats are trying to be the best at producing their product but still aligning themselves with movie providers to have content. If you have followed, the DVD-Audio - SACD (super audio CD)debate you will find that there are irregular releases of material, music that doesn't sound like it came from the same band, and the need to buy a player that can play all formats. As long as everyone is happy I guess. So go over to Engadget for a little taste of who is aligning with whom. Happy movie watching!!!

Getting back on the horse...

After a lovely Thanksgiving, some much needed sun, and a large amount of fine scotch being imbibed it's time to get back to some blogging. Today is going to be a large mish-mash of posts catching up from the weekend(and before)including some posts on software, privacy, and a follow-up to my copyright series. In the next couple of weeks, I will have some more Holiday beer taste testing, some new pictures (as soon the scanner/early Christmas gift arrives) from my past trips to NYC, Colorado and Utah, song and movie quotes of the day, and some discussion on the Wright Amendment. A little further out I will be blogging about my job search. That should interesting... So thanks for reading and let's giddy up!!!!!

Thanksgiving, Turkey and Scotch..

As far as I am concerned that is the recipe for a great Thanksgiving. Since we weren't entertaining the usual crowd, things were very casual at the Hilty househould. Dinner turned out awesome. Unfortunately, we miss the crowd because there is something about cooking for other people. It isn't proving that you can cook, it's the feeling of family. Since we didn't have a crowd this year, I got to have an awesome conversation about family history with my dad. Amazing what your family has done sometimes, without the recognition. As I grow older, I'm amazed how this stories become that much more intersting. It's nights like these that I really enjoy the conversations. Well that's all I have, the scotch is kicking in. So Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Target : Wake Up Call

First, of all Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Second of all, check out the link below.

Target : Wake Up Call

I like shopping as much as the next guy but a wake up call so I can be at Target at 6am? I don't freakin' think so. I don't want to be anywhere at 6am much less with other shoppers at Target. Oh my head...

Our first beer up tonight is from Abita(see link below) and is by the far the lightest of all the beers. It is light in color and especially taste. If you drink too many heavy beers before you try this one, you will never taste it. I usually like to start my night off with one of these. It has a very nuanced taste that has little after bite. In other words, enjoy it on the first sip. It has a mild spice flavor and is generally a very pleasant beer. I will be buying more.  

A few of may favorite things...

include Thanksgiving and Christmas. (There you go boo, you gotta title). There is something about Thanksgiving and Christmas that makes me happy. It's probably a combination of a lot of things. Getting to cook all kinds of interesting things (my sister gets her own personal menu when she comes home), the challenge of cooking for big groups since my parents usually have a holiday party, getting to decorate the house, and generally spending time with family and friends. I have great memories of going to Albuquerque Country Club and seeing the entire lit up in luminaries. Here's a recommendation for you, rent a limo and take some champagne. That is totally awesome!!!!

My mother likes to decorate the house by Thanksgiving. A lot of people might say that is too early but it isn't like we are decorating the outside yet. That will come a bit later. The inside of the house is fair game though and why not? If my mothers like to have some Christmas trees all lit up like the 4th of July then dammit she should have it. Isn't that the holiday spirit?

Nonetheless, another thing I really like about this time of the year are the Christmas brews. I like Oktoberfest brews a bit and don't much care for summer brews. Christmas brews are the highlight of the year. Over the past weekend and into this week I've had the opportunity to sample 5 such beers. For fun I'll post some pictures and reviews of those beers.

The five beers coming this week will be: Abita Christmas Ale, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Samuel Adams Winter Lager, Anchor Steam Christmas Ale, and St. Arnold's Christmas Ale. If you haven't tried Abita Turbodog by all means do it, if you like a dark ale with chocolate overtones. I've been drinking Turbo Dog for over 10 years now. It's great stuff, and many stories can be told about the old "hand grenade" (props to El Guapo, "the Drake", the Skipper and Lil' Buddy for the awesome NOLA trip). Anchor Steam is a great brew from San Francisco and I highly recommend their ale. I like Sam Adams Boston Lager though it isn't my first choice. I'm been known to drink some of their cherry wheat as well. But their winter lager is normally high class. Fond memories of when the first and only Bennigan's opened in Las Cruces and my roommate (El Guapo) and I were trying to pay Bennigan's a lot o' money errrrrrrrr I mean complete their around the world contest. Basically you had to sample 100 beers and you got a mug and yer name on a plaque. My roommate and I were the first two people to do it. Anyways, during the winter on Friday's we would happy hour there with a big group (it was the happening place)and the mood of the night was always determined by one question. That question was "Will Hilty order a Sam Adams Winter Lager?" Now remember back then in '95 their winter lager was on tap and about 9 percent alcohol. So if Hilty ordered one of those a good time was to be had by all. Normally, I don't like Sierra Nevada but their celebration ale is normally the exception. Finally, from my days in Houston is Saint Arnold's. Great stuff if you are ever in Texas I highly recommend it.

Ok, on w/ the show.

Back in the day..

I used to own a 1976 MGB. A red one to be exact. In case you have never seen one, a MGB is a 2 door convertible. It had a four cylinder engine, standard transmission and to this day it has some of the best gauges I have ever viewed. On the bad side, it had a nice dent on left courtesy of my sister, and a carburetor that you put oil into(seriously, you put 10 weight oil into the carburetor). It also was prone to blowing out u-joints which were a PITA to replace. Another nice thrill about this car was that it was missing the seal between the rag top and the frame of the windshield. So in a rain storm, you would drive with a nice mist of water in your face.

This car also had another great quirk. You would have to turn on all the power and let the gas pump click away until it had the special clickety-click and then try and start it. If it didn't start the first time, you might as well leave that car because it was going to start. Oddly enough, it was the only car out of all my friends to start in the middle of the great(ok great by NM standards) blizzard of 1990. It was good it started, yet unfortunate, because jumping another car's battery from an MGB isn't as straightforward as one would hope. This is because the battery is BEHIND the passenger seat. So you have to fold up the back of the top and jump away. Remember kids, safety first.

But I digress, I learned a lot about working on cars while I owned it. Luckily by the time I became a senior in high school, the MGB was sold. So where in the hell am I going with this post? Well from Autoblog is this link to the new MG concept car. I can't buy one here in the US but I have to admit I really like the looks of it. God help my soul, I may really like this car. Flashing back, flashing back...

We found Mrs. Cubbison and apparently her first name is Sophie. I had no idea.  

Copyright Follies.. Part 5... Issue #3

In the earlier posts, I have examined some of the law behind copyright infringement and why the RIAA has continued to file suits when the evidence mounts against its effectiveness. The RIAA has chosen to file lawsuits rather than to stem physical piracy, enhancing global intellectual property rights, stop piracy from within (especially with respect to movie downloads, where the majority of movie piracy is from studio sponsored screeners) and most importantly give consumers the option to legitimately buy music. Now when buy music online (and movies) you buy it encumbered by a digital rights management scheme. So I will pose issue #3 like this: with copyright law failing to stop mass downloading, companies are trying to implement Digital Rights Management programs and what are the effects? What is DRM, why do they use it, does it work and why this further pushes people to download. This will be an exploration into the mind of a legitimate user and their descent into the world of copyright infringement.

As a starting point let's explore why copyright is ill suited to deal with downloading issues. From Douglas Lichtman:

Copyright law has had a hard time discouraging illegal activities of this sort, the primary reason being that the large number of bad actors makes normal legal process prohibitively expensive. The law could in theory still deter either by significantly increasing the penalties associated with these illegal acts, or by finding some strategy to lower the cost of bringing each individual case. Neither approach, however, holds great promise.

Further more Mr. Lichtman says this:

This landscape changed significantly, however, with the introduction of digital rights management and related mechanisms that allow content owners to opt out of copyright law and instead rely on encryption and monitoring technologies to control access to their work. Encryption and monitoring allow a content owner to package content such that it (say) stops functioning after a predetermined number of uses, or can be accessed only from a specifically licensed geographic location. The implication is not merely that authors can use the technology to expand on copyright law's default package of rights while rejecting copyright law's policy-motivated limitations, but also that authors can use it to assert control over phone books, databases, and other subject matter that the copyright system would leave in the public domain.

So copyright owners are moving out of an ill-suited (at least for mass infringement) scheme in favor of another ill-suited scheme.

Digital rights management simply put is a method for controlling how a digital copy will be used. In many cases, it causes a song to be played only within certain programs or on certain players. Cory Doctorow gives an example here:

If you buy into a proprietary platform where the music industry gets a veto, you're screwed. Every time you buy an iPod, you are financing legal and technical countermeasures aimed at taking away legitimate features that enable you to do more with your lawfully acquired music and hardware.

In other words, Apple saw that there was a program out there that they didn't want to be associated with the Ipod. So they had their lawyers shut down the sites hosting the program and then engineered Itunes so the program wouldn't work anymore. Very nice tactics.

Let's check out another telling example(this time from the TV industry):

Read your review about AnyDVD. Sounds great, but here's my problem:

I purchased a $2,000 Gateway Media Center PC a few months ago for the express purpose of 1) recording my favorite HBO shows (Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc.) and burning DVD's for my private collection; and 2) converting my home videos to DVD. All has been going fine, until 2 nights ago.

I recorded Six Feet Under and then opened up Sonic MyDVD, as usual, to import the video, edit out the beginning and ending junk, and burn a DVD for my personal use.

I got a message saying it couldn't be done because the file was copy protected! Huh?
...
So, what is this person to do? I told him about Overnet/EDonkey, and now the P2P service has another happy customer, and he has his shows, burned to his personal DVDs for his personal use.

So instead of changing their business models, the content providers have decided to offer that content with lots of encumbrances. How does this help the every day user and stop professional pirates? It doesn't. Again from Cory Doctorow:

Here's the social reason that DRM fails: keeping an honest user honest is like keeping a tall user tall. DRM vendors tell us that their technology is meant to be proof against average users, not organized criminal gangs like the Ukranian pirates who stamp out millions of high-quality counterfeits. It's not meant to be proof against sophisticated college kids. It's not meant to be proof against anyone who knows how to edit her registry, or hold down the shift key at the right moment, or use a search engine. At the end of the day, the user DRM is meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us.

So let's be clear here, the content providers go out of their way to hamper the personal use of their products without stopping piracy at any level. In other words, a legitimate user at some point will get tired of trying to stay within the confines of the DRM system and go outside of it.

If music was sold without DRM encumbrances would there be continued piracy? Probably, because there are consumers who will continue to flaunt the copyright system and will continue to illegally download music. But then again most people speed. Is it still illegal? Sure is, but we haven't started putting speed governors on people's cars yet? As we have seen, all digital rights management is a speed governor on copyrighted material. Just as people figure out how to defeat speed governors, so to will they figure out how to circumvent digital rights management systems. But when legitimate consumers have a chance to buy music and movies unencumbered and play it on any device of their choosing they could make lots of money. Unfortunately, considering the RIAA's past track record this isn't likely.

So ultimately, the RIAA and its ilk are trying to control the way people are listening and viewing their content. Instead of providing a means for legitimate purchase they go out of their way to encumber it with DRM. They want to charge for every conceivable future use of their products all in the guise of bolstering sales. Will it work? Only time will tell. The key is recognizing what is happening and choosing to do something about it. That's all for the series.