Poker Perambulation

Not many will recognize that outfit these days.  It isn’t an honor society or faculty club at an Ivy League college.  This bit of ancient history dwelled just in a sleepy Hoosier town — Terre Haute.  They kept the post office busy. 

Columbia House was owned by CBS/Columbia.  It had ads in every magazine.  Its direct mail was as frequent as the most aggressive mass marketer.  The “great deal” was four records — now most of you don’t remember vinyl that well either — for just $.,99.   Such a deal.  What great folks compared with those CD sellers that are trying to bring about PIPA and SOPA.  But, actually, they were the same S.O.B.’s. The gimmick then was the negative option and contract.   Each month you got a mailing say some album would be on its way to you unless you sent the card they sent you back.   That’s about as sleazy a business plan as one can use and avoid the courts.   As technology changed it morphed to everything including good old 8-track.  It led in its own way by being one of the early sites spewing customer info.

That covers the quality marketing of the fine folks that are the RIAA.  The movie guys at the MPAA aren’t any better.   From Buzby Berkeley and Cecil B. on down, the cost were always something laugh/bemoaned in “the industry”.   If they couldn’t screw the audience… well, I’ll let our friend explain it to you:

 I am 100% opposed to SOPA and PIPA, even though I’m one of the artists they were allegedly written to protect. I’ve probably lost a few hundred dollars in my life to what the MPAA and RIAA define as piracy, and that sucks, but that doesn’t come close to how much money I’ve lost from a certain studio’s creative accounting.

So, the media emperors have again lost their clothes and humanity.  It will never end.  I mentioned publishing the other day and won’t go over their poor relations.

Part of the laws used to shut down poker crowd have been the same ones used on pirate sites and there has been plenty of heat over that without bring about more abusive laws.  That the marketplace has been in rebellion isn’t new.  The technology cost for you and I to do it with ease is more recent.  Some still can’t bring themselves to “steal” from the nice men with their hands always reaching for their pocket.  It is amazing the amount of creativity in rationalizing we can do.   But, even more amazing is the creativity that can be seen in creating another new media.

If I were to explain to you that you could steal studio content, I would probably get a nasty gram and subsequent threats of legal action.  They have backed off with the more common copyright “enforcement” of late because of the bad press about silver-haired grannies who evidently are downloading all the stuff from the latest teen heartthrob.  Ambulance chasers come in many guises.

Torrents is the technology they blame.   It is nothing more than a distributed network.  The problem isn’t that it is nefarious technology.  The problem is that the media people can’t monetize it.  But, for the one Luddite that I know is reading this, I can describe a site that uses bitTorrent — which can be downloaded here.  Why can I get away with it?   Well, there are — surprise surprise — quite legitimate uses.   Vodo is a site distributing using torrents.  It is out in front of the rush from the traditional middle men.   They have a number of indy feature films and scads of other docu-whatevers.  They lead the “cord cutter” trend that scares all the vested interests.  They are even bragging about the user financed movies that people damned by media self-interest villify.   So all you Luddites with varied threats aim at your not finding out another truth can click on the first and let it install.  Then you can click on the second and get legitimate viewing and explanations to ease the learning.

If you enjoy Pioneer One or some of the other indy stuff you downloaded via Vodo (and other similar sites), I suggest sending them a buck or two to help them eat and also come up with another decent idea that doesn’t have anything more creative than replacing Spencer Tracy or Liz Taylor in golden age stories that seldom get better because it the latest heart throb.  Vodo can help you do that too.

Isn’t it amazing what people can accomplish without needing congress or their friend telling them how to act?

ADDENDUM:

The above is quite legal.  The search function in that torrent program won’t necessarily continue that.  So don’t use that unless you can figure out some educational reason or avoid the further temptation.   And, should you want to succumb, ask a friend to explain things beyond this simple introduction.   With torrent downloads account for as much as 25% of all internet traffic, I’m just guessing that there are simple ways to avoid the MPAA/RIAA hangmen.  You believe I wouldn’t stoop to that, right….

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