Longing for the day ...

Accurate sarcasm ...

Just read this little snippet from Techdirt, which notes that since the German School shooting a lot of people, including a Police Chief, have called for a ban on violent video games - citing a link between them and school shootings. Now, I'm not a fan of violent video games and think the world would be no worse off had they never existed. But I'm not a an of tinned Tuna, either ...

Great quote from the writer at the end:

Violent people probably eat sandwiches, so let's ban them, too. I bet they have all ridden in cars, too, so riding in cars must cause violent behavior -- ban 'em. This correlation/causation thing is easy, isn't it?

Harkens to an earlier Techdirt post about Intellectual Property laws being based on moral arguments rather than evidence ...

Killng the music industry - Torrentfreak style

Great article on Torrentfreak about the factors affecting recorded music sales. It lists 8 changes since the advent of Napster that would have had a major impact, and it's not wrong.

Of course, it's a little self-serving in denying that file-sharers and pirates would have made some difference, but it's great to see some plausible alternatives listed. I'm pretty sure the decline in recorded music sales (as opposed to the music industry, which is FAR from in decline) has many causes that are very intricately inter-related.

All this has been driven by the Pirate Bay trial, which has produced some ... interesting ... statements from both sides. Well worth keeping up on.