georgerussia

Then why can't I send a letter to this organization, tell them I'm the copyright holder for Metallica, so please wire me all the money from the trust to this-and-this account? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Then I do not understand your concerns. You seems to be fine with the fact that someone could sell your music for 1c, and you might get 1/10c out of if. Unfortunately, thepiratebay.org does not have statistics, so I've checked another torrent, which shows the download statistics (torrents.ru), and most music shared there has less than 500 downloads. So even if 10,000 copies are sold for 1c, your net lost is $10. If you think my estimation is wrong, please correct me. And this would be legal, and you'd have no objection to this way, right? *Note that to get those $10 out of the trust fund, you'll need to prove your copyrights and identity in foreign country, which is not cheap either. Well, here we will disagree. What Piratebay is doing, it is hosting a torrent tracker, which helps the end users to exchange the files. They do not distribute any copyright information, they only help users to find each others (and just for the first connection, since that the peers could discover other peers through DHT and they might not need the tracker at all). It's the users sharing copyrighted content - they are doing what is illegal in virtually every country. Regarding your "aiding and abetting", I just went to Google, and put "Douglas Spotted Eagle mp3 free" in the search box. A sixth site in the list opened directly on the mp3 page, and allowed me to download "Douglas Spotted Eagle - Silent Trail Mp3" for free. Should now Google be sued for aiding and abetting as well? After all, it did exactly what thepitarebay has been doing - showed the sites which share the requested content with those who search for it. Let's be honest. That is not just the government who charges them. That's IFPI and others why try to force the government (so far unsuccessfully) to charge them. Sorry, I'm not interested in extra $100/month (and I doubt it gonna generate even $100/month average). Too much hassle for too little money. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So what? People were slaves for years. It doesn't make it right or valid. It depends. For example, if the rapist belongs to some influend mob "family", this could happen very easily. In fact, it has happened before. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

From what I see: - it looks pretty formal even though the letter content is not that formal. This makes very bad impression. Note that those guys receive tons of official complains. If you go informal way, it might be better to have it wrapped in less formal container. - it states incorrect information (you have my entire library of works on your website), which again adds to the impression that you are a yet another DMCA-template lawyer who has no idea what the torrent is, and how it works. They are not. And they're not suppose to be. Yes, they do. The problem is, how much? For example, you're selling your album for $6.99 (and probably get $4.99 yourself after expenses). Allofmp3 sells the same album for 99 cents, gives 9 cents to the agency, and you're getting 8 cents per album out of it. Since you're not involved into the transactions, you cannot negotiate your price. Are you still fine with this scheme? Because if you do, it means you should be happy getting roughtly 1c per song, and you said you're selling it for 0.69, i.e. almost 70 times higher. There is a huge difference though - as far as I understand, the RIAA cannot just grab my song from CD or my web site, and start selling it without having an agreement with me or my agent(s). But allofmp3 can. I do not see any twisted view of the law. They have the only law to follow - the Sweden law, and AFAIR they're not violating it. There are a lot of things which are illegal in US, but are legal in other countries. And they do not steal from everywhere, so your claim is groundless. What I would do if I were you, is making your album available through torrent for free in a lower quality (like 128kb/s), and put some readme inside. Mention that you're a small band which revenue is only generated by the music you sell, and we made this available to you for free. So if you like the music, and you want us to bring you more music in a future, as well as get some high-quality music, please visit our web site. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Because "good buys hurting bad guys" could end up with so-called vendetta. Talking about scenario provided by Zyppo, when he would go and kill the offender. Let's assume the offender had a son, a brother or another relative. This way they'd probably feel that they have to visit Zippo (and maybe his whole family) with a shotgun. Looks like the same scenario - a good guy went after a bad guy, a convicted murderer who killed his father/brother/whatever. Then let's assume Zyppo has a gangsta-type relative... you could see pretty easily how the situation could involve a lot of people. That's probably why. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This could be the only explanation for around 30% voters going to "heroes". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Any chance your letter was "cease-and-desist" template letter, written in legalese and mention DMCA? Then it's expectable. People outside USA generally do not like when someone is trying to apply U.S. laws against them, and it often results in over-reacting. I personally succeed once to have our copyrighted software shut down on several torrent sites. We exchanged probably ten emails, no threats, no mentioning of DMCA whatever. Just asking and explaining. It worked. But when one sends someone an email assuming the another party is a scum and criminal, it would be not reasonable to expect any polite response. So what? Each country has its own laws - that's the fact you have to live with, no matter whether you like it or not. For example, in Russia (who signed Berne convention as well) according to the law, anyone could distribute music for profit without having an agreement with artist or label (and your music as well). To do it they will need a license from a non-profit government organization, and they have to pay this organization some fee per song sold. 10% of those fees are used to cover administrative costs, and rest 90% are supposed to go to the artist when the artist or his/her representative asks for it. This law allowed the sites like allofmp3.com (which has been now renamed to mp3sparks.com) to sell music pretty cheap - like 9c per song and 99c per album - doing it legally. Which makes a lot of difference. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

In California just using the information from the sex offender database to commit a crime or harrass a registered offender is a crime itself punishable by jail time. This was written on a note I've received once. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It was a good example to address the "tax cuts only benefit rich" point. For some people it seems to be hard to understand that if you pay $500 in taxes, the 1% tax cut will save you only $5, but if you paid $500K in taxes, the tax cut would save you much more. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sure. If I stop working and paying my rent, I'll be homeless in a couple of weeks. For most of us it takes hard work to be able to "sit in your house and laugh". You have to work and pay for this privilege, and you have to pay nothing to be homeless. As I said above, it's very easy to become homeless. Everyone in this world could do it. Going down is much easier than going up. For "lowering property value", right? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Me neither. Especially Hillary - a lot of times she opens her mouth something really stupid comes out; and she's not even a President yet. It looks now more and more like the famous Stainless Steel Rat for President: - Vote for me and end corruption in high places. Vote for me and I’ll have the Ultimados working as swimming instructors on a shark farm. Vote for me and see what honest government can really be like. I promise an ox in every pot, a gallon of wine in the cupboard, an abolition of all taxes, six weeks annual holiday with pay, a thirty-hour work week, retirement with full pay at the age of fifty for every registered member of the Nobles and Peasants and Workers Party - volunteers will pass among you handing out membership forms - free bull fights every Sunday, off-track betting by licensed bookmakers, plus a few other things that I will think of soon... My last words were drowned out by enthusiastic cheering that had no need of subsonics. If the voting were held at this moment - and the machines not rigged - I would have received every vote. I sat down, still waving, then sipped at my restorative glass. - Didn’t you promise a few things you can’t deliver? - Angelina asked. I nodded. - No one believes election promises, particularly the politicians who make them. I was thinking like that before the debates begin. Now, after watching all that circus, I'm not sure anymore. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's why it's good to have more than one citizenship (and passport). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Just found it stored in my "good_text" directory, the author is unknown: This is a simple way to understand the tax laws. Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand - suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men — the poorest — would pay nothing; The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh $7 The eighth $12 The ninth $18 and the tenth man — the richest — would pay $59. That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut). "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?" The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!". "That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were 52 DOLLARS short of paying the bill. And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. Where would that leave the rest? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

For $40K/year in mortgage - that's actually very cheap place for California. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If the employer strives to maintain drug-free environment, it won't help. It would only catch only those who has bee constantly high for last year. Like driver testing for alcohol only at the moment you're getting your driving license would not help to prevent DUIs. My friend in financial institution says that his employer runs credit check against all of them every six months. This was part of employer agreement. I also heard that driving records are checked on regular basis for airline pilots, and it's the airline policy, not the govt. If anyone has first-hand knowledge of this one, I'd be happy to hear whether it is true or not. This implies that employers who do not have such drug test policy must be ok having non-sober employees in the workplace :) Which is probably not true. So it wasn't the problem with the test itself, but with someone who didn't do their job right, correct? I'd probably even call this "malpractice", and such violation would not only make the test results useless, but probably would also carry some heavy penalties for those who've done it. And if this happens more than once, this person should definitely lose their medical license, and maybe some charges should be brought against. But if GC/MS was _not_ performed as it supposed to be, there is definitely an appeal process through the court. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Some insurance companies sell this kind of health insurance, which only pays when there's major event (like having 5K deductible and paying nothing until the deductible is satisfied). It is also cheaper. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

And the organs could be removed then? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So you're probably opposed to credit checks the financial institutions run on their employees, as well as previous conviction or TB checks for school employees, or checking driving records for bus drivers? After all, it all implies a lack of trust. Your statement assumes that an employer who tests for drusg only cares about drug usage at work, and therefore an employer who does not test for drugs, probably does not care about drug usage at work at all. My understanding is that the employer who tests for drugs is stiving to hire employees who do not do drugs at all, not just those who do not do drugs at work. It does not make difference then how legal or illegal was the drug usage, nor it makes any difference when and how much was taken. Yes, the tests are not perfect. The law enforcement cannot catch all the criminals either. However it doesn't mean the police is useless just because they do have "false positives" and "false negatives". The (approved) tests are reliable enough to be useful. And if anyone does not agree with the test results, there is a right to appeal. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

What if there is no next of kin? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

They seems to do - at least for the dead bodies who are not picked up from morques. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

But it *has* the purpose. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

My understanding is that there is no thing like "religious rights" in civil states besides the right of a person to believe in whatever they want as long as it does not harm others. But the State itself does not follow those rights nor it requires others to do so. Like the person has the right to believe he is a saint, and does not have to work. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The question is whether a dead body has any rights, or could be even considered as "someone"? Technically it could be even considered "abandoned property", in which case - in some countries I know about - the government gets kind of ownership about it. Also AFAIK if a person had some property during their life, did not have a will regarding this property, and there were no legal successors or they refused it, it becomes property of State. If the body was the person's property, it seems to fit into the picture pretty well. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'll play an asshole, and agree with this statement. For last fifty years we as a human race have been abusing the natural selection process. Which was there for purpose to keep the species healthy and competitive in the environment. And the results, in my opinion, are very close to total disaster. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why? Even skipping obvious cases like school bus drivers and commercial pilots. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *