The Audio Duel Is Growing Close Over PPL.

The RIAA, in its infinite wisdom, has now decided to go after one Jeffrey Howell arguing that ripping songs from a legally purchased CD is illegal.

My first question is how the hell did Mr. Howell get "caught"?

Anyway, this entire issue is a subterfuge to the main point that most consumers have no awareness of. The bottom line is that the RIAA is driving towards a singular goal that the recording industry has been after forever. They want all of us to Pay-Per-Listen. Make no mistake about it. This group will never be happy until that's what they get. It's what they're pushing for with Internet streaming music stations. You play a song and you pay per listener. That's PPL.

Once again this group is penny-wise and pound-foolish. They neglect to realize that this sort of approach turns everyone off in the long run and creates industry-wide stagnation. Let me touch on a bit of history.

Back in 1976 Sony ended up in court in a landmark case known as Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. In it the courts decided (and again in a 1984 Supreme Court ruling) that non-commercial home use recording is considered fair use. This ruling had a dramatic and immediate effect on the industry. What was a completely stagnant market suddenly turned into a hugely successful industry. The publishers never had it so good even though they wanted it the other way around.

Now with music sales in decline the industry is again looking to clamp down on its bread and butter over a short-sighted concept. Here they are attacking Mr. Howell, who legally bought their product, and want to ruin his life over this step in their goal of PPL.

Put it this way. I own over 3,000 CD's. I bought every one of them legally. I fully support this industry. I pay them time and again. I bought the original album from "ELO" on an LP record (along with countless other performers). I then bought it again on cassette tape. I then bought it again on CD and just recently bought it a fourth time in digital format. Now the RIAA wants to tell me that I am a criminal and that I am their problem because I want to take the music I purchased and listen to it at my leisure on my iPod.

Again, do not become distracted here. The music industry only wants to do this to set the table for PPL. It doesn't matter that if they reach that goal no one will be left to listen as we'll all have had enough by then. They don't think that far in advance.

I want to know, as a consumer, how much is enough for these people? The answer is that this is a group as a whole that are never happy. They are never satisfied. They want to be paid every time you even think of their product. I buy their performances. I go see them live. Enough already.

Consumers already dropped the ball by allowing and supporting the concept of licensing of content instead of outright ownership. This was the first of our huge mistakes. This opened the door for the publishers to tell us they could do anything they wanted and we had to accept it.

Imagine if a potato chip maker sued you because you shared the chips you bought with others at a party. This is the same exact thing. How dare you take their work (the chips) and sate the desire of others by providing them with their product! You were licensed only to use these chips for your own personal use. Sharing them with others denies the maker potential customers. They should go home hungry and wanting of the chip makers products. In fact, where's your license fee for your wife and two kids?

If we allow this move towards PPL where does it stop? Next we'll be told it's illegal to play music in your house while others are listening. Why should they have their music itch scratched for free at your house? They should go home depressed and in need of music they buy for themselves. You have a party and have 20 people over? You need to pay the artists for each listener. I guarantee I can find you a dozen artists who would argue that point with you.

Look at the video business. They put out a product and put it on VHS. They made a ton of money. They moved it to DVD and they made a ton of money. Now they're improving their product and moving it to HD and we'll pay again. What a novel concept. Improve your product and get paid for the work. Instead these people want us to continually pay for the same thing (or less in the case of low-quality MP3's that cost more per song that what you had on CD).

I am tired of footing the bill for people who view me as a criminal. Meanwhile the real criminals are beyond their reach. I'm tired of being the honest one who gets ripped off by the industry while they call me a thief.

It's time for consumers to wake up and realize what's going on here and let the industry know that enough is enough.

The Year In Movies

While not a complete list, it appears on first pass, that I've reviewed 30 different movies here in 2007 (and I don't think I'll be seeing another one today or tomorrow).

The list:

• There Will Be Blood *
• I Am Legend *
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets *
• Juno ****
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead **
• American Gangster * 1/2
• Beowulf **
• No Country For Old Men ***
• Lars and the Real Doll ****
• Dan in Real Life **
• The Darjeeling Limited ** 1/2
• Across the Universe ***
• Nightmare Before Christmas 3D ***
• Gone Baby Gone ****
• Michael Clayton * 1/2
• 3:10 to Yuma *** 1/2
• Superbad ***
• Bourne Ultimatum * * 1/2
• Sunshine ** 1/2
• Stardust ** 1/2
• No End In Sight * 1/2
• Transformers *** 1/2
• Ratatouille ****
• Sicko *** 1/2
• Evan Almighty *
• Surf's Up *
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End *
• Shrek The Third *
• Spiderman 3 *
• Letters From Iwo Jima ****

I also saw (that I recall) but didn't review (though a couple I was sure I had):

• Once *** (A indie that deserves your attention)
• Eastern Promises ** (which I thought was just okay)
• Hot Fuzz ** (which was funny but not great)
• Knocked Up *** 1/2 (extremely funny)
• Captivity * (nothing more predictable this year)
• Rescue Dawn * (which I swore I wrote about as I hated it)
• In The Shadow Of The Moon ** (interesting but not great documentary)
• Breach ** 1/2 (very good but a bit plodding)
• The Simpsons Movie * (a TV episode, any one, would be better than this)
• Live Free Or Die Hard *** (fun from the first shot on)
• Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix * (snore)
• 1408 *** (one of the very few really good horror movies of late)
• The Hoax *** (great story that's hard to believe wasn't made up)
• The Valet ** 1/2 (very funny and surprising foreign film)
• Death At A Funeral ** (very funny at times but a bit hit-and-miss)
• Disturbia ** (saw this on DVD and thought it was pretty decent)
• Blades of Glory * (saw this on a plane and it bored me more than the flight)
• Music And Lyrics ** 1/2 (a very warm, very funny movie that should have done better)
• 300 * (please don't make me trip over this ever again)
• The Astronaut Farmer * (another one on a plane and another snooze-fest)
• Premonition * (so bad I forgot I saw it)
• Bug * (a DVD rental I will never, ever forget for how bad it was)
• Mr. Bean's Holiday * (nearly made me forget how much I like Rowan Atkinson)

Looking down that list of 53, there a number of them that stand out. The best movies were Juno, Lars And The Real Doll, Gone Baby Gone, Ratatouille and Letters From Iwo Jima.

If I had to pick my best of the five of them then it would come down to Gone Baby Gone as the best picture I've seen in 2007. Letters From Iwo Jima would be a very close second. I'm still in complete amazement that Ben Affleck has managed to so convincingly prove to everyone that he's a tremendous director on top of all his other capabilities. Of all the movies above, this one continually comes to my mind as the movie I talked about the most, thought about the most and was most moved by. There's nothing in it to dislike in my view.

On the other side of the spectrum I've seen a lot of bad movies this year. It's amazing to think that we carefully choose all the movies we see from the rest of the lot that get released and yet we still manage to see so many bad movies. Perhaps much of it has to do with seeing more than 50 films a year. It also should probably be this way so that the better movies stand out that much more for being as good as they are.

The worst of the worst movies come down to five that I even had a hard time getting down that far. The five are Surf's Up, Premonition, 300, Bug and Mr. Bean's Holiday. Picking of worst movie out of this bunch is, I think, even harder than picking the best movie I saw. Each one of these is, in my view, entirely forgettable and flawed terribly. I have a suspicion that a couple of the movies above several people would take issue with even being at the bottom of my list and I'm going to pick one of those as the absolute worst of the worst. Among those that disagree would be my best friend who also sees most of these with me. The worst movie I've seen this year would have to be Bug. I can think of nothing I enjoyed about it. People even recommended it to me which really makes me wonder. I just didn't get this movie even a little bit. By the time it got to the aluminum foil I was ready to hang myself and I'm a big fan of Ashley Judd.

Legendary Treasures Lack Entertainment Value

We saw two movies during the holiday time frame. The first one is "I Am Legend". I looked forward to seeing this one since hearing about it a while ago. I've always really liked the 1971 portrayal of the story in "The Omega Man" starring Charlton Heston." It was typical for an early 70's movie in that it includes some scenes that don't age all that well but the overall effort is quite entertaining and interesting.

The latest incarnation stars Will Smith and, of course, pretty much no one else. I was, to be brutally honest, bored to the point of having dozed off for a short bit. Much has been made of the effects and how convincing Manhattan looks after suffering the effects of mass desertion. I wasn't impressed at all. My biggest question is, where are all the bodies? Where is all the blood? The streets are devoid of everyday human life but it seems that perhaps some janitorial service still functions to remove all traces of human bodies each night.

There are countless things that are introduced only to go entirely unexplained throughout. Why, for example, does Will Smith's Doctor Neville hunt deer around the city? Does he need the food? Is he looking for subjects to study? Is he just bored silly? We're never told.

Then there are the bad guys. Okay, they look neat but they too make no sense and there's one that really defies explanation. Don't look to the movie to try to explain this one either. In Omega the baddies are interesting, haunting and understandable. Here we've got someone who thinks viewers can only accept more zombies. The result is that they're pretty much lifeless and uninteresting. Good choice there.

I found virtually nothing in this movie to recommend. It was slow. The effects are a bit cartoonish. Idiotic plot choices come up at every turn. For a brilliant man, this Doctor Neville leaves me wondering how he manages to tie his shoes each day. The worst of this happens with the ending sequences that fail to provide any relief from the earlier disasters. The biggest disaster story of this movie is that someone thought this was an entertaining re-telling.

The other movie we saw was, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets". The first incarnation of this sequel received pretty poor reviews and yet I found it entirely entertaining and interesting. When the bad reviews for this one came in I ignored them hoping it was more the same as the first time around.

Sadly, this version takes just about everything from the first movie that was interesting and tosses it out the window. It then provides us with a silly, entirely unbelievable, poorly acted movie with over-the-top, entirely unnecessary special effects. The producers managed to take a "Da Vinci Code"-like experience and turn it into something closer to "Speed" (but not even as good).

This started out boring from the word go. It was prefaced by a Disney short featuring Goofy that discusses the benefits of a home theater. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It was overly long and showed, with its lack of laughs, why we haven't seen Goofy (my favorite Disney character) in some time.

Where the first movie included hard-to-believe plot points, this one just goes way too far past the line into the absurd and, worse, makes it all boring to boot. I want the brain cells back that currently hold the memory of the entire scene that revolves around a large square platform balanced oh so perfectly on a needle-like stone point.

Finally, I hope this will be the last we see of the love interest here played by Diane Kruger. Her accent is entirely distracting and her acting, for me, isn't much better. The biggest surprise of this movie is that Helen Mirren decided to take part in it. I can't even begin to imagine what chain of events happened to bring that about.

So much for great entertainment during the holidays.

Juno is a Roman Goddess

Tonight we finally got around to seeing the long-awaited "Juno" after seeing previews for it going back several months. It was worth the wait.

Once again we were a bit apprehensive as Rotten Tomatoes had it rated as a 94. As I've endlessly stated, movies that have universal appeal tend to be over-the-top in areas that simply do not appeal to average movie viewers like me.

I started out thinking this one was going to follow the trend as nearly all the funny parts of the preview were exhausted fairly early in the film. Thankfully the movie then continued on from there without missing a beat. One real concern is that the preview is a bit misleading. It portrays this as a fairly dark but solidly repetitive comedy and it's certainly not that.

The movie is funny here and there but it's much more a wonderful examination of real life and the variables that play themselves out when youth is confronted head-on by complex adult decisions. The acting is superb. Everyone is talking about it's star, the young Ellen Page, as being a shoe-in for not only an Oscar nomination but very likely an Oscar win. I think that's overstating it a bit. She's wonderful but I've also seen some solid efforts aside from this one. The stand out in this movie to me is the ever-dependable Allison Janney. I believe this one should get her some consideration for Best Supporting Actress. My only gripe in the entire cast is Michael Cera whose appeal I just am not seeing. He fits this role slightly more than the one he had in "Superbad" but not by much. I will be entirely shocked if we find out later that this actor is heterosexual, not that there's anything wrong with that. His kissing scene with Ellen Page's character looked so ridiculously wrong that it stuck with me for most of the rest of the movie. He looked like he'd been asked to kiss and hug a radioactive mannequin. He's either gay or loves acting like one in the movies.

Anyway, this is a very enjoyable story with some real impact. It's not for everyone as it is a bit dark and doesn't fall neatly into a nice declarative bucket that many like. It's not a straight comedy, straight drama, etc. It is what it is and that's a good movie.

Baseball? What's that?

The Mitchell Report is out and it set the sporting world on fire. It unmasked a number of players as having taken part in steroid abuse but, then again, not nearly as many as was rumored to be included.

I wanted to be interested in this story but I just couldn't get myself to care.

Understand that this isn't a diatribe from someone who never cared for baseball. I played it heavily as a kid. I coached my own son through Little League. I started a fantasy baseball league in 1985 long before most anyone else had ever heard of such a thing (and actually before that term even existed). That league ran for 11 years. During that time I'd gone to many games. I lived baseball. Every evening I tuned into ESPN for the latest news. I could name a dizzying number of rookie ball players and the familiarity increased the further up the minors you cared to go. I was a baseball junkie.

I had already started, by the start of the 1990's, to have some serious reservations about the sport. I'd seen a number of things that had damaged it as far as being a fan was concerned. First was free agency. I grew up as a die-hard Phillies fan. It was important as a fan to know that each year you'd come back with the same nucleus of players to build upon the effort of prior years. I got to watch Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski and a host of other players grow within the organization, mature and, finally, win the World Series in 1980. Even during the lean years, these were our guys. You felt for them and grew with them even if they didn't win. Free agency destroyed all that.

Suddenly no one played for a team for more than a few years. I no longer felt tied to the Phillies. Fantasy baseball and free agency turned me into a general fan of the game itself. I still rooted for the Phillies but I wasn't as emotionally tied to them like before. That had a direct result in a reduction of desire to head to see games in person.

The skyrocketing costs brought on by free agency also hurt. You used to be able to go to a game for a reasonable price and have a great time for a reasonable amount. Suddenly it became a huge outlay of cash to go. Season tickets became a dream only for those who could write off the expense for business or who had hit any number of life's lotteries.

The final blow came in 1994 during yet another labor strike. It was the 8th such stoppage and 4th in 23 years. At the end of the 1994 season baseball canceled the entire post-season including the World Series. Two world wars, a decade-long depression and an earthquake couldn't stop the World Series and yet for the first time since 1904 a century-long tradition was being thrown away.

That was it. I realized at that moment that I'd reached my limit. This sport, it became clear to me, no longer genuinely cared about me as a fan. They only saw me as a means by which they would all get their share of baseball's pie. They preferred that I'd just continue to make my investment, shut up and keep living in the dark. That wasn't for me. I vowed then and there to divest myself of my interest and investment in baseball. Our fantasy league collapsed. No one cared to revive it. I stopped going to games. I stopped watching. I lost touch. Today I couldn't tell you the name of a single minor league player. I'd be hard-pressed to name more than four or five Phillies' players.

I've been to a couple of games since but only when I was given tickets by others. Mainly I went only because I wanted to expose my son to the pro game for his own valuation. Thankfully, he finds minor league baseball just as interesting and more intimate and fun.

What baseball forgot was their side of the investment. Many people out there are like me and have now raised a generation of kids who don't have the same love for the game built into them. They have better things to do than worry about the status of this game that their parents used to care about. My son has no idea about this latest news and that's great in my view. He, and his friends, will grow up devoid of this crutch and baseball will pay the price for its short-sightedness.

Once I moved off the baseball drug I found I had more time to invest in other things. I found I didn't need it. I found I really didn't care who won or lost. I caught tidbits of the home run chase between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa but didn't search it out. I knew then that something was wrong with respect to drugs. We had Lenny Dykstra here in Philly and it was clear that this guy was not on the level. I also remember Barry Bonds well. He was the centerpiece of my fantasy baseball outfield for years. I drafted him as a skinny kid who'd just materialized in the Pirates organization. It was evident to me that he was growing in ways people don't naturally grow no matter what the denials stated.

When I caught tidbits of stories about his chasing the venerable Hank Aaron for career home runs I found myself wishing him ill will. Even with all the time away, just getting even a little close to this "game" brought out negative feelings. How could baseball stand by knowing this was all a lie? How could they let someone like Barry Bonds laugh in the face of true value by cheating to steal history away from those who came before him?

And now I read that the Mitchell Report suggests that nothing happen to these guys--that the time has passed for that and that they should just make changes and move on. This sort of thing is why I started thinking of baseball in the same way many view "professional" wrestling. Little did I know that fantasy baseball was what everyone was playing all along. I'm just glad I haven't invested any more time, money or emotion into this sorry excuse for a national pastime.

Didn't Escape Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Just got back from seeing "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead".

It wasn't a bad movie. Again, another case of wonderful acting from the entire cast but generally a movie that felt like something that had covered ground we've seen many times before. Nothing in it came as a surprise and, personally, if you want to see a better movie of the same type see, "A Simple Plan".

It seemed to me that those responsible for the movie knew this was well-tread ground and tried to spice it up by adding a series of completely unnecessary and, ultimately, plot-line trouble exposing flashbacks. The flashbacks jump around so often that you often wondered what the heck the point was. It would go from present day to a week ago, to 3 days ago, to 1 day ago, to 4 days ago then back to the present. Just tell the story and stop with the circus tricks.

This is yet another well-received movie that I'd suggest most people skip. It's just not worth the bother. Well, okay, if you're curious to see Marisa Tomei topless for much of the movie, and wow she has a tremendous body, then perhaps it's worth a DVD rental.

A Great Christmas Gift

For those in your family with a genuinely good sense of humor, that includes being open to some racy and extremely politically incorrect commentary, pick up "Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition".

The is, in my view, the second real stand-alone book from the parody experts over at "The Onion". The first book, "Our Dumb Century" is a classic in my view and, to be frank, I didn't think they really had the ability to even remotely come close to matching it for sheer hilarity. That book pretended that their paper had been around for all of the 20th century and presented us covers and snippets of the greatest stories of the era, as they (ahem) covered them. I would honestly say it's one of the funniest books I've ever read and I've read a lot of funny books. However, once I finished it I was certain it would be the last truly funny and original book I'd see from them. In fact, when I first ran into this book on their website I didn't think it could possibly be all that funny. I ordered it essentially on the hope that it might turn out to be a tenth as funny as the "Century" book. Then it showed up and I realized I had another gem in my hands.

The hilarity starts from the very front cover and never lets up. It is, of course, not the 73rd edition but is the first such endeavor but that won't stop these guys from keeping up the facade. The cover boasts, "Now with 30% more Asia" and lists among the improved features, "Fewer Clouds On Maps". It even continues the jokes right into the photo credits and index at the back of the book. Every page is filled with incredibly funny tidbits about the countries of our world. The United States, of course, gets a dominate number of pages covering not just the country but each area of the nation down to a snippet on each state. North Carolina's entry informs us that the state is 100% committed to getting its citizens to stop smoking but insists that in order to do so it must first get them all to start.

Even simple things like the couple of pages explaining how to use the Atlas are filled with jokes. There's a great narrative directed to "Barnes and Noble Browsers" telling them, in no uncertain, and entirely colorful words, to put the book down or pay for it.

There are wonderfully funny "facts" listed about most countries. A couple favorites include Canada's worst hockey team being called the Expos. They were so bad that they managed to play hockey on grass with some sort of round puck. In the US there's a great entry about the Wright Brothers that goes something like, "1902 - The Wright Brothers, Orville, Wilbur, Samuel, Michael, Jonathon, William and Taylor embark on the first of many tragic test flights." Belgium informs us in its history that they managed to slow the advance of the Nazis during World War II by using a military strategy known as "dying in large piles". South Africa notes that it experiences a serious crime every 17 minutes but that this can't be verified as their watches are stolen every 12 minutes.

Another personal favorite section is the small snippets given for commenting on flags of the countries. France's, at the right, says something to the effect that their flag is conveniently designed to allow for tearing off of the left and right thirds in the event of an emergency surrender. I'd love to tell you about the people of Wales but even I think this blog isn't quite up to handling that level of racy language (but boy is it a gut-buster).

I initially was worried that I'd get about 10 pages of intermittently funny snippets and instead every single page has delivered the goods. I've read it to countless laughing friends and taken it with me to group events only to see it being fought over around the room. It's not for everyone but it is a treasure for those of you with the type of personality that love this sort of thing. It can be had online or at virtually any bookstore between $20-$30 for approximately 250 pages in a nice hard cover tome of joviality. I can't wait to finish it just to proudly place it on the living room coffee table.

Ripped Off By American Gangster

Last week my friend and I saw "American Gangster". The only positive thing I can say about the experience is that the acting was superb.

I honestly felt like the movie was four or five hours long. It just drug out every detail to degrees I just didn't care about. Don't get me wrong, I've often enjoyed longer movies. This one just makes you want to take a nap during most scenes.

There was nothing original in the story at all. The only revelation is that it claims to be a true story and I had no idea about that going in. Perhaps that's why there's nothing new in it.

Frankly I'm surprised that it rated into the 70's on Rotten Tomatoes. Any reviewer that recommended this snooze-fest should be viewed with skepticism from here on out. I suspect most of the positive reviews came from the elitist reviewers who fancy themselves as students of the art of film making and not a student of understanding the market.