Take it easy, Don Henley
How crazy are things starting to get with IP? Companies suing every other company. Music industry trying to extort money from regular people. Basically, trying anything and everything OTHER than trying to solve issues using creative methods. It’s funny, but if it weren’t for Apple and iTunes, the music industry would have died a long time ago.
Now we have this beauty. According to a USA Today opinion piece from Eagles drummer and singer Don Henley, blocking and banning any site that breaks copyright laws (in this case, illegally downloading Henley songs) from Google and credit card payments is something that should be supported… and if you don’t supported, well you are either a terrorist or a criminal yourself. He is referring to the PROTECT IP Act.
Critics of this pending legislation need to be honest about the company they keep and why they essentially aid and abet these criminal endeavors. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil liberties group, claims such a bill would “break the Internet,” while Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says it sets “a disastrous precedent” for freedom of speech. No one has the freedom to commit or abet crimes on the Internet. Stopping crime on the Internet is not, as EFF says, “censorship.” There is no First Amendment right to infringe intellectual property rights.
Luckily, EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation) board member Brad Templeton (yes, brother of famous Canadian comic artist/writer Ty Templeton, whom I mention often in this blog) wrote an amusing response to Don Henley:
Take it Easy, Don. There’s a New Kid in Town, and it’s called the Internet. Get Over It. I Can’t Tell you Why, but in The Long Run, there isn’t going to be a Heartache Tonight. One of these Nights I hope you’ll you understand that for search engines to Take it To the Limit, they can’t be forced to police every search result.
Internet companies only grow when living Life in the Fast Lane, able to operate, innovate and design products without needing to check for permission from the music industry. If every time you wrote a song you had to worry about what every user who plays it and every store that sells it might do with it, you would lose your Peaceful, Easy Feeling quickly. Big companies might run filters, but if the small ones had needed to they would be Already Gone.
When will the music industry learn?
Fan-made Opening Titles For The Walking Dead
Daniel Kanemoto of Ex Mortis Films put together an opening sequence for the new AMC show The Walking Dead. Motion comics really are starting to gain a special place in my heart.
I really enjoyed The Watchmen motion comic and I hope we get more in the future. I think it adds a nice twist to the comic genre (and we all know the comic industry needs all the help it can get these days).
Marvel has a whole site for their motion comics which everyone should check out. There is also some cool video of Batman Motion comics here.
Main titles for Frank Darabont’s television adaptation of THE WALKING DEAD, animated using artwork ripped from the pages of Robert Kirkman’s celebrated comic book series.
I personally like this fan-made intro a lot more than the actual AMC one (not that the AMC one is bad). Either way, Daniel did an amazing job with this so check out Ex Mortis Films for other work he has done. If you are interested in the process of making the intro sequence, one of my favourite websites, The Art of the Title Sequence, has a great production breakdown.
Will You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse?
I don’t know about you, but I am well versed in the art of zombie apocalypse survival. In case you haven’t trained your whole life for this one purpose like I have, this chart will help you figure out what kind of zombie you are up against. I just maybe, you will survive long enough for me to find you and steal your supplies. Remember, machete beats a gun any time… why you ask? You will inevitably run out of bullets! “Read More” to see a full res version.
About Me
I created my first web site in 1994 and have been working full-time designing web sites since 1996. I currently work as an UX specialist and Information Architect.