the white drew carey

Frankly, things are still a tad unclear and everyone is basing their opinions on the matter as to how they interpret the whole situation. As of yet, to my knowledge, no challenge and, hence, no ruling has been made as to ownership of the whole franchise. One could safely assume that the ultimate goal of the legal wrangling in Japan is BigWest's attempt to discern whether or not Tatsunoko had the ability to transfer the rights to everything Macross over to HG, and whether or not HG's claim of blanket ownership is hot air, or if they have a leg to stand on. Only the future will tell as to the final status of this conlict. As quoted in Game Informer, for Bandai to publicly state that they are considering releasing the new Macross game in the states might mean that some sort of impass may have been cleared, or that maybe they're just saying that simply for the hell of it.

Gaaahhh!!! I'm an ass. What can I say?

Maybe because Tatsunoko knows that BigWest is completely in their rights to do whatever they want with the sequels they've created. Remember, HG is the one who suddenly, out of the blue, made a stink about anything Macross being released outside of Japan. Tatsunoko probably never would've been involved (or cared) if BigWest didn't suddenly feel the need to clarify, in the courts, who owns what. Without seeing any market projections, I think this statement is a little premature. I'm sure none of us have seen how much money was earned by whom with the releases of DYRL, MacII and Mac+. There is money in toys, but there is also money in film licensing.

Private usually means with people you know. P2P on Kazaa or Napster is with a bunch of unknown people. You have no idea who the person is you are dealing with. PRIVATE: True. I think the point he was actually getting at was that P2P is not private, since anyone with can browse through the files you've made available. There is no selection process with a P2P and you cannot refuse service to an individual person without, ultimately, refusing service to the whole P2P community. Privacy, in the long run, means that not everyone is or can be privy to whatever it is that's being held private. P2P is not private.

I thought it had been determined that Tatsunoko only owns the animation. IIRC, Abombz! had located info stating that ownership of animation simply means ownership of animation, meaning the actual, physical animation. I may be mis-remembrin' this, though. I'll have to dig through the info I've got to see if this is correct. But why should BigWest have to divulge information? They have history on their side. They've been actively producing, distrbuting and licensing Macross productions for the past 15 years with no involvement and nary a peep from Tatsunoko or (until 2000) HG, whom had suddenly decided, or realised, they own everything Macross only a couple of years ago. So when the feces hit the fan, BigWest and Tatsunoko went to court to figure out the specifics. Meanwhile, HG made claims that, once challenged, they refused to back up with proof. Although possible, I'd say it's highly improbable. If the rights granted were to everything Maaaross, Tatsunoko could've been standing to make a LOT more money on their initial investment. If what HG is saying is true, Tatsunoko, regardless of whether or not they were involved in subsequent Macross productions, would've had full jurisdiction over international licensing of said productions, including the profit to be made by granting those licenses. I don't think cultural attitude would've had any bearing on a company neglecting what is the closest thing to a free-ride they can get. Besides some sort of involvement in DYRL, Tatsunoko, as a corporate entity, has not been involved in anything Macross-related since. Yet, for HG to own the rights to all Macross outside of Japan, Tatsunoko would have to hold those rights as well. Which means that DYRL, macII and Mac+ were all licensed without the consent of the very company which, supposedly retains those rights. I strongly doubt Tatsunoko would let opportunities for profit such as that slip by. edit- this time I left out whole sections of words!!!

A good point. An interesting and extremely possible scenario is that the original contract between BigWest/Nue and Tatsunoko doesn't make any mention at all about future projects. That leaves a possible opening for one side to say, that the contract simply meant EVERYTHING Macross, whereas another interpretation could mean ONLY SDF: Macross, the TV Series. This, and this alone, could be the basis for HG's claims. But part of the problem is that HG has been unclear (either intentionally or unintentionally) regarding their claims and at other times have significantly altered what they claim their rights to be, occasionally from one convention to the next. Another point (and I KNOW I've brought this up before ) is Tatsunoko's inability or unwillingness to call out BigWest for licensing out other Macross productions by themselves. If the original memorandum granted Tatsunoko the Macross rights outside of Japan, why haven't they said anything? Some people say it's because HG owns Macross outside of Japan, and not Tatsunoko. But I think that's not true. In everything RT that I see it clearly says ©1985, 20xx Harmony Gold USA/Tatsunoko. That leads me to believe that Tatsunoko is in part ownership and HG didn't completely buy out the rights. HG has said a lot of things and, sadly enough, they've been caught before. If not by outright lying, at least by bending the truth quite a bit (the infamous "No one was minding the store" excuse is a good one). Also, there really isn't any proof that HG actually has talked to Bandai or Yamato. IIRC, Graham asked the guys from Yamato once if this was true and they had no idea what he was talking about. I could possibly think it was true of Bandai, but not very possible. I mean, until the chunky monkey re-issues, Bandai had only done certain VF's from Mac7. Why would HG want to bring those over when there's not a large market or a production to correlate with? And by the time the re-ishes were announced, the whole legal fiasco had begun and even if HG did talk to Bandai by then, I think Bandai would've said the same thing they've always said: "We're gonna wait until things clear up a bit." My allergies are killing me right now. edit:yeah, yeah, yeah... I spell bad. Agent One... strike me down!!!

My buddies and I had a band in high school called The Regal Beagle Boys... maybe we should think of having a reunion gig in honor of Jack.

There's a new article on CNN about how ticked college students are: http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09/10/la...reut/index.html My personal favorite is: Sure... and I think gasoline is overpriced*, so I guess I'll just start stealing that, huh? But this one's the runner-up: Any person who refers to themselves as "technologically savvy" should... well, you figure it out. The last part of the article gets me as well. Now, I don't know where most people buy their music, but I've never spent more than $13 (before tax) on a CD before in my life, unless it was a double set. Maybe people should actually shop around instead of going to FYE, Tower or Best Buy. There's a lot of places that sell CDs for less than the big boys. *seriously. OPEC and the oil companies are much bigger villains than the RIAA. isn't it amazing how the UN bombing in Iraq was such a precursor to further terrorist activity that they just HAD to raise the gas prices... just in case. lucky for them the price-hike came just in time for Labor Day weekend! isn't it more amazing that after labor day weekend, the threat must've gone away, because gas prices dropped?

Pat Payne- Nah. As long as Wrylac and I keep it civil and keep it here, we're allowed to sound like broken records as much as we want. Don't worry... one day I'll turn him over to the light side of the force!!!

Two things I'm curious about that makes this kind of iffy- 1) The article states that this tax is paid to RIAA companies. Would that mean that congress has decided only to give this money to certain record companies, and yet make ALL music available under this law? I think that would be kind of ripping off the hundreds, if not thousands of other record companies, both large and small, that are not part of the RIAA. 2) While I haven't perused the links themselves, it seems there's more behind the law than just what Slashdot has decided to report. Already the words "private noncommercial use" bring up questions as to what the intent of that statement. It could possibly be argued that "private noncommercial use" and "home taping" were not intended to endorse making said audio recordings publicly available. Maybe this is the loophole everyone is looking for. Maybe it's not the skeleton key after all. Time will tell, but it does make things a bit more interesting.

Billie Holliday didn't sneer as much as Billie Idol does.

I've noticed that many MWers, myself included, like to illustrate different aspects of our point via A), B), C), etc. But, as you can see, the B part turns into B). Is there anyway that smiley can be changed... or do we have to start numbering our points as 1), 2), 3), etc.?

The media INDUSTRIES... yes. But I don't buy their music. Most labels which would be considered part of the "industry" are part of the mainstream radio set. Labels that uber-promote their artist and create a "superstar". That's an aspect of the major-label's system which creates a self-perpetuating machine that needs to make lots of money off of CD's simply to promote their next big thing. What's sad is when bands like Green Day or Blink 182 sign to a major label. These bands were doing just fine on smaller labels but felt the need to be bigger and hence, signed on to become part of the machine. The problem is that for every already-successful band that makes it big after signing to the majors, there is 10 other already-successful bands that signed to the majors and fell through simply because they weren't marketed and/or marketable to the mainstream radio set (ie- Samiam, Jawbreaker, Face to Face). Most of the music (about 99%) are band son smaller labels who make an adequate living and want to stay that way. They're not making total bank, but are living comfortably with what they do make and are actually having fun doing it, instead of bruning out likfe most products of the "industry" do. But the problem with file swapping is that 10,000 people can download Metallica's new album and Metallica won't even feel it. But if 10,000 people download Chixdiggit!'s new album (when it ever comes out), that's about half of the total pressing for that band, and Chixdiggit! will feel it in their wallets. The point being that Chixdiggit! probably makes about $3-4 per CD sold, whereas Metallica probably makes about $.50. So the argument that fileswapping doesn't hurt the artist isn't true at all. It probably doesn't hurt artists on major labels, but smaller bands who make a higher percentage from each CD will get slaughtered.

As long as cheapskate file-swappers (who would probably steal from a small, independent label who doesn't charge a lot for their CD's and pays their bands lotsa yen as unashamedly as they'd steal from any RIAA-participating label) will simply admit that what they are doing IS technically illegal, I'll be happy with that. But it seems no one will actually do that. Then I'll wait for them to bitch and moan when their favorite band can't put out albums as much as they used to because they had to get a 9-5 job in order to make money. I'm just sick and tired of the FIGHT THE EVIL RECORDING EMPIRE attempt at justification when, frankly, you just don't want to pay for things. Ech... I'm just sick of arguing the point. People's battle lines are already drawn and that's that.

NEW ICON SETS!!! PM me if you'd like these sent to you as well.

STOP!!! IF YOU WANT ICONS SENT TO YOU: Pick which sets you want from the list below and PM me your e-mail address with the set numbers. IF I'VE SENT ICONS TO YOU: I've fixed the problem where several icons have black boxes around them when not being used in the dock. PM me if you'd like the updated icon files.

Yellowlightman- I forgot Eming- Please PM me your e-mail address. Combined Arms- Kick ass avatar. My favorite plane in the whole wide world. I'm currently trying to fix up several icons. For some reason, when they are not used in the dock specifically, the background is black instead of clear. Let me see if I can fix them and then I'll e-mail them off to you.

Here's another one that's just personal taste, but certain elements of the VF-19A seem a tad pixelated. I took the image and threw a single blur filter on it to kind of smoot things out. Original on the left, blurred on the right.

I would think the RIAA did nothing because each and everyone of those points could essentially be proven in court as a tool for benign purposes.

True, but you're missing another point. MP3 piracy is exactly what's supposed to happen in capitalism. As far as I'm concerned, when the RIAA makes competitive MP3 services available, then d/l-ing illegally is morally wrong. Ummm... I don't remember anything I ever learned in school stating that stealing a product is a normal part of capitalism. The RIAA doesn't feel they have to make a competitive MP3 service, they're already selling CD's, and that is the competetion. Beside that point, there are already several pay services online. THAT is direct competition. But people still fileswap because THEY DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. I think it's funny that so many people are using so many excuses to jusitify their actions when the real reason they fiileswap is because it's free. In summation- People can argue the point with me all they want. And I do agree that this whole situation is a big fiasco and the RIAA is just a self-preserving beast. But the simple fact is that I am pointing out what the law currently dictates in this situation: Owning an MP3 of a copyrighted album or song without also owning a legitimate production copy of that album or song is illegal. Making available, for free, over the internet that same song/album is illegal. I mean, you do realise that this is the same issue on whether or not it's OK to bootleg Macross productions that are legally available here in the U.S. (such as the TV series, MacII, Mac+ and, to some odd extent, DYRL)? PS- Many people are mentioning the big labels and the bands that only put out one good song per album as a major point in their argument. Seriously, do yourselves a favor and go to a local concert. ANY CONCERT. Go to a local music store and ask where their label sampler section is. You can get a CD of about 25-30 songs showcasing all the bands on a certain small label (or in some cases, several labels) for the about $3-$4, literally the production cost of the CD. The moment you realise there's a whole world of bands out there who aren't played on the radio or aren't on a major label and are actually self-promoting and being reasonably successful at it, you'll immediately feel better. You'll start respecting these bands who put (gasp) 10-12 good songs on a 10-12 song album. You'll want to buy their CD (usually straight from one of the band-members at the merch table) for $10 because you know most, if not all, of the money is going to the band.

You ain't just whistlin' dixie!!! I want to be a Wanzer when I grow up. I hope this game is released over here. My wife is in grad-school now so I need something to occupy my time when I'm not working!!!

What for all that is good and holy are you talking about? Like, lineart blanks, or what?

What's even better is a lot of bands on indie labels will sell CDs on tour for a lot less, because many indie labels will give them a box and just make them pay for manufacturing, so the band reels in all of the profit.

Well, that's part of the question. Are the tracks you have legally recorded from a live concert? Technically, you can't record live music unless the band/label/venue/promoter says you can. Otherwise, those are bootlegs as well. But will they go after you? No. Because they're assuming you bought the legit albums when they were released. Look at the Grateful Dead. The bootleg tapes you could find of that band outnumbers their actual releases about 1000 to 1!!! But the fanbase, for the most part, would still buy the studio albums when they were released. But still, the music industry is really just pointing out the law. Music is copyrighted and, by buying the album, your just buying the privilege to listen to the music that they own. This goes beyond what the record industry says and is based in U.S. Law and concurrent laws in other countries. Does the record industry need a wakeup call to their arcane business practices? Yes. Is the RIAA taking the completely wrong route with it's current course of action? Yes. Is downloading music that is not officially available on the web illegal? Yes. Have I ever downloaded music? Yes Was it officially available by the band or their label? All of it. Does any of this effect me? Not really. For the most part, I listen to bands on smaller "indie" labels that treat one of their bands with more respect than a Large Multi-Corporate Label treats their whole catalog.

That's the pricing that most indie labels have. But then again, the artists on indie labels get A LOT more out of their album sales. One wrong part of your equation is the Import pricing. The pricing on imports shoudl acurately reflect the cost of getting it into YOUR market from somewhere else. One of my favorite bands, The Wedding Present, had imports in the late-eighties that ran $25-$30 a CD, because only one copy would make it over at a time. Once they became semi-popular (but before their CDs started being released domestically) the price of the imports dropped down to about $15-$18 in an Indie record shop. Simply put, though, downloading music is illegal unless it is gotten through a legitmate service or by the artist/label themselves. People just like to use the "Sticking it to the man/RIAA!" excuse to justify thievery.