Lord of the Rings Humour: Parodies, Satires and More

And Megavideo--so many memories...

RIP Megaupload/video. We'll treasure the good times.

Spoiler:

I have no idea who he is, though your disdain suggests he really was living the good life and flaunting his wealth! Megavideo was especially useful though. I'll have to go and delete a few bookmarks to various and totally legal videos

Thus it begins. Before long the internet as we know it will no longer exist- it will just be the like dashboard on a xbox360- a virtual mall where the only inputs required are your card details!

RIP the internet- the last true area of human freedom and expression.

Did I miss something? Is the sky falling - again?

US governement bringing citizens of other nations to the their system and burning them on the altar of captialism. Megaupload was one of the worlds biggest file sharing sites and now it is no more. Us govt, Europe and others all have draconian legislation on their books which if fully implemented would close down a huge chunk of the web. Hence the recent blackout protest by sites like wiki.
Maybe for the next protest we should do the same.

Weren't the Chinese being criticised for the same kind of Censorship?

Let's be fair. The owner of Megaupload has been in and out of the justice systems of various different countries (mostly not the U.S.) for computer hacking, embezzlement, and insider trading, among other things. The shutdown of Megaupload and its associated sites was the result of a multi-year criminal investigation. This is in stark contrast to the proposed legislation in the U.S. and elsewhere which would essentially circumvent the justice system and allow copyright holders to order the shutdown of websites. Before we worry that the sky is falling and the Internet is ending, let's take a moment to remember that Megaupload is something of a unusual case.

Also, the SOPA/PIPA legislation in the U.S. was already floundering before the blackout protests and the added scrutiny brought about by that protest has sounded its death-knell. Many Congressional and corporate supporters have turned their backs on the legislation and it has been formally stalled (informally killed, at least for now). While there will likely be similar proposals in the future, it's worth remembering that while a lot of big corporations support such draconian measures, there are also powerful forces -- including mega-corporations like Google and Facebook -- opposed to them. Internet censorship is still a serious issue, but the situation isn't wholly bleak.

i don't know all about this case, but I am very against free downloading because.. well it is like stealing. the ones behind the video, book or whatever woun't get their money.
but it is a hard nut to crack, becuase there are so many layers. It could turn into censorship... and it is hard to find the person resbonsible. I think when the governement finally decides to do something about it, they will do to much or attack the matter from the wrong angle. the internett is moving fast, much faster than any congress man or whatever..
and what is illegal and what's not? google? wiki? facebook? piratbay? where is the fine line?
and if something ought to be illegal for e.g. Wiki, then the "rule" must go for all the others too,.. aah! it is such a brain twister to try and explain what I mean... but this whole case is so hard. Maybe if people had thought of this when the internett was founded, but now.. it seems it is too late or something.. the lack of rules made some pages an anarki, but on the other hand.. there are also kind of global ethical rules that we all follow somehow..

No doubting its complicated. And there are other ways of looking at it. Back in days of yore when music came on tapes it was normal to ratlle of a copy of a good song and put on a tape and give it to friends or family to listen to- no one called it theft- this makes it tricky- if I do the same equivelent now- buy a song online then back up to say an mp3 player or something and lend that to a friend is that now an act of theft? Apprently it will be if the industry gets its way.

Norc wrote:Maybe if people had thought of this when the internett was founded, but now.. it seems it is too late or something.. the lack of rules made some pages an anarki, but on the other hand.. there are also kind of global ethical rules that we all follow somehow..

Interestingly, this sort of thing actually was thought of before the Internet was founded! Back in the '80s there was a big moral panic over piracy through cassette tapes and VHS, of all things! It seems ridiculous looking back because, despite rampant use of piracy with that technology, they were successfully adopted by the content-producing industries and became big money-makers in their own rights. Digital distribution should be the same (and sites like Hulu are on the right track), but for whatever reason the content-producing industries are doing the same thing they did with VHS and trying to have it legislated out of existence instead of growing up and adapting to the changing marketplace.

A lot of people, especially those who create estimates of lost profit for the music and movie industries, assume that every download of a work equals a lost sale. But that's not at all true. A lot of piracy, especially in Europe, occurs because works are restricted based on national borders, leaving them unavailable or facing long delays to reach international markets. In other cases, even if the original work is available, the people who pirate it would simply never pay the original price anyway, so there are no sales being lost, even if the action is still morally dubious. Also, believe it or not, a lot of people will try out a show or a band by downloading or streaming it online and then, if they like it, actually buy the work despite having no previous interest in spending money on it. It's a much more complicated issue than staunch opponents of piracy would suggest (though I'm not saying that you are suggesting that yourself).

I think the most counterproductive myth about piracy that the content industries have tried to promote is that it's all the work of criminal networks, especially foreign criminals. The founder of Megaupload notwithstanding, piracy only occurs because there is a demand among ordinary, law-abiding consumers of media. The demand won't go away through aggressive legislation, so the industries need to embrace legal, profitable ways of filling that demand such as Hulu, NetFlix/Amazon streaming, and the like.

My ancestor, Orwell McOdo, had no problem with piracy.

Speaking in terms of music downloads here, I'm not sure if it's actually the acts that are suffering from illegal downloads. If a band is popular enough that they find their music being pirated, they are obviously a big band. Very rarely do you find torrents on the piratebay from acts outside of the popular remit of the top40. It may be hurting record executives slightly, but as to the actual creators, I see no harm. If their work is popular and out there they will get more fans. More fans who buy concert tickets (main source of revenue I suspect) I couldn't care less if the labels don't like it.

I also don't think downloading an album for free is steeling as such, nor more than grabbing a cd of a friend and importing it to your itunes libary, or recording a program to watch later. And others have mentioned, the majority of people who listen to it and become fans actually go out and buy something. Maybe the same album or maybe a new one. If they didn't have the means to get a hold of the music they might never become fans! Or maybe they were already fans and had bought the album previously! Agreed with Eldorion here. It's just borrowing, the sort of borrowing that's always existed among books and videos and cds, fans will still shell out dosh for things they like; even if they can get it for free! I also think the sort of people who pirate are the sort of people who often buy cds, videogames, and dvds, they've probably already given hundreds away to those publishers!!

Well, as long as you all pay for a copy of my song when Petty puts out the video, that's all I can say!

Filling corners

http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/filling-up-the-corners/

Hahahahahhahaha!!!!!!!!!!!! That's what I"m going to tell people from now on!

great one!

It could still go either way. We never know; Petty's crabbit meter might have another explosion once he sees the movie, and there's no telling how much damage it could cause this time.

It is Legolas and father Thranduil.

That's a nice drawing, but I must admit I prefer the 1970s version of Thranduil (made with 100% more cocaine).

@mayans:

Holy Cow I dont know which of those 2 drawings are scarier.