my housemates are having sex right now

yep. time to put on some music and do some bloggin'.
got a lot of things on my mind lately. very busy.
been thinking about copyright. and opposition parties.
and the drug culture. and music.
and sedition laws. and a woman.
probably should have put that last one first.

on copyright: how about overhauling all copyright on all artwork and literature completely, in favor of a system modeled after the audio home recording act of 1992? the article i've linked to begins:

Contrary to what the RIAA wants you to believe, it appears that making a copy of an audio recording may be perfectly legal in the US, even if you don't own the original recording, as long as it is for noncommercial purposes.

how about that? according to the act, there are already surcharges on digital recording devices and medium that are paid into a musical works fund. so any time you buy a hard drive or a cd burner, or blank cd's for that matter, you're already contributing to a fund that is distributed to record labels, publishers and songwriters yearly. something like this could extend to art and literature in the form of a similar surcharge on paper, printer toner, photocopy machines and other printing equipment. then the copyright authorities (which includes me) could focus on actual infringements for commercial gain, rather than wasting time hunting down university students who just want to download new music or artwork for their dorm rooms (or their websites).

incidentally, this witch hunt the riaa is on is a sham -- the system is already in place to allow for the public consumption of music online. just track the downloads and pay the royalties accordingly, i say. who's going to tell the public they already have the license to copy?!

speaking of opposition parties (was i?), here i am with opposition member peter garrett-

peter, for those that don't know, was for years the lead singer of the australian band midnight oil. there are now rumors circulating that he could be in a position of leadership by the time the next elections roll around. this would be most welcome news for labor voters who have most recently suffered through a host of walking, talking psychoses in labor leadership.

it would also be good news for me, because not only do i have this badass picture, i have some old signed midnight oil memorabilia from a 1993 concert in atlanta.

i also personally think that mr garrett would be an excellent party leader, and leader of a country, if that's the next logical step, though it would be good for him to get a bit more used to the political tradewinds. he's still catching up to his new life as a 'pollie', near as i could tell.

by the way, mr garrett and i talked about copyright. we also talked about the exxon valdez wreck in prince william sound, alaska, 1989. he noted that exxon has still only paid less than 10% of the $6.5 billion in punitive damages they owe from that oil spill. one interesting thing that i would add to that is how ironic it is that exxonmobil would have been able to pay that off with their third quarter profits from 2005 alone. with $3 billion to spare.

life must be tough at exxon.

and what of the drug culture, music, sedition laws...
and that woman?

well, next time, perhaps.

(ily,sds)