Jolt Country

A few weeks ago I mentioned I lost my music collection when I dropped the external drive it was on. I still haven't gotten around to trying to retrieve the files by hooking it directly to a drive controller and using a software package to possibly get the files via the controller, but I may try that some time when I want to take the time to open my old computer up and attach the drive to its controller.

I can find virtually every song I had on YouTube, if I think of one I can usually find where someone has uploaded it either as a music video or as a video with the music, sometimes with their own pictures or the album, sometimes with lyrics.

There's a program called "YouTube Downloader" which copies these videos off YouTube locally to my computer. They keep releasing a new version every time YouTube changes something to try to make downloading videos from YouTube not work.

I might not bother, but (1) right now, Comcast - my Internet provider - sets a usage cap of 250 gb per month, not a problem for me but they could lower it; the CRTC in Canada is suffering from Regulatory Capture and has cut the amount of bandwidth resellers of Internet service can deliver for free from 250GB down to 25GB and is allowing Bell Canada to charge $1 per gigabyte above 25GB. (This basically makes streaming services like Netflix unaffordable, since the extra marginal cost of about 1c worth of bandwidth, the amount needed to stream a movie, is now being priced at about $1.)

So I download these files so if I want to listen again I don't use more bandwidth to play the same file over again. Otherwise I'd probably just stream them when I wanted to hear them.

(2) YouTube sometimes has the nasty habit of pulling a file because of complaints that it's a copyright violation; if I don't grab a file when it's there, it might be gone the next time I'd like to hear or see it.

For years, YouTube was known for how awful the audio quality was on their videos. I think everything from 2007 and older is actually in mono. I'm pretty sure the highest mp3 bitrate YouTube supports is 128. I'm not even an audio snob and I can barely stand to listen to anything lower than 192/bits; today, most people that compress audio either use 320/kbit or just encode use variable bitrate. Real audio snobs use lossless formats like FLAC.

"I'm going to start getting my music from Youtube" is like saying "I'm going to stop renting movies because my friend records them on his cell phone for me." Or, "I'm going to stop ordering food from restaurants because I can get it for free later from their garbage." And you are within your right to do any of those things ... just don't invite me over for dinner and a movie.

Flack wrote: I'm pretty sure the highest mp3 bitrate YouTube supports is 128. I'm not even an audio snob and I can barely stand to listen to anything lower than 192/bits; today, most people that compress audio either use 320/kbit or just encode use variable bitrate. Real audio snobs use lossless formats like FLAC.

"I'm going to start getting my music from Youtube" is like saying "I'm going to stop renting movies because my friend records them on his cell phone for me."

Oh please, you're being ridiculous. You're comparing an analog copy to a digital duplicate. Analog copies get worse in each generation, digital never changes.

And by the way, both Prince George's Memorial Public Library System and the District of Columbia Public Library have very large free DVD libraries of many films and television programs. The main (Martin Luther King) branch of DCPL alone has thousands of videos. They have about 300 feet of shelf space, about 4 or 5 rows of nothing but videos.

I do listen to the videos on YouTube first, and I can't tell the difference. I'm 50 years old, I'm sure my hearing is not as good as it was when I was 30.

And by the way, a lot of these are videos uploaded by the music studios themselves, so they're not (necessarily) bootlegs.

Also, my particular preference is recordings made during the 1960s and 1970s, with some 1980s, and 1990s songs. Not much after 1990 interests me but I do like Fall Out Boy's "Thnks Fr th Mmrs."

I came of age in the late 1970s, that and some from the 1960s was the music I grew up on. "The music of our lives." But there was still quite a bit of good stuff when I became an adult in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly by older groups. I don't know why, but the opening to Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" just blew me away when I first heard it.

You can't usually buy the older stuff today. I'm unlikely to find a current CD carrying New Colony Six "Things I'd Like To Say" or Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven."

My brother also still has several hundred 45s and albums that I should see about converting over to OGG files. It used to be very difficult to find a turntable until manufacturers realized they could make them with capacity for people to convert their music to MP3s.

Flack wrote:"I'm going to stop ordering food from restaurants because I can get it for free later from their garbage." And you are within your right to do any of those things ... just don't invite me over for dinner and a movie.

Highly unlikely as you probably would think some of the stuff I eat was from the garbage. I make a mean chili and ramen mix I call "slop" because that's what it looks like; it's very tasty which is why I make it, not because of cost.

Yesterday was "wing Wednesday" so I ordered a PZone and a 22-piece wings order from Pizza Hut. If cost was a defining issue I certainly wouldn't order out, but I made a much larger order because the price is less (wings are 50c each on Wednesdays.)

Also unlikely because I'm next to Washington, DC (about 4 miles north) and you're someplace in Oklahoma, oh, call it a couple thousand miles apart. A little hard for either of us to come over on short notice.

---
"I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. Slurp!" - Hannibal Lector

Tdarcos wrote:Oh please, you're being ridiculous. You're comparing an analog copy to a digital duplicate. Analog copies get worse in each generation, digital never changes.

My point wasn't to compare digital to analog. My point was that while YouTube may have a large selection of audio files, they are of shitty quality. Sometimes I wonder if you understand what analogies are? Also, to clarify, by mentioning eating out of the garbage I wasn't suggesting mp3s could be planted, watered and eaten.

Tdarcos wrote:And by the way, both Prince George's Memorial Public Library System and the District of Columbia Public Library ...

Irrelevant.

Tdarcos wrote:I do listen to the videos on YouTube first, and I can't tell the difference.

There are people in the world that can't tell horse from beef. To paraphrase Queen Marie Antoinette, "let them eat horse."

Tdarcos wrote:And by the way, a lot of these are videos uploaded by the music studios themselves, so they're not (necessarily) bootlegs.

True ... although, part of the YouTube terms of usage states:

"Content is provided to you AS IS. You may access Content for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the Service and as permitted under these Terms of Service. You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content. You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. YouTube and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content."

By downloading those audio files, you are breaking the YouTube license agreement. Such unbecoming behavior for a notary!

Tdarcos wrote:You can't usually buy the older stuff today. I'm unlikely to find a current CD carrying New Colony Six "Things I'd Like To Say" or Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven."

Amazon: Donovan's Greatest Hits
Amazon: Best of New Colony Six

Tdarcos wrote:My brother also still has several hundred 45s and albums that I should see about converting over to OGG files. It used to be very difficult to find a turntable until manufacturers realized they could make them with capacity for people to convert their music to MP3s.

My dad bought one made by Ion from Big Lots. Obviously you would have to weight the cost vs. downloading each song in shitty quality from YouTube.

Tdarcos wrote:Highly unlikely as you probably would think some of the stuff I eat was from the garbage. I make a mean chili and ramen mix ...

Irrelevant.

It's worth pointing out that:

1. Ol' Fumblefingers Robinson is dropping hardware again.

2. TDR attributed half of Flack's original reply to Ice Cream Jonsey.

I think it was worth pointing those out, anyway.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:2. TDR attributed half of Flack's original reply to Ice Cream Jonsey.

I noticed that, too.

Flack wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:And by the way, a lot of these are videos uploaded by the music studios themselves, so they're not (necessarily) bootlegs.

True ... although, part of the YouTube terms of usage states:

"Content is provided to you AS IS. You may access Content for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the Service and as permitted under these Terms of Service. You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content. You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. YouTube and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content."

By downloading those audio files, you are breaking the YouTube license agreement. Such unbecoming behavior for a notary!

It's not a crime, at worst it might be an infringement but it might not be even then. Actually, I just realized it isn't.

It's a self-serving notice and an adhesion contract. I never agreed to it. There was no click-through license, requirement to sign in or obtain an account or other requirement to retrieve content. One can go directly to any page or URL on YouTube without ever seeing their license terms, thus they can't bind them to you. If you could only get to a particular link only by clicking on an agreement page or you could only get to videos by logging in, there might be grounds to argue that you are subject to their terms of service. Would a court hold people to a provision in their TOS that by connecting to the service or using it - even though you don't have to sign up - you agree to pay them $9.95 an hour, a day, or a month? I find that highly unlikely.

Klocek v. Gateway, Inc, found adhesion contracts unenforceable, because they require at least the possibility of subjective consent. If I don't have to do anything to get access to their content except go to it and don't see their notice, I can't be held to have consented to it, ergo it doesn't apply.

Besides, you're ignoring Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), otherwise known as the "Betamax" case, where the court said "If the Betamax were used to make copies for a commercial or profitmaking purpose, such use would presumptively be unfair. The contrary presumption is appropriate here, however, because the District Court's findings plainly establish that time-shifting for private home use must be characterized as a noncommercial, nonprofit activity... that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact that the entire work is reproduced, see § 107(3), does not have its ordinary effect of militating against a finding of fair use... When these factors are all weighed in the "equitable rule of reason" balance, we must conclude that this record amply supports the District Court's conclusion that home time-shifting is fair use." I'm not making copies to sell them or give them away, I'm making them either so I can hear them at other times, when I'm off-line or when I don't have Internet access.

I'm doing the exact same thing the U.S. Supreme Court said was fair use and perfectly legal in the Betamax case.

I do not accept that someone has the capacity to reduce the legal protections granted by the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis of a self-serving declaration in an adhesion contract that makes no effort to bind me to it.

Could a television station post a notice saying you can't record its shows or say you can't watch its programs without watching the commercials, and say if you do you owe them $20 per hour or $200 per day, and actually enforce this in court if they found out someone was doing this?

Someone suggested this, if you put up a website named "donotconnecttothiswebsite.com" and on the site was a notice saying you were not authorized to connect to it, and your connection to any page - even the main page - subjected you to a $400 per page fee, would anyone seriously claim that they could enforce such terms? If someone clicked on a link on a page that went to another page on the website, would their terms of service entitle them to go into court and demand $800? Or even $400?

Could I post such "terms of service" on my messages here, then sue the users of this website who read my messages, and expect that a court would support my TOS and actually allow me to collect?

If an adhesion contract can be made applicable to the other party in the absence of proof of agreement, this could basically spell the end of the web. Even a parking lot shows you their contract on the wall so you can see it before entering, and requires you to take a ticket to open the gate before it would be binding upon you.

Otherwise I might just consider doing this, then tracking down and suing people to collect these fees. I could use the money. Do you really think a court would uphold my terms of service?

Just like a good Objectivist... you can do anything you want as long as you come up with a convincing enough (to yourself) rationalization.

pinback wrote:Just like a good Objectivist... you can do anything you want as long as you come up with a convincing enough (to yourself) rationalization.

Exactly what is erroneous about my argument, Ben? Does my argument make sense?

Do you think someone should be able to impose any terms unilaterally and without even the slightest semblance of evidence of agreement, even to impose unilateral terms in complete contradiction to what the Supreme Court said was legal?

Let me ask you this: Do you really think you could get a court to enforce a condition on visitors to your website saying they owe you money for visiting?

It's not a rationalization, it's a recognition of common sense and what the law actually says. Not what YouTube thinks the law should say or what they want it to say, but what it is.

pinback wrote:It's worth pointing out that:

1. Ol' Fumblefingers Robinson is dropping hardware again.

I'm referring to the original mention when I told how I had my two hard drives on top of my computer and they slid off. I haven't dropped any other hardware. I may be stupid some times but I'm not that stupid.

pinback wrote:2. TDR attributed half of Flack's original reply to Ice Cream Jonsey.

I think it was worth pointing those out, anyway.

Yes, it was, and I have corrected that. Thank you; I mean that, seriously.

Oh, by the way, there's a site named "Benparrish.com" that requires a password just to get to the main page! (Yes, I know it's not yours, Ben, it's registered to some guy in the U.K.)

Also someone else has "pinback.com". Same thing as me, I couldn't get PaulRobinson.com nor paul-robinson.com, other people got them.

But I did get paul-robinson.us and paulrobinson.us. And it took me three years, but I also got both versions of ".org" .

Tdarcos wrote:Also someone else has "pinback.com".

The worst band ever has that domain.

I now feel bad for lashing out/back at Ben after merely dabbling in the source of his madness. Have an omelette on me.

(TDarcos: That does not mean I am inviting Ben, a person who lives halfway across the country, to fly 2,000 miles, place an omelette on my body, and eat it.)

Flack wrote:I now feel bad for lashing out/back at Ben after merely dabbling in the source of his madness. Have an omelette on me.

(TDarcos: That does not mean I am inviting Ben, a person who lives halfway across the country, to fly 2,000 miles, place an omelette on my body, and eat it.)

I know you don't mean that literally, I'm not that stupid. But sometimes you say something and I like the simile so I'll crack wry wisecracks.

I wish I had the guts to use it, but under federal law, it's illegal to make obscene phone calls, but as the recipient of a phone call, it's legal to be as insulting as you want to the caller.

An associate of mine I used to rent a room from once said when he got really annoying or insulting people calling him, or people he wanted to make them hang up - like bill collectors - he'd use a line like I don't care how nicely you ask me, I'm not going to let you suck my dick.

Flack wrote:I now feel bad for lashing out/back at Ben after merely dabbling in the source of his madness. Have an omelette on me.

That reminds me, I have a device, my sister gave it to me for Christmas. It looks like a china mug with no handle and a lid or a tiny cookie jar with a vent hole. You coat the bottom and insides with butter or margarine, then you take two eggs, break and pour them into it, whip the thing up so you break the yolk, put anything else you want in it like mushrooms, or cheese or anything else, and put the cover on, then nuke it for two minutes.

You have to take it out with potholders, but when you open it, you have an instant omelette. Always works perfectly. Was $7.95 at the store she bought it from. Only problem is you get an omelette that looks like a ball or a donut instead of a flat one. But it's very tasty.

Flack wrote:I now feel bad for lashing out/back at Ben after merely dabbling in the source of his madness.

He has a source for his madness? Would you care to explain what it is? I thought he was created from binary fission that way, like all bacteria.

---
Charles Bronson:What made you decide [to kill me], was it because of your father?
Jan Michael Vincent:You killed him? I thought he just died.
- The Mechanic

Tdarcos wrote:He has a source for his madness? Would you care to explain what it is?

It was you, alright! I learned it by watching you!!

Tdarcos wrote:That reminds me, I have a device, my sister gave it to me for Christmas. It looks like a china mug with no handle and a lid or a tiny cookie jar with a vent hole. You coat the bottom and insides with butter or margarine, then you . . .

Come on, tell us what you really do with this device your sister gave you.

RealityCheck wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:That reminds me, I have a device, my sister gave it to me for Christmas. It looks like a china mug with no handle and a lid or a tiny cookie jar with a vent hole. You coat the bottom and insides with butter or margarine, then you . . .

Come on, tell us what you really do with this device your sister gave you.

As they say at the CIA, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Well, I think I'll do something that is so bad, 27 states have court orders - fortunately Maryland isn't one of them - preventing me from doing so. I'll post a video of me using it.

Oh and before you say anything, it's making the videos they stopped allowing me to do. What I did was okay, it was taping it that was so horrifying the courts said my filmmaking technique was basically pure obscenity and thus unprotected by the 1st Amendment, it was worse than Uwe Boll.

"The judge who presides at a trial may, upon completion of the evidence, be exceedingly ill-disposed towards the defendant, who has been shown to be a thoroughly reprehensible person. But the judge is not thereby recusable for bias or prejudice, since his knowledge and the opinion it produced were properly and necessarily acquired in the course of the proceedings, and are indeed sometimes (as in a bench trial) necessary to completion of the judge's task. As Judge Jerome Frank pithily put it: "Impartiality is not gullibility. Disinterestedness does not mean child-like innocence. If the judge did not form judgments of the actors in those courthouse dramas called trials, he could never render decisions."
In re J. P. Linahan, Inc., 138 F.2d 650, 654 (CA2 1943).
- Liteky v. United States, 510 US 550 at 561