The Pipelines are Not the Police

This is a very sensible ruling by the US Supreme Court. The RIAA is one of the more rapaciously evil organizations out there, and speaking as someone who is nominally represented by them, they don’t do much to make sure the musicians actually get paid.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday (March 25) rejected a billion-dollar music piracy lawsuit filed by the major labels against telecom giant Cox Communications, ruling that the internet service provider cannot be held responsible for infringement by its users.

In a decision against Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music, the justices unanimously overturned an earlier ruling that held Cox liable for thousands of songs illegally shared by its users — a decision that led a staggering $1 billion infringement verdict in 2019.

“Countless people use the Internet for legal activities, but some use it to illegally share copyrighted works, such as songs and movies,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court. “Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights.”

In a statement, the Recording Industry Association of America said it was “disappointed” in the ruling, saying there had been “overwhelming evidence” that Cox “contributed to mass scale copyright infringement.”

“To be effective, copyright law must protect creators and markets from harmful infringement and policymakers should look closely at the impact of this ruling,” RIAA chairman Mitch Glazier said, though he stressed that the “narrow” ruling would apply only to internet service providers and not to websites that host infringing content.

In its own statement, Cox said the ruling was a “decisive victory” for internet providers and their users: “This opinion affirms that Internet service providers are not copyright police and should not be held liable for the actions of their customers — and after years of battling in the trial and appellate courts, we have definitively shut down the music industry’s aspirations of mass evictions from the internet.

Copyright law is a joke that protects gatekeeping corporations instead of the financial interests of the creators. It hurts more than it helps, especially given the limited viability of the average creative product, which is mostly measured in weeks, if not days.

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Now in Print

THE SECRET GUIDE TO WORD MAGIC

Owen Benjamin grew up hiding under a cardboard desk to survive a nuclear blast, eating margarine because the food pyramid said so, and learning about heroin from a cop who made him act out an overdose in school. He was taught he descended from a primate through random mutation, that he was spinning on a ball of liquid nickel inside an explosion that came from nothing, and that the stars he saw at night were already dead.

How to Slay a Wizard is about the people who run the tricks, the tricks themselves, and the one lie at the root of every spell ever cast on a living man or woman. It is not a political book. It is not a religious book. It is a book about manipulation, who does it, how it works, and why it requires your participation to be effective.

Once you see the secret spells, you will never stop seeing them.

And then the wizards can no longer deceive you.

HOW TO SLAY A WIZARD is now available in hardcover and paperback editions at Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and at your local bookstore.

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RIP John Bradley

John Bradley, the longtime member of this community who was the founder, producer, and lead guitarist of Booster Patrol, died on March 20. He was 61.

I couldn’t think of a better way to pay tribute to the man who was both a bandmate and a friend than to write a song for him in the style of which he was a master. You can hear the first mix of the song here; when I finish it properly, I’ll put it up on Unauthorized in the Booster Patrol section.

Johnny B laid down his burden late on a Friday night
With the music of his band still ringing in the fading light
Saint Peter met him at the gate, said Son, we heard you play
Leo Fender built this gold guitar and he saved it for this day
The choir’s been singing acapella ever since the world was new
They need someone who knows the sad notes, they say that man is you

He wrapped his hands around that neck, felt the weight of holy gold
Every fret a year of sorrow, every string a story told
He hit a chord that shook the heavens, the angels stopped to hear
A tone so long and lonesome that Saint Matthew shed a tear
Peter said “We don’t need pretty, son, we’ve got harps here by the score
We want to hear that swampy sound that kept ’em coming back for more

Now every night in Heaven there’s a sound they never had
A solid gold Fender wailing every note both beautiful and sad
The choir hits the chorus, the Almighty taps His feet
And Johnny B is boosting live up on that golden street
He played the broken-hearted blues from Beale Street to Monsignor
Now he’s jamming up in Heaven and he couldn’t ask for more.

Lay it down, Johnny B
Make that sound, Johnny B
Hit that chord
Lay it down, Johnny B
Make that sound, Johnny B
For the Lord

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A Fake Ceasefire Offer

I cannot believe Iran is going to entertain a third round of negotiations after the Fake Trump administration attacked it twice in the middle of the talks.

Donald Trump is seeking a one-month ceasefire with Iran and has submitted a 15-point peace plan as Washington hunts for a swift off-ramp from the war. Middle East envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are working on a framework involving ‘the declaration of a monthlong ceasefire period, during which the sides would negotiate,’ sources told Israel’s Channel 12.

The 15-point plan, modeled on Trump’s Gaza deal, was confirmed by two officials briefed on the talks, the New York Times reported.

It includes Iran dismantling all of its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities, as well as opening the Strait of Hormuz, and abandoning its ties to proxy terror groups across the Middle East.

The proposal outlines reciprocal benefits for Iran, including assistance with advancing its civilian nuclear program, as well as lifting all sanctions imposed by the international community.

Pakistan delivered the plan to Iranian officials with a 24-hour deadline to respond, Haaretz reported.

This strikes me as a transparent attempt to get the Marine Expeditionary Units past the Strait of Hormuz. But regardless, why would anyone talk with Kushner, Witkoff, and Trump anymore? They’re obviously agreement-incapable.

All a one-month ceasefire will accomplish is permit the Epstein Alliance to restock and reload. I’m sure Putin and Lavrov wish they hadn’t fallen for the Minsk 2 talks, which is why they keep turning down similar ceasefire offers in Ukraine.

UPDATE: Iran isn’t falling for it.

Iran has targeted American military bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain in a fresh missile salvo after Donald Trump sent Tehran a 15-point peace plan to end the war.

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She Has This Sense

Laura Loomer just has this sense that something bad is going to happen. Presumably it’s the sort of sense that Larry Silverstein had when he took out an insurance policy on the World Trade Centers.

Laura Loomer * @LauraLoomer

Soon, there will be a massive Islamic terror attack in America and the perpetrators will likely have financial ties to podcasters and those who are sowing discord for foreign nations in America.

I predict there will be many casualties and only then will it maybe set in that people have been conned into supporting a terrorist psyop to distract you from the threat of Islam while the enemy plotted to destroy our country from within with botted conspiracy theories.

It will likely be 10 times worse than 9/11.

And it’s going to trace right back to the Woke Reich in some way.

I just have this sense.

Do they seriously believe anyone is going to believe anyone but Israel and its Ziocon allies is responsible for the next big attack on the USA after the failure of Israel’s attempt at regime change by air war in Iran? And they’re going to try to kill two birds with one fake stone by somehow blaming it on “podcasters” and the nonexistent “Woke Reich”?

These lunatics aren’t merely crazy and evil. They’re totally obvious. No wonder they have so much contempt for Americans, considering how many Americans are dumb enough to fall for their self-serving fictions.

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Schrödinger’s Airport

Independent sources are claiming that Ben Gurion airport in Israel has been completely shut down after 73 planes and several runways have been destroyed. The pro-Israeli mainstream media has been insisting otherwise.

Ben Gurion International Airport, located in Israel, is operational and serves as the main international airport of the country. It has not been destroyed and continues to function as a key entry point for travelers.

Of course, the fact that the same source highlights the fact that there have been no hijackings there tends to raise a few questions about how up-to-date this source happens to be. And the fact that the Iranians just launched the 78th wave of missile attacks from launchers that were 90 percent destroyed three weeks ago and missile stockpiles that were about to run out on March 6th tends to cast a certain amount of doubt on the Epstein Alliance’s information about the war.

If you want to know why the Epstein Alliance is losing the war, this is why. Gamma strategists like the kind who run Israel and the USA are so accustomed to lying and bluffing their way to success that they never realize when their tactics have run into the wall of reality. The constant pretense that everything they do is successful and devastating while everything the enemy does is pointless and ineffectual accomplishes nothing except provide them with more time to deceive the public, but sooner or later, people notice things like nonexistent missiles being fired and open, undamaged airports somehow not having any flights landing or departing.

Of course, we’ll get something closer to the truth once the sudden transition from “everything is super fine and peachy” to “we need rescue now” is made. It’s a bit ironic that we’re still supposed to believe that a few hours of a border incursion by light infantry on motorbikes is a massive deal that justifies all manner of genocide and war crimes, but 78 waves and counting of missile barrages that have sent shocks through the entire global economy is nothing.

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The Blame Game Begins

Pete Hegseth appears to know that his time in the Short Fake Trump administration is coming to an end:

This is the uncomfortable moment Donald Trump appeared to shift blame onto Pete Hegseth as he suggested the Iran war was his idea.

Speaking Monday at a conference in Tennessee, Trump said: ‘I called a lot of our great people… and I said, “Let’s talk. We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country known as Iran that, for 47 years, has been just a purveyor of terror, and they’re close to a nuclear weapon.”’

Turning to the Secretary of War who was sitting to his right, Trump added: ‘And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. And you said, “Let’s do it, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”‘

Hegseth forced an awkward smile as the US President continued discussing ongoing talks with Iran, claiming they had ‘started last night.’

This is how we know it’s not the real Trump. The real Trump would have fired Hegseth already.

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Arkhaven Goes Wide

We’re introducing a new feature on Arkhaven: Subscriber Rewards.

This gives comics reators a way to connect Arkhaven perks to membership systems they already run elsewhere. If a creator already has a subscription, membership, or supporter setup outside Arkhaven, they can now use it to offer benefits here for early-access and comment privileges.

The creators control the terms. They decide what rewards to offer, what they cost, and who gets access. That can mean anything from a paid reward to a free bonus for readers who check in on a favorite series. To help manage this, Arkhaven also now includes a minimalistic Message Center where creators and readers can handle subscription-related questions, requests, and approvals in one place.

Arkhaven is not part of the financial transaction and does not charge anything for hosting the comic or facilitating the rewards at this time. The creator handles payment through their own system and makes the final call on reward access for their series. So if a reader has questions about payment, eligibility, pricing, or approval, those questions should go to the creator offering the reward.

This is the first version of Subscriber Rewards, and we plan to keep building on it. More reward types and more ways for creators to use them are on the way.

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SANSHIRŌ by Natsume Sōseki

“You have no nerve at all, do you.”

With those words from a woman he will never see again, Sanshirō’s journey to Tokyo truly begins. Published in 1908, Natsume Sōseki’s Sanshirō is one of the most subtly perfect coming-of-age stories ever written.

Ogawa Sanshirō is twenty-three, fresh out of his provincial college in Kumamoto, and arriving at Tokyo Imperial University with a head full of vague ambitions and no preparation for what he finds in the city. A stranger on the train tells him Japan is doomed. A woman standing by a pond glances at him once, and that one glance changes his life. He has entered, as his fast-talking friend Yojirō informs him, three worlds at once — the academic, the real, and the imaginary — and he is not sure which world is the one where he belongs.

Sanshirō is a novel about the distance between what a young man sees and what he understands. Sanshirō watches everything and misses everything. He is observant, earnest, paralyzed at every decisive moment, and so thoroughly out of his depth that the reader grasps what is happening to him long before he does. Sōseki handles his hero with a tenderness that never becomes pity and an irony that never becomes contempt.

This new translation by Kenji Weaver, whose acclaimed translation of Sōseki’s Kokoro introduced a new generation of English readers to Japan’s greatest novelist of the Meiji era, captures the novel’s luminous stillness and psychological depth in clean and highly readable English.

This was a more difficult work to translate satisfactorily, since unlike Botchan and Kokoro, Sanshirō already had been translated very well by Jay Rubin, who is best known for translating Haruki Murakami. However, improvements to our translation system and the heroic efforts of Kenji Weaver did, on the fourth attempt, manage to reach the high level of quality we deemed necessary to justify releasing a new translation of the classic 1908 coming-of-age novel.

As I mentioned yesterday, we have now officially launched the weekly translation subscription at Castalia Library. So, if you are either a) a voracious reader or b) interested in supporting what may be the most ambitious program of bringing untranslated works to the English language ever proposed, you can support Castalia’s efforts and receive a newly translated ebook every Monday by signing up for a paid subscription to the Library site.

Of course, we’re just as happy if you prefer to simply buy whichever books happen to appeal to you as they come out. Because I can assure you that the next two series of translations, by Yoshikawa Eiji and Benito Pérez Galdós, can legitimately be described as absolute bangers. Sanshirō is available in Kindle, KU, and audiobook formats.

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The Ultimatum That Wasn’t

To precisely no one’s surprise, except perhaps the financial markets, the Short Fake Trump publicly backed down on his threats to bomb Iranian power plants although nothing has changed about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz:

US President Donald Trump has said he has ordered the Department of War to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants for five days, following what he claimed were “productive conversations” between Washington and Tehran. While Iranian media has denied outright that any talks with the American side took place at all, footage has emerged of significant blackouts affecting the Iranian capital on Sunday night.

I don’t even pay attention to anything that comes out of Mar-al-Largo anymore. It’s just a non-stop stream of lies, posturing, and relentless buffoonery. It’s a parody of President Trump, wherever he might be.

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