SOUR KISS - HOORAY FOR SOMALI PIRATES

Sour Kiss

It's been ten years since KISS has made an album. If you can't guess the reason, here's Gene Simmons, as reported by Billboard:

"The record industry is in such a mess. There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free?"

A lot of artists are disheartened and disgusted by the theft and disrespect that "fans" call "sharing."

3 Cheers for the Somali Pirates

Ahar, mateys, and all of the Pirate Bay fans, bloggers and anti-social forum members who hide behind Halloween names involving pirates, death, skulls and demons.
Give three cheers for your new heroes, the Somali Pirates.
During a 12 day streak, they hijacked 8 ships.
Why not? They are entitled to do what they do, because they're poor, and these ship owners are rich and can afford the million dollar extortion. No different from a blogger who can't afford every AC-DC album and knows that AC-DC and the RIAA, and the record label and the record store don't need the money. An economy run by paying for things? Crazy!
Just as a blogger gets a happy "thank you, keep up the good work" from somebody who downloaded stolen merchandise, villagers in Somalia grin and say "thank you, keep up the good work" to the pirates tossing spare change around.
If you believe in Internet piracy, then you must also support the Somali pirates.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said, ""Piracy is against everybody. Like terrorism, it is a disease that has to be eradicated." Really? Sounds like the RIAA talking. Bloggers know better. Just as Prince (of Minnesota) should never ask for a file deletion, Prince (of Saudi Arabia) should never complain about piracy either.
The pirates put it succinctly: "If you try to stop us, we'll make things worse." Perhaps that would be a "sharebee" fleet of many more boats with machine guns, and some helpful people to throw a few tear gas bombs as well, to let the people aboard the big pleasure ship or oil tanker know who's boss.
A news report: "United States naval officials said they fleets are spread too thin to deal with the pirate bands." As for the Brits, they won't go after the pirates because if they chase the pirates, "The pirates will go somewhere we are not," said Royal Navy Commodore Keith Winstanley"
Hooray, the pirates win!
Just like the happy Pirate Bay crowd, who made Tower and Virgin and HMV and Circuit City and the others shut down and go into bankruptcy, record companies cut back on employees and cut loose older artists, and many artists simply refuse to release new material just to entertain thieves, the Somali pirates are spiking oil prices higher, reducing tourist interest in cruises, and sending a message that mob rule and mindless selfishness is the way of life. Ahar, a hardy-har-har.
The bloggers who throw everything on the Internet don't have any answers for the toll they take. All they know is they get music for free and people are happy to get it. The pirates who are holding ships for ransom don't care about the havoc they cause, just as long as they get something for nothing and they get cheers from their friends and neighbors.
The Norwegian shipping line Odfjell, with 90 tankers, has resigned its employees to longer hours and longer time away from loved ones, and the possibility of layoffs and bankruptcy.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president. It will take two extra weeks away from friends and family for a tanker to make the detour away from the Somali pirates. The cost is "between $20,000 and $30,000 a day," which will be passed on to the customer...or...the company will go out of business.
How many pirates does it take to ransom a tanker? Just a few speedboats. And how many blogs and forums does it take to kill the music industry? We've seen: not much more.
The music industry is in a massive slump. Lay-offs. Suicides. Depression. The answer is a strong economy, but that involves buying and selling...not "sharing" which is "stealing." The bloggers who give it all away, even if it's in print or easily available in a store, are just as savage as the Somali pirate who also think they are entitled to something for nothing, taking down giant shipping vessels with the same indifference as the people who walked past the Tower record stores that went dark and put thousands out of work and into despair.
The quality of your life and mine is eroding because of selfish, savage, stupid people who don't care about what's right or wrong.
The Somali Pirates are hearign "thanks, you're doing a great job..." from their villagers and friends. Just as someone who pirates an entire discography gets "thanks, you're doing a great job" from a forum member too selfish to care about law and morality.