(H)ack!
the word of the day is sell out.
wait, let me start again. the two words of the day are sell and out and whore. the three words.
nobody expects a spanish inquisition.
last night i went to check out lokitorrent for some perfectly legal torrent downloading and saw that lowkee, the dude who ran the site and swore he wouldn't sell out to the MPAA, the dude who collected money from his visitors to the tune of $40K to fight the MPAA with a hatchet and some anti-freeze (or lawyers, whatever), had rolled over like a french poodle with no nuts.
not only did he kill the site, but he signed some sort of gag agreement with the MPAA and turned over his server logs.
have you ever read hacker death threats before?
not that i'm worried or anything. the Man is doubtfully coming after me. i'm just, frankly, disappointed. at the cheesy-ass replacement page the MPAA posted on the loki URL.
you can click but you cannot hide? puh-leeze! if there's one thing that's become quite clear it's that hackers are pretty good at hiding while the MPAA and RIAA are pretty good at screaming like tippi hendren coming off a meth run.
then, dum-de-dum, i cruised by Lifehacker to see what they're pitching there and, hey! they're ACTUALLY pitching things!
see? i knew that "sponsored by Sony" thing wasn't good news. they've covered the MPAA's take down of lowkee as "did you dare to take on the Man? guess you better prepare for some unwanted Man-love, then." they're also pitching "hacks" that come from such dodgy underground sources as Microsoft. lifehacker's brilliant advice? set your windows updates to automatic.
lifehacker is a woman named Gina Trapani. i'm going to email her and tell her why i'm going to stop reading her blog. there. did it. it was satisfying.
Gina,I noticed the creation of Lifehacker with interest and have been regularly reading it. I also noticed with trepidation the "sponsored by Sony" in your masthead. As a reader of Defamer and other Gawker blogs, I'd hoped that the information passed along through these portals would remain uncorrupted by sponsorship.
Today you posted about the takedown of lokitorrent by the MPAA. The language you used to describe the situation was ambiguous in such a way as to instill fear, instead of to impart information. It is clear that you're writing from the point of view of the industry, not the torrent user -- whether legal or illegal. You don't say, "here's a P2P system with valid
use being assaulted by the MPAA." you say, "Moral of the story? Things you do on the internet are never anonymous. So if you steal, you can get caught."It's a shallow, fear-based assessment of a complex and important issue for people today. Then you blog about another cool "hack." Your advice? Turn your Windows Updates to "automatic."
Please enjoy the money Sony gives you. I really don't need any more "news" from Industry so I will no longer read your blog. I hope the other blogs in the Gawker Media Empire don't sell out. Defamer, sponsored by NBC?
Makes me as comfortable as Lifehacker, sponsored by Sony.
i bet Sony pays her enough not to care, though.
money, take the pain away! oh, thank you money!!
now, money? could you maybe, just a little... love me?
Thanks for the email Zack. I've updated the MPAA post to more fairly represent both sides of this complicated issue.
Respectfully,
Gina
i appreciate that, gina.
sorry to keep such a close eye on you, but it's dangerous territory being sponsored. while lifehacker has had some posts i've found helpful, for the most part i find that it's geared towards less sophisticated computer users and the advice it gives is straight from the instruction manuals. not really hacks, but general use tips.
since you're editing a blog for newbies, you're taking on the job of educating (vs. titilating or amusing like defamer or fleshbot) and i do feel strongly that we need to carefully parse what the Industry is telling us. frankly, a lot of it is self-serving. is P2P theft? sometimes. theft of what? artistic content. the MPAA does not create artistic content. the MPAA creates delivery systems for artistic content. delivery systems that are becoming outmoded. it is not "the stunt man" who is endangered by P2P. it is the MPAA.
i apologize for writing about you as if you were not a person. that was rude. thank you for taking my comments seriously.
zack
well, now you've done it. now you're on boingboing. i'm sure fame and fortune are just around the corner. and then you can start projecting fanboy bollywood versions of "the dark knight returns" on strippers' breasts.
I found you through BoingBoing of course!
Zach/Xopl (not to be confused with Zack)
Awesome post. I totally agree with you about Lifehacker. Lifehacker is gone from my rss reader! Most of the stuff they post I find other blogs anyway...