StarForce is one of the most notoriously inept DRM schemes around, famous for taking over and then screwing up people’s computers. According to Computer Gaming World, StarForce provided a link to an unprotected copy of Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lord, a PC game that is doing extremely well in retail sales even though it ships without copy protection (Yay!). If StarForce were named Soprano, it’d look like a protection racket.

The Galactic Civilizations’ attitude toward copy protection is admirable and is likely to result in more sales rather than fewer. [Tags: digital_rights galactic_civilizations starforce drm copyright]

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BradSucks has blogged a terrific Japanese music video that, he points out, seems to have, let’s say, inspired the Jack White Coke commercial. Brad has links to the YouTubes of both… [Tags: bradsucks music marketing yuki coke]

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I read the first page of The Da Vinci Code and didn’t like it, so possibly I don’t count as a leading expert on the topic. ToTheSource has apparently read the whole thing:

People often ask, “How much of The Da Vinci Code is true?” I wearily answer that Paris is in France, London is in England, and Leonardo da Vinci painted pictures. Let’s look at four areas where Dan Brown’s history is bunk.

In case you’re wondering, the four areas are: Constantine, the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, and da Vinci as a flamboyant homosexual. There’s also a sidebar about the guy who made up the stuff about the Priory that, apparently, Dan Brown fell for. [Tags: da_vinci_code]

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Here are the lyrics to Neil Young‘s “Let’s Impeach the President”

Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door He¹s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war Let¹s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government¹s protection
Or was someone just not home that day? Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected Thank god he¹s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean Thank God

And here’s a link to an interview with Neil Young on Showbiz Tonight in which the first question is “You’ve got a song called ‘Let’s Impeach the PResident.’ What is the song about?”

The Neil Young site is still streaming the entire album. The album in some ways reminds me of John Lennon, who I still miss.

[Tags: bush impeachment neil_young]

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Neil Young is promoting his anti-war protest album by allowing us to stream it today only. [Tags: neil_young music iraq]

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Brad (who totally does not suck) has posted a demo of a song, the first in what he promises will be a new set. It’s posted at his forum where everyone has ideas about how to make it better. My big idea about how to make it better is for people to listen to it…and to support the webbiest musician on the Web.

Yes, I know I am too old to be a BradSucks fanboy. But I am nonethelss. [Tags: music bradsucks]

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Steve Johnson has finished a draft of his new book, The Ghost Map. It sounds like it will be wonderful…what Michael Crichton might write if he were as talented a writer as Steve. [Tags: books steven_johnson]

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PC Gamer has run a list of five “games for everyone,” including those who can’t operate complex controls. They include:

OneSwitch Ballz

Mini Golf One Button Style

1Key Cave Ship

Strange Attractors

Shades of Doom

Shades of Doom is a Doom-like game for the visually impaired. You can listen to the introduction here.

I was thinking of buying Midway Arcade Treaures Deluxe Edition for the PC, a $20 aggregation of old Midway Arcade games. But, at Amazon a couple of the reviews mention that it installs StarForce, a DRM device driver that does nothing for me except make it inconvenient to play the game. I don’t want a low-level app messing with my — my — computer.

So, I’ll make do with games that don’t try to take over my machine.

[Tags: games drm accessibility]

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Today for the first time, you can buy a new Hollywood movie either in DVD format or via download. As the proud owner of a downloaded movie, you can do anything you want with it, except, um, play it on a DVD player, play it on anything other than a late-model Windows Media Player, transfer it to an iPod or PSP, or transfer it to more than two PCs.

And, please, let’s not argue about whether two PCs is reasonable. First, it’s not. I upgrade PCs about every two years, so my copy would have an expiration date of 4-6 years, whereas physical copies don’t care how often I have to replace my DVD player or VHS deck. Second, we should not be arguing over how many machines we can use to watch a movie we’ve bought and paid for. We should be fighting the reconfiguring of our computing environment solely to support the introduction of artificial scarcity. If we bought it we ought to be allowed to play it anywhere as often as we want, make as many copies we want, and even grind it under our heels in contempt, although I’ll grant that that last one is tough to do with a digital version.

By the way, because the downloadable version, because it is lower quality, has no manufacturing costs, and restricts how we use it of course costs about twice as much as the DVD, for the obvious reason that Hollywood pricing is done by babboons.

Kevin Marks notes that Korean music publishers have quantified the value DRM drains from music at 40%. [Tags: entertainment drm digital_rights movies hollywood krvin_marks]

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Comedy Central has yanked the South Park episode that makes fun of Scientology. Trey Parker and Matt Stone responded by writing the following statement to Variety:

So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!

Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!”

—Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu.

For what it’s worth, I don’t watch South Park because I don’t find it funny enough. But after SP’s endless ragging on the world’s major religions, there’s something pathetic about Comedy Central pulling an episode making fun of Scientology. [Tags: south_park scientology entertainment tv]

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