Blackhacker

EFF Urges Consumers to Claim Clean CDs and Extra Downloads

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging music fans who purchased Sony BMG music CDs containing flawed digital rights management (DRM) to submit their claims now for clean CDs and extra downloads as part of a class action lawsuit settlement.

“This settlement gives consumers what they thought they were buying in the first place — clean, safe music that will play on their computers and their iPods as well as their stereo systems,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl.

Anyone who purchased Sony BMG CDs that included First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software can receive the same music without DRM. Some will also get downloads of other Sony BMG music from several different services, including iTunes. Music fans have through the end of the year to participate in the settlement, and they should receive their compensation within six to eight weeks of submitting their claim forms. Customers can find out more about the settlement and how to submit their claims at http://www.eff.org/sony.
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Scott Adams receivedthis letter in response this strip and displayed it on his blog:

Dear Mr. Adams,

I am writing in regards to the “Dilbert” cartoon that was published in the Gazette-Mail in Charleston, West Virginia on Saturday, February 18th. I have long enjoyed your cartoon strip, having spent eight years at Marshall University confined to a tiny cubicle (even though I was a full professor) and having to track the amount of paper I used due to budget constraints.

I am currently the co-director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia and teach in the Appalachian Studies graduate certificate program at Marshall’s graduate college. One of my interests is the ways in which stereotypes of Appalachians in the general culture have rationalized and justified the historic mistreatment of Appalachians as an ethnic group.

Your cartoon “killed” an inebriated hillbilly. He was lying on a log with a jug at his side (probably moonshine?) and wearing bib overalls. He was booted off the log into a chasm and a certain fate. Now, let me ask you a question. Would you have drawn that cartoon of a drunk Irishman, a Jew, a black person, an Hispanic person? I doubt it very much. Most Americans are by now sensitized to the damage that such stereotypes represent for minority groups. And yet you, as well as many others, still feel free to picture hillbillies (translate: Appalachians) in this way.

True when I saw this yesterday, I laughed. And true, I didn’t think about how this might offend the sensibilities of Appalachians. And I probably should feel more sympathetic. Honestly. I don’t.

I haven’t been a serious comic head for about a decade or so. I peek at some of my old books, the ones they still publish anyway, to see whats happening but I haven’t gotten back into collecting yet.

The marriage of T’Challa and Storm definitly peeks my interest. My first reaction to this was somewhat like that scene from Grand Canyon, where two of the white characters hookup Danny Glover and Alfre Woodard. They are talking and trying to figure out why they thought they might make a good couple. And I think it was Glover’s character who said, “Maybe we are the only two black people they know.” Then had a big laugh.

I’m an X-Men fan almost from the womb. Never been into Black Panther but he had a great mini way back in Marvel Comics Presents. And I understand Reginald Hudlin has done some great things in returning him to his own book. Frankly I never would have put them together. Then again never liked the idea of established prominent characters, especially heroes, getting hitched. It seems cheesy to me, from a story perspective. But I’m willing to be convinced. What is good is that Storm is gonna get a lot of treatment. filling out her origin, which I am WAAAAYYY cool with. It is a shame that we as readers don’t know more about her.