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Via Dethroner

Did you get caught sharing files? Engadget's attorney/columnist says paying up is your best bet. If you're really innocent, you better start documenting your case right away.

Know Your Rights: What to do when the RIAA comes calling - Engadget

This article details strategies for beating many of the most common carnival games. Learn the tricks of the carnie trade, while treating yourself to one of the coolest articles I’ve read in quite a while.

Here’s a sample:

Coin Toss Game:

The object is to toss a coin onto a plate without the coin bouncing off. There are a few tricks to increasing the odds of winning this game:

1. Use a very high arc, with as little spin as possible when tossing the coin. You can even try tossing the coin right up into the hanging stuffed animals above.

2. Covertly cover the coin with spit before tossing it.

3. Some people recommend purposely bouncing the coin off one plate in order to make a second bounce land on a plate safely.

Unless you want the site to spam your pals. I’ve received three invites from the new social network that’s built around Web games. I was wary of the first one I received, because the guy who sent it is not someone who normally invites people to anything. I’ve since received two more invites from some mutual friends of ours who must have signed up in response. Well, it turns out they didn’t sign up because the site is cool. Quechup spoofed their email addys and spammed all their pals!

At some point during Quechup’s registration process, the site uses your Gmail or Hotmail address to spam all your contacts with “invites” to Quechup.  A quick search reveals a lot of people going through the same crap.

Here’s a sample of the Quechcup angst:

During the signup process, Quechup.com suggests it search your address book to check if some of your email contacts have already signed up as well, so as to give the networking process a head start. We’ve seen this before with bonafide websites like LinkedIn or Facebook (which, incidentally, i do vouch for, since they have never sent me any spam nor sent mail on behalf of me without my consent - so far, that is). So call me gullible, I gave it my details and indeed, found a couple of people already on the site (amongst whom the woman who had invited me).

What the site doesn’t mention, however, is that each and every address in your address book is invited to join as well, as if you agreed to it.

I smelled fire when I received invites at some of my other email addresses, and quickly checked the mailbox I had used to sign up to Quechup.com. No less than 395 out-of-office replies awaited me there. By the next morning, I had received about 500 other replies, asking what this was all about, ridiculing me for being so stupid or actually spewing abuse for sending that email. I have since activated my own out-of-office assistant, with an apology in the message.

What is even more troubling, in my opinion, is that the site then goes on to search for any offline mail clients, such as Outlook or Outlook Express on your PC and suggest doing the same search with the address data it finds there. As I don’t use any offline clients, I didn’t use this “feature”. I can only shudder at the effect that would have, and what other havock sites like these can wreck in your email client.

I have deleted my own membership. If you or anyone receive an invitation to join, from me or anybody else, I advise you to delete the email. I am trying to find out if I have a legal case here.

I am deeply sorry for the harrassment and the inconvenience. My sincere and humble apologies. Now, go back and berate me…

1) Guy makes funny video. Posts it to YouTube.

2) Viacom's VH1 show Web Junk 2.0 uses dude's video without notifying or compensating him.

3) Dude is nevertheless tickled pink to see that his video is on TV. He records the Web Junk segment featuring his video, and posts it to YouTube.

4) Viacom, apparently trying to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe, sends a take-down notice to Google claiming this new video infringes upon their copyrighted material.

5) Google complies.

Let's Review (this quote is straight from the dude's mouth): "Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!"

Techdirt has extra link-y goodness and some spot-on commentary I won't reproduce here. 

What is Band of Horses?

Here’s some especially classy Scarface memorabilia that I found at a dollar store. Notice the fine craftmanship on the plastic cap gun in the first piece. The serial number on the bill in the second piece is the original theatrical release date of December 9, 1983.

Check out the many faces of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Read the NY Times story.

Now, lawyers have an easy way to make sure their children are ostracized and loathed–even by other parents. Take a look at these shirts you can purchase for your “little lawyer.” There’s no better way to say, “My child’s air of smug entitlement is 100% authentic!”

Hat tip: Robert Ambrogi.