Then we throw it on the fire

It is difficult to determine the true economic impact of what has erroneously come to be called piracy (the word piracy implies unauthorized reproduction for commercial gain, whereas most file sharing is just that—the transfer of digital files with no money changing hands). A number of studies have shown that piracy has little to no effect on purchases, while some have found a positive correlation, presumably because file sharers are also some of the most passionate music fans, and thus the expanded exposure brought about by piracy can increase sales among the devoted. Regardless, the recording labels and their lobbying organizations (RIAA and IFPI) seized upon this development to advance what David Arditi calls the “piracy panic narrative,” a conflation of file sharing with piracy, and thus stealing, which victimizes artists. The news media, much of which was owned by the same conglomerates that owned or had relationships with the recording labels, faithfully relayed this justification for why the recording industry was struggling financially, even though internal industry documents showed that the industry itself acknowledged the host of other reasons that accurately accounted for the drop in sales around the turn of the century: the maturation of the CD-replacement cycle, economic uncertainty, competition from video games and DVDs, the lack of a legitimate MP3 market, and the narrow focus on superstar artists at ­big-box stores.

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Today's Seals Are: Smack The Baby

Thanks to @shipleaves in the notes for sharing this link, because legit I did not believe this was a real photo (and it isn't exactly, it's been colorized... but the phenomenon is real)

I’m disabled and I have been perpetually struggling with employment/daily functioning for the past two years. I finally secured a job teaching this summer and the first three weeks were cancelled due to low enrollment. when I shared this with my father, he told me to “stop wasting time.”

I'm not even joking when I say that Israeli media is losing their minds. Rettig Gur said "Dust off the nukes" and is calling for even more strikes on Lebanon and Gaza. And there are so many more "journalists" basically saying the same thing.

Ive never seen a society more incapable of self reflection. These people are carrying out a genocide, bombing Lebanon, trying to keep the world in constant conflict, protesting for the right to rape, killing children daily, and are trigger happy Nazis who just threatened to use nukes but will with a straight face ask people "Do you think Israel has the right to exist 🥺"

Israel has been killing civilians in Lebanon all night. IDF soldiers tried to further invade Lebanon but were killed by Hezbollah resistance and so Israel decided to take it out on civilians.