(1) the lack of samples was part of the court case

There are certainly ways around that, but they require our government(s) to act to return to/re-emphasize/remember what the purpose of a corporate charter is and who grants them.

I repeat: it WAS NOT a sample. It isn't the same music. It does FEEL very similar, but it isn't. They lost in court, but they will appeal and there are a lot of musicians on their side. They sued because there was a concern that the Gaye estate might sue, and they wanted to make it clear that they were not violating…

"Blurred Lines" did NOT sample "Got To Give It Up". It didn't use any of the copyrighted material in the composition, it didn't use any samples, it is in a different key, has a different percussion mix, a different melody, a different bass line and a different tempo. It does FEEL very similar, but there are at least a…

++this. and again. and again. the blurred lines decision is the worst copyright decision in almost a decade. it is wrong, it is going to be seriously detrimental to music in ways we will never really be able to see, and it violates the intent and the letter of the law.

I was a stay at home parent (father). I did 3 days a week for the first year, splitting it with my daughter’s mother, then went full time after that. As noted by a couple of other posters, the early years are hard. My daughter’s mother even ended up urging me to take up some old hobbies because she felt that I was…

but know when to just back off

this is presumably why it matters from a plot perspective that she doesn't know what all this "social media" is ... she has had no presence on it and thus isn't about to be outed by people digging.

Teenagers never listen to good advice.

It is particularly wierd and arguably ridiculous American idea that adding waste food to the sewage stream makes sense.

Just so you know, "in the late nineties" is at least 10 years after "there were chat rooms where people would go to talk dirty". In fact, such things predate even the widespread arrival of the Internet. Consider the "hot tub" channel on BitNet, which I enjoyed dropping in on from a terminal room in the basement of the…

Yeah, but that's because Pink Floyd is the back-in-the day for two generations back, not one. Sure, my kids love Floyd and Zeppelin (currently in their twenties). On the other hand, the music that was coming out as I grew up - that's just Dad music. Very few kids loved Floyd between 1985 and 2000 (rough guesses).

Just call it the cycle of life. Down/up, round and round. What goes around, etc. What goes up does down. All that is old is new again. All that is new is old. And as the Buddhists advise, watch out for your attachments.

And one day, I would be willing to bet, MIA will be one of her parents' back-in-the-day artists, not necessarily bad, but irrelevant and out of touch with what is happening now (then), and a new round of Jezebel writers or whatever succeeds them will not even consider her relevant as they tackle some new-new thing,…

Is it possible that the police et al. were happy to get her (and others) on a pretext AND that she was also breaking the law in the way indicated by the indictment?

I do realize that yes. But I didn't condone it: my implication was that this is a political question, and I don't consider the hiring of low paid people to provide child care to be an acceptable solution to the wage stagnation that the US workforce has faced over the last 35 years (in fact, it contributes to it). I…

Way to divert. I was specifically referring to Ari's point about a parent dying. I wasn't attempting to make (nor would I make) a more general point about the various kinds of misfortune that could impact a family. My wife's first husband died suddenly in his forties, and despite insurance, she still had to work to…

I wouldn't tell you to do more with less. I'd tell you to quit your job. Daycare is not "the village", daycare is a paid arrangement in which you leave your kid(s) with someone in exchange for money, with very little connection to the historical implications of "the village" (whatever they are or were, since the…

The rest I'll give you, but I draw the line at childcare. Feel free to buy bread from a bakers, get your wiring done by an electrician (union, I hope) and pay a mechanic to fix your car. But if the mother and father can't handle the childcare on their own, do without the child.

I am happy to announce to the Jezebel reading public my cheap and effective service to fix all the problems that your cell/mobile phone is causing you. I charge a sliding scale, am absolutely LGBT+ friendly, fully endorse all 4 waves of feminism, and believe in a gender spectrum. I like salsa, and sometimes even watch…