Comp Rant on Spotify

Right now, I'm assuming that you all at least know what Spotify is. If you don't, what's wrong with you? It's been on the news, all around the internet, EVERYWHERE!!! Although, there is the possibility that you're a hipster that considers Spotify too mainstream, because it is, but you should at least know about Spotify to know what's mainstream and what's not. Don't worry. I'm sort of a hipster myself. I even watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which is unfortunately becoming mainstrem, but I'm proud of it! Anyway, let's get back on topic. This is my rant on the music streaming service, Spotify.

I first tried Spotify and was almost instantly dissatisfied; partially due to the fact that I mis-typed my username during registration and I was on a netbook. Oh well, FAIL ON ME. I was actually expecting Spotify to be a web based service like my favorite Grooveshark and it is, just not the kind I expected. I was surprised that Spotify had to be run in its own application. So I downloaded, installed, and opened it. Now here's another failed expectation. I was expecting Spotify to be just a normal window that corresponded with the native Windows design. 'Twas a lie but what was I thinking? iTunes isn't native. RealPlayer isn't native. Windows Media Player is but it sucks. Now, due to the lack of prior knowledge I had of Spotify, I expected it to be a radio streaming service, kind of like Pandora. Man that was a bad day! It turned out to be more like Grooveshark. I started using Spotify and it was just too slow for me.

Spotify recently started forcing users to connect their account to Facebook. When I heard that news, I was like, "What the F@#*!" Facebook is already bad enough when it comes to privacy! Now my friends have to know what I'm listening to too?! They really support stalking! FAIL ON SPOTIFY! Sure, it's nice to share a good song once in a while, but don't force users to do it and automatically share EVERY song and EVERY artist they listen too! Luckily, I don't normally use Spotify or have my family as friends because a lot of them practically hate dubstep and I like it. I don't want the following scenario to happen:

Facebook: "Alex listened to Skrillex on Spotify."
Family: "What the f@&*?!"
Me: *is dead*

Okay maybe I was exaggerating a bit but you get the gist of things. Personally, I would go with Pandora or better yet, Grooveshark! It's much more convenient because it doesn't need to be installed on every machine, you don't need an account, and it's the same damned thing!

Comp Rant on SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as SOPA, was recently introduced to United
States Congress to the support of movie studios. The bill states that copyright-infringing
websites will be practically erased from the internet by the government by just placing
the DNS on a blacklist.


Though the bill is supported by many, can it actually destroy the internet? 

When SOPA was introduced into Congress, websites like Facebook, Google, Tumblr, and 4chan were already against it. Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, and 4chan users sometimes post infringing items, such as meme image macros, movies, etc.

Can the government really punish websites for their users' actions?

The posting of infringing items is usually against a website’s terms of service so the website should already take action on their own users. YouTube even has a STRICT copyright infringement policy.

SOPA claims to terminate anything that is copyright infringing, but what about Fair Use? Will SOPA mean that the government will forget about their own laws? 

YouTube has a lot of copyrighted content on it but a big portion of it is used under fair use by non-partnered accounts and used under commercial permission by partnered accounts. A lot of image macros on the internet are made under fair use and are frequently posted on 4chan and other websites, since they are most of the time used for nonprofit purposes.

Does the government plan on completely taking down mega companies, like Google? 

Google does realize that they are targeted by SOPA, since they indirectly help distribute copyright-infringing material. SOPA’s main target is foreign pirate sites, which Google has queried, but with other American pirating websites that are also queried on Google, Google’s search database could shrink drastically. SOPA
could even terminate Google entirely, meaning that Google, Gmail, YouTube, Android, Google Docs, Google+, Google Docs, and other Google products could kiss the internet goodbye. Google warned lawmakers that SOPA would depress investment, which would later lead to more economic trouble for the U.S. Government. The bill has become such a popular topic that an entire day was dedicated by http://americancensorship.org/ to stopping internet censorship in which Mozilla, Tumlr, 4chan, Boing Boing, and California House Representative Zoe Lofgren participated in.

I don't live in the United States but will I still be targeted?


Unfortunately, YES! The U.S. Government plans to team up with international governments to enforce SOPA.

I watched JeepersMedia's video about SOPA and a lot of that stuff seemed interesting. Was that all true?


Surprisingly, yes. You would normally think of CBS as that TV network with those funny programs but they are actually a corporate powerhouse. CNET IS owned by CBS and back then, you would have found a crap load of links to P2P and file sharing software. The only problem with his video is that still thought CBS was part of the same company as Viacom. CBS separated from Viacom in 2005; however, they still communicate since CBS still owns some of the rights to Viacom's classic programming, which is why you're not going to get   a Nickelodeon Rewind network anytime soon.

Here's the video in case you haven't watched it yet.







On the plus side, copyright infringement would most likely increase dramatically due to SOPA, but would it be worth the trouble? However, overall, SOPA would figuratively kill us all. Popular fanbases, such as the bronies, weeaboos, etc., would pretty much die out which would NOT be good for business.

Welcome to Comp Rants

I guess you found Comp Rants and are probably wondering what the hell this website is for. Here, I basically rant about current events related to technology, computers, mended, etc. This blog is owned by AR Compware which is good. So have fun!