Perhaps to handle shared business, like the kids, the divorce settlement, etc., etc.? Perhaps because she interacted with him so much before he was her ex-husband that he's still one of her top three most contacted contacts, and she can't or hasn't yet cut all contact with him due to remaining shared business? Also, abusive much yourself? Why in the hell would you feel a need to resort to such offensive characterizations?

Also, Segways require you to stand upright. Do you really think the scooter jockeys would be willing to stand up, even if the Segway cost the same as their nice comfy electric armchairs on wheels?

Pictures of burgers are representative of the type of burger you can expect, you do not expect the exact burger that is in the photo otherwise they would have to take a lot of photos!

I can only assume that one or more of the following is true:

1. You have never seen a McDonalds hamburger.
2. You have never seen a picture advertising McDonalds hamburgers.
3. You are vision-impaired.

I find designer clothes are way more expensive to buy than they are to produce so i've taken to stealing them from shops until these rip-off designers get the message and reduce the prices.

That would be stealing, not copyright infringement, and it certainly causes more damages to more the store, manufacturer, and designer than downloading an mp3 causes to the artists.

As for music, i made an album on my laptop which sounds ace and it didn't cost a penny.

Good for you! If you let me listen to 128k MP3s off the album for free, maybe I'd give you some money for a DRM-free 256k MP3, if I like your music.

So all these bands have been taking the piss out of us for years!

Happy to pay the artists, just not so much the studios; I know the studios don't pay the artists very well. In the video industry, the creative types (screenwriters and actors) have been suing / striking because they're tired of being screwed by the studios.

I'm going to sneak into their gigs for free too.

OK. Good luck with that. I've never considered gatecrashing and I don't know anyone who has.

I went to see Madonna and it was really expensive.

Supply and demand keep the prices high. There's limited space in an arena, and taking up space makes it impossible for others to occupy the same space. This is one of the differences between IP and other kinds of property.

I worked out the cost of her show with all the dancers and stuff wasn't that much.

You might want to sharpen your pencil. A roadshow like Madonna's is expensive to put on. Also, a live concert isn't something that can be canned or reproduced or downloaded.

Gatecrashing and shoplifting are not the same as copyright infringement. For one thing, far fewer people think either of them is socially acceptable than think that downloading MP3s is socially acceptable. There's a reason for that that has to do with people's perception of what's fair. Seems more people agree with me than with you about this, and that's dangerous to the major studios and labels, who can tell they're losing their grip on this market. Anyway, I think it may be time for you to get back to that briefing with the lawyers about how the anti-customer litigation campaign is going, Mr. Valenti.

It's not the stars or the writers whose livelihoods are at risk. That's why it's the MPAA, the RIAA, and their ilk fighting piracy and not the screenwriters or actors or musicians (except for Lemmy, who noone ever thought was mentally stable). In fact, the actors and screenwriters have been in legal battles with the studios trying to get paid. Both the actual creators of the music and video and the actual consumers of it want to do the same thing, which is to cut the fat out of this market and thus reap the benefits of all the wonderful technology that made the major studios and labels unnecessary.

If what you said was true, there would simply be less sales.

On what do you base this assertion?

Instead we see more piracy.

More than what?

Hence the fallacy of your argument comes crumbling upon itself.

It looks like your sentence is crumbling upon itself.

It was never about prices being "unfair" and you know it.

It is about prices being unfair and it will continue to be about prices being unfair no matter how many times you or anyone says it isn't about prices being unfair. Millions of dollars of equipment and a specially-designed studio are no longer necessary to produce professional-looking or -sounding media. Most creative personnel signed by major labels / studios aren't being paid well. Social networking and not expensive advertising is driving sales. Lots of people know this stuff. Older folks know that prices haven't come down since all the expenses associated with producing and distributing music and video dropped. Put all of this together and it's clear to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that the pricing is unfair. Some people (like me) have cut way back on acquiring new music rather than pay the inflated prices. Others are settling for the decidedly inferior product available through filesharing and torrent sites. "Piracy" is what happens when markets are distorted the way the market for music and video are distorted.

Nuts to this argument. The packaging, extras, quality, and convenience that are offered as part of non-pirated media will keep the honest artists and publishers going strong.

The music industry as it exists today is horrifically ineffecient and has had to settle price-fixing litigation as a result. Even after this wake-up call, they refuse to lower their prices signficantly. Do you honestly believe that it costs more to produce a 45 minute CD than it does to produce a 90 minute DVD?

Finding decent quality rips and downloading them takes time and effort. A lot of people would rather not go through the hassle and instead just buy the product from a legitimate retailer if the prices weren't artificially twice as high as they ought to be. This is not a case of people not wanting professionally produced works or of people not being willing to buy them for a fair price. It is a case of the media industry refusing to sell things for a fair price.

When CDs came out, they were fifty to a hundred percent more expensive than vinyl, but we were all told that the prices would come down because CDs are cheaper to make than vinyl or cassettes. Guess what - that didn't happen. Instead, the music industry just decided to charge as much as they wanted to charge and dare us to find a way around them. We found a way around them, and now they're trying to lobby and sue the entire world into submission. This guy is not the first one to tell them there's no way it works and that they'd better just start making the adjustment now to a less-lavish lifestyle now that large parts of the contribution they used to make to music production and distribution are no longer needed.