So they're supposed to accept that you're only going to play your own songs in your own venue? How is that workable? Are they just supposed to trust you?

You have a choice in the US: ASCAP or BMI. It's not about lawyers, it's about an organization that can collect and distribute royalties on behalf of the artists because there's really no other way to do it. Composers can't track down every usage and demand payment, they wouldn't have any time to write music. If you have a better idea, let's hear it. I'm still unsure as to why ASCAP is getting a beating here.

That's how PROs work the world over. If you want to have music in your venue, you need to register and pay for that so that artists can get paid for their work. Certainly, the system isn't perfect but what would you suggest as an alternative? Venues pay nothing and get to use the music (which attracts customers and makes them money) for free?

1) they would demand payment from the venue, not the musician. 2) There is no annual fee, it's a one-time $50 membership. Another $50 if you also want a publisher membership.

Of all the people with their hands out, making money from music, the performers and writers are the ones creating the content and getting the shaft when it comes to getting paid for their work. Pandora and other streaming services are doing nothing except preserving this status quo.

It doesn't fit with the rest of the movies in the article. It doesn't have any big stars and has a much wider international appeal. Also, it wasn't a bad movie.

Speak for yourself, negative nancy.

True. They (Tice suggests top NSA and the office of the then-VP Cheney) didn't bank on all of this getting out though. It's easy to threaten one person with blackmail but if enough of those in power stand up to the NSA, then what? There would be one hell of a lot of sudden "anonymous leaks" to the papers. Who knows how deep that rabbit hole would go? Blackmail certainly does tally with Obama's actions thus far, not to mention his complete 180 degree turn on these issues shortly after being sworn in.

From the Twitter of Glenn Greenwald: "When there are actual NSA docs we're using for our stories, we have published them - MS story is from an internet NSA bulletin system."

At that point, I doubt there will be a government left to grant immunity.

Not all of those idiots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWam4EWI48M

You might want to edit that. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/teenager-justin-carter-facebook-comment-jail_n_3512025.html I charge $100,000 for prank calling them though.

What utter horseshit. M$ and others are private companies, trusted by the public with their personal data. If the NSA or other government agency has a specific need to look at a communication, they are supposed to go to a judge, obtain a warrant, and go to M$ with that authority. That is NOT what has been happening. It's unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical.

... for the first person to post that they've known this was happening for years and that anybody who didn't is a moron.

I disagree. This has become so high profile, I'd bet we'll be seeing some OSS, cross-platform, easy to implement encryption solutions pretty soon. The tech is there, it's the ease of use and mindshare that need to catch up.