Thing is, all I've been requesting in this entire debate is for us to find a way that we can curb piracy WITHOUT resorting to the audits. It's obvious that some legit hosts WANT to use hard drives to run their shows, but they fear the reaper, so to speak. They never know which company wants what, and the companies fail to budge for anyone. We get instead people who clearly don't want to debate this. The reason is because, like I said, some people just want to use the audits and snitching as a sort of weapon to monopolize markets. I never said that I knew that anything was going on to definitely make that assumption. That's just a suspicion I have. I'm sorry, but I've been a proponent and an activist for free enterprise for the longest time. I've supported open source programs for a while now (OpenOffice is awesome), and I've been a staunch supporter of the EFF's efforts (keep in mind that I also like the things the ACLU does, as well. I'm very political). I don't mind others disagreeing with me, and I don't even mind the debate being heated (even though if you're going to throw me a fastball, be ready for me to throw one right back at you).
What I DO mind, and what I've been privy to here and on a few other sites (not related at all to karaoke), is when people just tell you to shut up and try to filibuster you. Filibustering is, in case you're not aware, the act of trying to talk over top of someone else, or trying to start a flame war to get things deleted, or whatever, because the views on one side are too tough for you to try to counter with if you don't resort to tactics like that. That's the type of things I've come to expect from FOX News, not from a group of KJ hosts that refuse to listen to anyone else and provide insults and hysteria someone else's way to intimidate them to not even post.
Personally, I would be MORE than welcome to share MY ideas as to how we should combat this, and it involves some communication with people which you probably might not want to talk to at first, but I think it's necessary, because I think piracy won't end, but it can be lessened if we first know the why. This is something I mentioned in a PM to someone on here, and I think it's worth a try (as long as it's not assuming that they WANT to be "crooks", and I put "crooks" in quotes because I still have my OWN opinions on what I think amounts to piracy).
But Joe is correct: the flame wars need to end, because it's getting so bad that even the CEO of SC insulted me (which, unless I missed the post, never did retract it or apologize). The mods are already threatening to lessening the SC posts because this is all it ends up becoming.
To put it brutally honest, I really don't give a crap HOW a KJ chooses to run a show. He can be running things from a cassette tape deck for all I care (yes, that's a BIG exaggeration, but I'm trying to make a point here). If the host is fair to all the patrons, has a good rig, cares how it sounds, doesn't fight anyone, etc., then I'll give them some attention regardless. If the host is rude to me, the sound sucks, or whatnot, then I would just not go anymore (nothing will get a host kicked out better than people not coming because the host is an **** to you).
This is why I think a better plan needs to be in place: some people would pay to have their things on HD if given the fair opportunity.
And, like I and a few others are saying now, we get no where if all we do is be ignorant, stubborn, judgmental, prejudiced, and rude to those that have even the slightest hint that their opinion doesn't match our own.
