That's It.
by Sean Carolan

It has come to the attention of the editors here at Altrok that some of the ideas espoused on this website are making their way to other websites, and other modes of communication, and into the thoughts of the people who read them.
 
This blatant disregard for intellectual property rights cannot continue.
 
In the past, this activity was regarded as a necessary loss. While some claim could be made that the dissemination of this material was instrumental in promoting the site to people who had not previously been aware of it, it was still, in a legal sense, the property of this website and very much under copyright.
 
However, after the stunning advances recently made by the RIAA in threatening ordinary citizens with lawsuits with no judicial oversight of their subpoenas, and then settling them quickly without bothering to see whether their claims would stand up in court, we see now that there is another way to be profitable in our endeavor here at Altrok.
 
All web servers are capable of recording the IP address of the people who visit them. This is normally for use in determining how many unique visitors have seen the site, but it can also be used to identify every single individual that has looked at the site. In other words, we know who you are, and we assume you've read the site if you came here, and that it's likely you've copied the content from our site to your hard drive. (Don't argue, that's how web browsers work.)
 
In short, you've made an unauthorized copy of our copyrighted material, whether you know it or not. It's sitting right there on your hard drive. By the way, even if you didn't know you've made a copy, ignorance is no defense. Just ask the 12-year-old that the RIAA extracted $2000 from.
 
So you owe us some money. You could challenge this in court, of course, but that will cost you many thousands of dollars in legal fees. Of course, we'll be happy to let you participate in our amnesty program, where you declare your guilt in a notarized affidavit, pay us some money, and then we won't sue you unless we really feel like it.
 
But if you buy one of our t-shirts or mugs, maybe we'll look the other way long enough for someone to realize how bad an idea it was to escalate the recording industry to the level of a federal law enforcement department, and then we won't be able to sue you. Which, frankly, we expect will happen sooner rather than later.
 
Until then, God bless the RIAA!
 

©2003 Sean Carolan