Two Large Corporations; Two Polar Opposites

I came across two stories today. The first made me furious. The second gave me goosebumps.

The first story was that of a 32-year-old single mother in Minnesota who was sued by the RIAA for $1.9 million dollars for downloading 24 songs illegally. That amounts to $80,000 PER SONG! That is an absolutely ridiculous amount of money for such a minor infraction. There are rape and homicide cases that are settled on smaller sums of money than that. Sentencing in this country, for both criminal and civil cases, is so out of whack, I'm at a loss for words. The RIAA is just a big bully trying to grasp at anything they can because they're failing to adapt to the way their own consumers want to purchase their products. Ridiculous. I haven't ever contacted my congressmen before, but believe me, I will on this issue. And just when I thought large corporations (or unions of said corporations) couldn't get any worse, there was a light in the distance...

Pixar has always put out fantastic family films, as most of us know, but they've also done an incredibly genuine thing for one 10-year-old girl who was dying of cancer. Her final wish was to watch UP in the comfort of her own home. This was thought to be difficult since it has yet to see a DVD release, much less leave theatres. But Pixar heard about her wish and made it happen. The young girl then passed away just seven hours after seeing the movie. If that isn't touching enough that Pixar would go out of their way to make sure this young girl saw the movie before she passed, they also refuse to comment on the situation. Pixar isn't taking this act and using it for their own gain. They're not taking this young girl's death in order to say, "Look at us! We're such a great company! We care about kids!" It's such a refreshing story to wash the bad taste out of my mouth from the RIAA.

I'll step off my soap box now...

Here's your Web Waster of the Day:

OddWall - I've always been fascinated by grafitti. Not just the random symbols and words that you'll see on train cars in the area, but the beautiful murals that are painted around larger, metro areas. I find them incredibly interesting and this site does a fantastic job of collecting some of the best works.