DVD companies adopt Adam Sandler anti-piracy measures

Taking a firm stance against the worsening global trend of illegally downloading films and series, DVD and CD production companies have today announced their decision to embed all their products with powerful anti-piracy measures, such as Adam Sandler’s Funny People or Jack and Jill.

"When we look at past cases of illegal downloads and internet piracy, we see time and time again how any CD or DVD protected with embedded content made by Adam Sandler is a powerful agent in deterring torrenters from stealing films,” said a spokesperson for Miramax Pictures, Hugh Torrent. “No one downloads them. In fact, the measures are so powerful that they have been known to even instill overwhelming sensations of nausea, vomiting and suicide in those exposed to them.”

"Imagine the scene: you're a pirate. You want to watch the latest Game of Thrones episode, but don't want to support the studio or actors in it. So you just illegally download from some shady site. That awesome theme music plays - we like to lull them into a sense of false security - and then BOOM. Subtle racism and vomit-inducing fart jokes bereft of any talent hits you straight in the brain."

Torrents said the historical evidence was powerful.

“Time and time again, we have seen the potency of footage embedded with this protection software. In the past we have run many, many experiments testing the latest versions of this defence software. Like when we first introduced the advanced content protection software in Spanglish and then slowly started to perfect it into its pirate-viewer-kryptonite forms in Blended and, oh god, Grown Ups 2. Literally no one pirates that last movie. Sure, it was so powerful it physically sickened legitimate viewers in the theatre, but that's the price we pay in the war against torrenters.”

And despite universal outcry from international human rights organisations and activism groups saying that such measures are “an extreme abuse of power” and “a despicably cruel extreme”, movie companies have stood by their decision.

“We’ve tried to scare off pirates with Cease and Desist letters, legal threats, huge fines, jail time, and really stupid anti-piracy adverts, but [illegal downloads] have continued unabated,” he said. “It’s about time we took extreme measures.”

However, the move has been branded “unoriginal copy-catting” by the South African film industry, saying they’ve been doing this for years.

“Piracy has been a huge issue in South Africa for years,” they said. “This is why we routinely protect our CDs and DVDs with content produced by Steve Hofmeyr and Leon Schuster – anti-piracy methods so powerful they’ve been known to make people commit suicide in the most brutal manner possible right in public places."

For those of you wanting to copy-paste this onto their own website without my permission, please study the image below.

Pic (my edit) made of Commons images and Head by Alex Neman. Yes, I know the hand is the wrong way round. Jesus, give me a break.

Why Blackface is okay: the plague of reverse racism

A guest post by Johan Van Eksteen
Head of Race Studies and Representation at the International Institute of Social Sciences

We’ve seen it again and again: a controversy that crops up its ugly head every few months, and I think that, as a whole, we can all agree that it’s time to put this ‘Blackface’ nonsense into context and address the core issues at the heart of the centre in this topic’s middle.

Blackface. What is it? Harmless students having fun? Leon Schuster making us laugh our asses off? An insulting spit-in-the-face of black people drawing on a history of discrimination and marginalisation? Perhaps we’ll never know.

But what we can know, is that black people are also guilty.

Recently, in my travels across the harsh, bleak blogosphere, I came across a so-called ‘tradition’. A tradition that sickens me. A tradition that makes me want to take my size-13 veltschoen and throw them out the window the way the government it throwing this blerrie country out the window.

Every year, wherever you go in the country, there is a special Xhosa ritual where black people mock white people. They dress up in blankets and robes – perhaps trying to poke fun at our tendency to blanket our emotions and opinions in a swaddle of self-censorship and guilt – and paint their faces white.

It’s disgusting.

After thousands of years of oppression, misunderstanding and marginalisation, to the point where we whites as the people who were the kings of this land can’t even get a job unless it’s in a city or a village or a town or in our dad’s garage or even in an apprenticeship anywhere in the country through any of the numerous employment options afforded to us through privileged education, we have to face this 'whiteface' ridicule. What are parents teaching their children? That it’s funny or a part of their so-called “heritage” to paint their faces white and mock at least six years’ worth of white discrimination?

It gets worse.

Oh yes, these boys (sometimes as young as sixteen or even younger!) will do this for a whole month! And they’ll do it without having access to food or water – perhaps a sign that this hateful culture wants us, white people, to starve and die of dehydration, with no sustenance or help around us. And as one final kick-in-the-ribs to white people, they then circumcise the boys. Are they trying to make fun of our tiny, limp, quiescent penises? How dare they?!

I am sick and tired of this hypocrisy. A few university students dress up as a maid and the whole world goes bananas. You know, they didn’t even look like black maids, that’s the worst thing. I myself have three black maids – one for each house I own – and eight garden boys. People are jumping to baseless conclusions.

Let us also look at the media. Yes, it’s also guilty. Have you ever heard of a man called Dave Chappelle? No? Okay, what about the Wayan Brothers?

These sick “actors” go around dressing up as white people, and no one says anything. Not a word. Not even a single angry tweet or page-three report in the Mail & Guardian. Yes, I know lots of people will immediately go to the tired and over-flogged horse of “oh, but Leon Schuster” – but at least Schuster is funny. Look at how funny he is. Funny. Laugh. How many movies has he made? Dozens. They’re funny. But where do we draw the line?

This is where the debate gets even worse. There are companies out there who sell women white face powder. Is it okay for women to insult white women by creating such horrific and disgusting caricatures of Western, white and idealised notions of beauty by covering their faces in an insulting and symbolic ‘vok jou’ to white skin?

I don’t think so.

The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that black people have been guilty of cultural appropriation for years. Does the media say anything? No, it’s all “Miley Cyrus” this, and “Die Antwoorde” that, and “yada yada Iggy Azalea”.

But every time Kanye West spends a million dollars, do people ask whether he isn’t taking advantage of white peoples’ culture of being rich? Every time a black person gets a degree or an education, how come no one accuses them of stealing our rich heritage of having easy access to higher-quality knowledge and self-improvement?

It gets worse. Yes, I know you’re all vomiting and retching emptily now in dismay, but I’ve almost finished revealing to you the festering, grotesque mess of this media and society conspiracy to its deepest, ugliest depths.

They appropriate our religion and our culture: the most important things to us. When we brought printing presses here, did we ask them politely to become Christians? Of course not! Did we ask them to take our names in place of their own names, choosing “Charles”, “George”, “Peter” and even “Nelson”, over… um… lots of X’s and Q’s? No. We didn’t.

What is missing in this debate are sane, rational thinkers: leaders of clarity and well-reasoned logic who can debunk these myths one at a time. Voice who will define this generation’s truth and perspicacity. Voices like Steve Hofmeyr.

Next time we inevitably see a Stellenbosch University student do this, let us remember: pots can’t call kettles black.

Or white.

Pics: Pic 1 of two boys: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/photogalleries/south_africa_faces/images/primary/Xhosa.jpg
Pic two of one kid: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--C2S-D7Gl--/18erpzhk5qiamjpg.jpg
Dave Chappelle: http://www.candidtam.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/good-ol-chapelle.png
Leon Schuster: youtube.com
White chicks: http://www.jackasscritics.com/images/movies/white_chicks_01.jpg

Man self-immolates in front of High Court

Speculation, shock and rumours have swept Johannesburg this morning, after a man poured petrol all over himself outside the High Court, flicked a match and set himself ablaze in front of a crowd of hundreds of traumatised onlookers.

"Why did he do it?" stammered haunted-for-life magistrate and part-time blogger Justice Laaifen Pryson. "What could be so singularly awful in our country that he would douse himself in fuel, light a match, and end it all? Crime? Poverty? Worsening socioeconomic disparities and widespread political corruption under a nepotistic, loyalist government? What could possibly drive him to such desperate lengths?"

Despite the endless speculation, police investigators from the Pretoria SAPS now think there could be a simpler, far more obvious reason.

"Footage pulled from surveillance cameras around the area clearly shows why he would be driven to such an act," said Chief Investigator Ian Competance. "He was wearing a T-Shirt which, upon close examination, shows adverts for not one or two but THREE Leon Schuster movies: Mad Buddies,Mama Jack, and - God help us all - Mr Bones 2. Eurgh...

According to the Centre for the Management of Hazardous, Dangerous, Toxic and Radioactive Substances (CMHDTRS) , Leon Schuster Films - know by their empirical chemical name LSF - are a highly dangerous waste product of the South African film industry, with over a million DVD cases of the deadly, radioactive substance being dumped in Afrikaans households and struggling small-town Mr Video stores every year.

"LSF is clearly one of the most toxic forms of industrial waste that South Africa produces," said Dr John Doe of the CMHDTRS. "Prolonged exposure can cause insanity, blindness, hysteria, brain damage, full-body cringes so powerful they can shatter bone and burst internal organs, and the dangerous tendency to think a scene centred loosely around a protagonist losing control of his bowels in a public place as hilarous, original comedy."

He went on to add that the substance was even deadly to those who only suffered partial exposure.

"Such as the blind and the deaf," he said, pointing to a sheaf of paper covered in graphs, long latin words and numbers that looked very sciency indeed.

Police reports now confirm the man's cause of death, saying that the utter lack of mirrors in his house meant that he would not have known his exposure to lacklustre fart-joke comedy weakly hinged around racial differences in a modern South Africa until it was too late.

"He was probably in a rush to work and pulled on the first T-shirt his hand grabbed out the cupboard. He was probably in public for hours... Jesus," read the offical police statement.

The public is hereby formally warned to immediately destroy any LSF they should come in to contact with.

"Fire, a hammer, a knife, a shredder that you don't care whether it breaks or not - these are all scientifically tried and tested methods of dealing with LSF," said Dr Doe. "Please, people, don't take any chances."

This is the second such incident in the past four months, after a man stood in a high-speed industrial blender after being forced to watch an Adam Sandler movie marathon with his eight-year-old brother, who reportedly found the films "hilarious".