dante and blog music

2 topics i wanna talk about toady. firstly, i'm reading "the inferno" by dante. and well, for a book that's completely consisting of poetry, it's not bad really. now i know what they mean when they talk about dante's hell. it's really hell. dante describes hell in a way that's kinda chilling. i don't think i've ever read any description of hell anywhere that's like this. dante's hell kinda reminds me of the chinese version of hell, with the 7(?) stages. remember haw par villa? ya, there's demons, and devils torturing the souls. it's a place of utter despondency. it's like, darkness and fire. scary. i guess, doing it this way, in poetry form actually is better than doing it in prose. the original's written in italian, this one i'm reading is a translation. and the translator does it very well i think. it's difficult enough to translate prose, let alone dante's italian. yup. and it's not boring like chaucer. haha! highly recommended book.

next thing, i saw this article in the straits times "Music on your blog? You may need to license it". well, i think it's a bit ridiculous. they say that cos we're using the music on the blog, it's similar to distributing it or something like that and we should pay royalties to continue using it. people like me, who have non-downloadable music with no advertising on it, would have to pay at least $1000 per year for the license to keep playing music. and they call it a reasonable fee. i think it's a bit ridiculous. i mean, there isn't much difference between me using this music on my blog and say, people playing their cds at a party is there? i'm using the music to liven up my blog a little, for the enjoyment of me and my readers. i'm not profitting from it. and as far as i know, no one else is either, unless someone out there is secretly using their tape recorder or something to record the song.

which brings me to my next complaint. sometimes, well all the time, the govt is nagging and nagging about illegal music so much, but they're not exactly making it easier for people. i mean, people like me want to pay for their music but can't. why? not because it's too expensive or anything, but because i don't own a credit card. and because i don't own a credit card, even if they reduce the prices to dirt cheap prices, i still can't pay for it. i want to pay for it, believe me. you think i like having to be an illegal bootlegger? stupid.

anyway, i better stop before they come and arrest me for whatever reason. sigh.