miseryXchord ♫

Artwork by naochelsea!

While the band wasn't touring this year, they (as a band) and their individual members kept busy, and so did their fans!

Besides AFI surprising us by playing KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas this month, Davey and Jade played Bamboozle Left as Blaqk Audio. Davey launched a new limited edition t-shirt line, spoke for the animals, and drove us mad with his hairstyle changes and surprising lack of makeup, and jumped onstage with some of his friends a few times. Jade polled us on his blog and continued his reign as a  remix-maniac by remixing The Cure. Hunter (the overachiever) blogged and Twittered and made videos, played Warped Tour with Hunter Revenge, designed shoes, shook his stuff with Tegan and Sara, reunited with his old punk band The Force for a tour and album release, and then released a Christmas album a few weeks ago. Adam returned on drums as part of the original Tiger Army line up to play one night at their OCtoberflame Festival... and, oh yeah, they all got together and wrote a new album and went to the studio to record it, then slipped in a new mystery that caught us unawares.

There are many other things our guys did this year, and there's a lot YOU did. You posted photos from concerts you attended, blogs, video clips, interviews... wrote poetry and fanfic and made many, many pieces of marvelous fan art. I tried to make a list so I could feature some of the great things that happened here this year, but I know I'm forgetting too many things. Maybe you all can help?

So, Buzznet, what were your favorite AFI related moments of 2008?

NET Act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.

Prior to the enactment of the NET Act in 1997, copyright infringement for a non-commercial purpose was apparently not punishable by criminal prosecution, although non-commercial infringers could be sued in a civil action by the copyright holder to recover damages. At that time, criminal prosecutions under the copyright act were possible only when the infringer derived a commercial benefit from his or her actions. This state of affairs was underscored by the unsuccessful 1994 prosecution of David LaMacchia, then a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for allegedly facilitating massive copyright infringement as a hobby, without any commercial motive. The court's dismissal of United States v. LaMacchia suggested that then-existing criminal law simply did not apply to non-commercial infringements (a state of affairs which became known as the "LaMacchia Loophole"). The court suggested that Congress could act to make some non-commercial infringements a crime, and Congress acted on that suggestion in the NET Act.

The NET Act amends the definition of "commercial advantage or private financial gain" to include the exchange of copies of copyrighted works even if no money changes hands and specifies penalties of up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. It also creates a threshold for criminal liability even where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement.

The act raised the levels of statutory damages in civil cases to $750 - $30,000 per work (and up to $150,000 per work in case of willful infringement).

From the LA Times:

Forrest J Ackerman, writer-editor who coined 'sci-fi,' dies at 92

"Forrest J Ackerman, who influenced a generation of young horror-movie fans with Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and spent a lifetime amassing what has been called the world's largest personal collection of science-fiction and fantasy memorabilia, has died. He was 92. "

I need links to blog posts and articles (on or off Buzznet) doing critical reviews ("critical" as in intelligent analysis, not as in specifically negative) of the first Twilight book.

I read a few people's blogs here earlier this year, but due to the lack of ability to efficiently search for them, can't find 'em.

Yashi has a report due later today and we need to find more reference!