Most Insightful, Funniest Comments Of The Week On Techdirt
from the keep-it-going dept
No domination in the funny/insightful voting this week, though the winner in both categories did score well on both scales, but the most insightful did not top the funniest list, and the funniest did not top the most insightful list. Leading off, the comment voted most insightful (and which got a bunch of funny votes) was Marcus Carab's quip in response to music industry old-timer Alan McGee claiming that if he ran EMI he'd "get legislation changed and make a profit by stopping piracy." Marcus responded:I was about to make a joke about the fact that he thinks running a company means you get to change legislation, but then I had a rather depressing "oh wait" moment...Indeed. Coming in second place was a comment by RD on the discussion about a Florida judge barring activists from handing out a pamphlet about jury duty. The discussion in the comments quickly turned to jury nullification, with someone daring other commenters to prove that the founding fathers did, in fact, support jury nullification. RD provided the goods. As an aside, RD also ended that comment with a pretty nasty, acronymical insult directed at the person who made the initial challenge, which sent the comment thread off on an unfortunate tangent. Hopefully we can avoid that in the future.
Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction...if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.And, just because we can, I'm going to include two more that were also ranked really high. The first was a comment from an Anonymous Coward, in response to the news that prostitution seems to have moved from Craigslist to Facebook:
-- Alexander Hamilton, 1804
It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.
--John Adams, 1771
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1789
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their choice, if the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they... undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow
-- James Madison
Well, first, AGs will whine with no legal basis until Facebook creates a special adult section. Then the AGs will whine with no legal basis until Facebook charges a premium to get access to the adult section. Then the AGs will whine with no legal basis because Facebook is making money off of prostitution!And finally a comment from Ima Fish concerning the decision by Activision to kill off Guitar Hero, in part due to increasing demands from the recording industry for more in licensing fees:
The adult section will be shut down, the prostitutes will move somewhere else (maybe Twitter is next?), the AGs will get reelected because the electorate is ignorant, and we'll repeat the whole process over
God, Guitar Hero and Rock Band we totally awesome in exposing kids to new (and old) music. Take Eye of the Tiger, for example. Every school kid in north America knows that song. Because they're fans of the Rocky movies? Nope, because it's included in both games.All four comments had pretty similar ratings. Moving on to the funny side of the equation, the winning comment (which also got plenty of insightful votes) came from an Anonymous Coward, speaking out (sarcastically, I assume) concerning the news that rockstar DJ David Guetta thought the best way to beat piracy is to give your music away for free:
Metallica, AC/DC, and plenty of others are finding an entirely new generation of fans. Well, were finding an entirely new generation of fans.
I've said it before, if radio was invented now, it would have been sued and priced out of existence. And the whole era of selling tons of overpriced music etched on vinyl and plastic never would have existed.
For crying out loud Masnick,Indeed. If only we had a way for talentless hacks the public can't stand to make money from their music. Coming in second place, we had cseiter with a play on words in our post about whether or not tools ever die off. We meant technology, but cseiter took it in a different direction:
every single scenario you suggest works just fine for talented people, that the public want to support. But not one single scenario you put forward where free can be used to promote sales will work for talentless hacks that the public cannot stand.
When and only when you can present a strategy of "free" that will benefit the pointless and the useless will you have a model that can successfully replace the traditional role of labels and studio
They don't make honest politicians anymore, and they are technically tools.Honorable mention goes to Dark Helmet who came in both third & fourth. Third place was his comment on the post questioning whether turning YouTube videos into MP3s was any different than recording off the radio:
this situation will be said to be completely different because the internet is involved, and the RIAA is pretty sure that every time you record a YouTube stream as a digital recording, sixteen month-old puppies are personally drowned by Julian Assange....And, I'm including his fourth place comment, because it was my personal favorite of the week, and if (as has been accused), I rigged the vote, this one would have won. On the post questioning whether or not it was copyright infringement to pass a DMCA notice to ChillingEffects.org, Dark Helmet first offered his own services in crafting DMCA notices in poetic form to make sure they could be covered by copyright. He offered a brilliant sample:
I, (Company/Individual Name), certify here,And, with that, I leave you to prepare for the new week...
Under penalties of perjury severe,
That I am an authorized agent to act,
On behalf of owners, its fact,
Of certain intellectual property rights,
For which the work to produce took many days and many nights,
I have it on good faith, that items in your space,
Are simply not authorized by law,
For use or for waste, by the owners of said space,
And it's making our client quite raw,
It infringes, you see, on our client's copyright,
So I must demand that you recognize his plight,
Act expeditiously to remove or disable,
Access to the material as soon as you are able,
My contact information is listed below,
Along with the alleged materials,
But I must impress upon you in this notice,
That I am totally, totally cereals,
Once you have done so please get in touch,
Or we'll beat you to death with a crutch,
For now I'm off to get some soup,
Love: Dark Helmet's Legal Notice Writing Group.
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Kudos, as usual, to DH.
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Re: Kudos, as usual, to DH.
He should do another if he gets picked for favourite posts again. If he doesn't, then I will! Hmm, that's an idea, we could try responding to all the trolls with Vogon style poetry.
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Re: Re: Kudos, as usual, to DH.
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Re: Kudos, as usual, to DH.
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Re: Kudos, as usual, to DH.
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I keep telling people this, but no one listens.
Also, I think it's awesome that the Saturday post comes with refreshments. :)
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Dringking the Kool-Aid
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Why we still can't practice jury nullification...
Whitney Harper
Joel Tenenbaum
Jammie Thomas
*shakes head*
Where is the justice if it comes at $20,000 plus tax?
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Re: Why we still can't practice jury nullification...
http://joelfightsback.com/get-involved/collaborative-lawyering/comment-page-3/#comment-679 62
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/11/supreme_court_downloaded_music.php
http://sblog .s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Harper-Amicus-Brief.pdf
http://joelfightsback.com/2010 /12/in-whitneys-words/
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1) Wooohoo, I'm famous now.
2) I'd have gone with the DMCA copyright versification myself.
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F. that song got stuck in my head.
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Dark Helmsmut's comment/poem
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Dark Helmet's comment
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Look what's on TV!
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Re: Look what's on TV!
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Mike, you can keep repeating it, but nobody from Activision said that when they canceled Guitar Hero. The only place that has that is Wired, and it isn't a quote.
So you can keep repeating it, but it isn't true.
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http://www.djhero.com/en-us/community/news/637?tab=news
"Does this mean you're no longer making Guitar (and/or DJ) Hero games?
Over the past two years, we have seen rapid declines in the music genre, and unfortunately, based on current demand, we simply cannot continue to profitably make these games given the considerable licensing and manufacturing costs."
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I stand corrected, even if Mike relied on a non-quote from another source.
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Wired did an interview of their own, sure they may not have presented a direct quote (instead, they summarized parts of the interview), but you should be more careful before you accuse them of making things up.
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However, it isn't clear what part is licensing and what part is manufacturing. There has been discussion here (and elsewhere) that Activision got heavily burned by producing hardware (guitars and such) that didn't move. I would honestly be surprised if they were in a fix price licensing deal (pay one price, unlimited copies) and rather a deal based on a per copy rate. I would be interesting if they opened up more about the situation, but I doubt they will, because it is likely to show that inventory hurt them the most.
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Even if that's true (though with your, and other IP maximists, long track record of being wrong, I will reasonably take your unsubstantiated opinion very lightly), it still doesn't negate the fact that Mike has a valid point.
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A: You were wrong about what you tried to correct Mike on
B: you seem to be an IP maximist and IP maximists are generally wrong about almost everything they say.
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There is no mention anywhere of "increasing demands from the recording industry for more in licensing fees".
The costs are the same as they ever were. The problem, just like Activision said, was that "the majority of guitar games’ audience have now moved on."
That article was another example of how Mike Masnick has to lie in order to try and defame his hated record labels.
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So if a game has fewer sales, and the licensing fees remain the same, then the cost of licensing per unit sold is less or more?
But hey it works for them, no new blahdeblah hero style games get made and the original "artists" don't get any licensing fees, and the same "artists" don't get a boost in sales for the tracks included in the now non-existent new game titles, everyone is a winner.
Woohooo, claims of Masnick's alternate universe lies get confounded by reality again.
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Fossil fuels? Pah!
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Old music?
I guess 'old' music is dependent on how "old" you are.
Rochester MN had a radio station that was one of the 1st in the nation to broadcast from CDs and they played the kind of music that is featured on "Mad Men"..50/60's cocktail instrumentals. They were doing that when Eye of the Tiger was new.
And in most major networks there is a station advertising coffins and playing swing music - and one day that type of station will still shill for coffins and also play Eye of the Tiger.
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On politics
Not true. The general public continues to blame politicians/doctors/lawyers/bloggers/etc. for what the general public does!
If you have 99 honest politician, and one prostitute politician (willing to sell out to big business), and massive campaign funds providing TV ads, false journalism, etc. is effective, eventually you will have ONLY the prostitute.
This is just common sense.
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To Whom It May Concern...
If I may say in this short preamble,
That here is another fine example,
Of yet another author's words being stolen,
And his rights left for others to trample,
You must have missed the point of my last epic poem joint,
Because you used it without my permission,
I did not grant or annoint, use of words that I'd coined,
For your own amused transmission,
So consider this another cereal request,
To take down this poem at my behest,
And watch as my chest will swell,
As I sue Techdirt straight to Hell,
You know where to find me, you socialist thief,
And don't you dare think about brushing this off, chief,
I'd continue writing but I have to poop,
Love: Dark Helmet's Legal Notice Writing Group.
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Re: To Whom It May Concern...
But I'm sorry you can't have done it you must have stolen it off someone.
It is completely, utterly and in all other ways impossible to create such a work without being paid for it - all artistic creation must have a financial incentive to exist as no fool would ever create for any other reason.
You are not getting paid for that artwork so ipso facto you cannot have created it. It follows that since it exists, someone else must have created it and I for one will not rest until I find the true rightsho... uh Artist and counter sue you on his behalf. You have been warned......
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The rest of your comments are sarcastic suckage. Rodent indeed.
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I am unaware of having kicked any puppies recently but if I have inadvertantly kicked one of yours then I apologise to the animal in question. As for adulation, I've been reliably informed it's not a factor since you can't bank it.
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Re: To Whom It May Concern...
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Your quotes don't actually support it, the "charge" or
"instructions" of the court mean the "the Judge's opinion
of what the law means in this case", which should, of course,be based on the statute and on precedent. The quotes say you don't have to agree with the judges opinion,
not that you can nullify the law.
The bottom line is that, in principle, juries are supposed to decide the case according to existing law. If they ignore this principle in a criminal case, there's nothing anyone can do about it, because of the double jeopardy rule. In civil cases, not following the law may well lead to the verdict being reversed.
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Nasty acronymical
Right...
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Number 2 with a bullet!
wait....that doesnt quite sound right....
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