ChurchHatesTucker's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the favorites dept

Sat, Mar 5th 2011 12:00pm — ChurchHatesTucker

This week's favorites are from ChurchHatesTucker, who has been contributing to the community here for many, many years, providing all sorts of useful stories and insights.

If you read Techdirt for any length of time, you start to expect certain stories: ICE is off the hook, the BSA is against Open Standards, Hollywood and the US Senate just can't quit each other, Moby thinks the record labels should just die. You know the drill. So, it's always a relief to come across the unexpected ones, good or bad.

The "Jasmine Revolution" in China didn't amount to much, but that didn't stop a surprisingly large number of sites around the world from simply recycling pictures of other events. Did they think nobody would notice?

The works of the US government are (normally) in the public domain, as they're paid for by the American public. This includes the widely regarded reports of the Congressional Resource Service. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that they're actually available. So, we're at a point where we have to petition the government to release public domain information to the public.

On the state level, Connecticut is considering a bill that would guarantee the public's right to record the police. More importantly, it would provide civil sanctions if that right is violated. Meanwhile, Florida is considering a measure to criminalize unauthorized photography of farms in order to protect the "intellectual property" of farm operations. Any interference with animal rights groups is purely coincidental.

I suppose 'wacky lawsuits' as a whole are part and parcel of Techdirt's coverage, but the individual stories never cease to amaze. Groupon, whose very name is a portmanteau of "Group Coupon," finds itself in court over charges that its offerings should be considered gift cards. Meanwhile, Facebook is being sued for one man's failure to be elected to Congress.

A continuing theme in the digital age is that companies seek to use all the advantages of digital media, while trying to impose all the disadvantages of physical media on their customers. Along those lines, HarperCollins has apparently decided that the problem with ebooks is that they last too long. To remedy that situation they've imposed a DRM-enforced license on libraries to ensure that a book can only be lent out 26 times.

In yet another example of copyright as a means of control, rather than incentive, Ubisoft has blocked an advertisement for its European "We Dare" Wii game. I'm left wondering why they don't block it in Europe.

And finally, Libyans organized protests around the country under the nose of the secret police by leaving cleverly coded messages on an online dating site. I LLLLove it.

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Filed Under: favorites

22 Comments

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Rose M. Welch (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 11:53am

Groupon, whose very name is a portmanteau of "Group Coupon," finds itself in court over charges that its offerings should be considered gift cards.

Groupon has never disputed that so... No, that's not why they're in court.

Hey, also? Which church hates you and why? :P
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 12:16pm

Re:
Well, Groupon apparently doesn't think their thingys should be subject to the same rules as gift cards, so on some level it is. (Also, GriftCard would be a horrible name.)

And Tucker is a lazy bastard.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 12:45pm

Argh!
Congressional Resource Service should, of course, read Congressional Research Service. *sigh*
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Chargone (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 12:55pm

Re: Re:
humm. seemed to me that so far as it was a gift card, it was treated as such. and so far as it was a coupon, it was treated as such.

i don't really see the issue there.
well, beyond the fact that they're getting sued over it.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2011 @ 3:02pm

Re: Argh!
Blame it on the Koolaid, amirite ;)?
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 3:24pm

Re: Re: Argh!
What do they put in this stuff? Vodka?
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 4:31pm

Re: Re:
What Chargone said and also, thanks. The origins of your name have bugged me for years. :P
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 5 Mar 2011 @ 6:30pm

Re: Re: Re: Argh!
Rum, baby.
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Sally, 5 Mar 2011 @ 9:31pm

I knew that Microsoft would have the deals business sooner or later but i dont think they would be able to fight against groupon deals.... i think groupon deals would be way ahead of Microsoft's because groupon is real!!!! and ms would be cloning groupon!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2011 @ 1:56am

If they only told the thruth.
I would like to put politicians, judges and lawyers through the new University of Arizona AVATAR - Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-time.

LoL
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Tfp, 6 Mar 2011 @ 2:57am

'companies seek to use all the advantages of digital media, while trying to impose all the disadvantages of physical media'

Tru dat!
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velox (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 7:57am

Re: Re:
"Tucker is a lazy bastard"
Videogame characters??...... Ha Ha
And all this time I wondered if you were a Baptist gone Bad or something. :)
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Dark Helmet (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 9:07am

Re: Re: Re:
I know. Avatar's based on video game characters are soooooo immature....
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velox (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 10:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
yeah, well while we're on the subject of Avatars, it must be tough paying annual licensing fees to both George Lucas and the Chicago Blackhawks.
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velox (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 11:07am

The conversation following the HarperCollins 26 checkout sabotage... er... expiration story included an exchange with a certain "bob" who asserted that we wouldn't be seeing anymore decent books because people like Malcolm Gladwell were being relegated to the T-shirt retail business, because eBook money isn't flowing to authors.

I'm surprised no one came back to further bury bob's argument when the Amanda Hockling story was posted just 2 days later. My guess is that at 100,000+ copies per month, with 70% of that being take-home money, that she's doing a lot better than most any other author who's contracted with HarperCollins
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Dark Helmet (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 11:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
First, it's Mel Brooks, not Lucas.

Second, I own the Blackhawks. I bought them in the late nineties for a two dollar bill and a safe way coupon...
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John Alvarado (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 1:09pm

Great summary
I really enjoyed your summary of favorite posts. Well done!
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vivaelamor (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 2:01pm

Re:
Here's a fixed link for the Amanda Hockling story.
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velox (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 2:27pm

Re: Re:
Thanks vivaelamor!
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The eejit (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 3:07pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
They were fakes, I used the real ones to buy out thew Packers for a lark.
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The eejit (profile), 6 Mar 2011 @ 3:08pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
They were fakes, I used the real ones to buy out thew Packers for a lark.
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velox (profile), 7 Mar 2011 @ 10:21am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ok, who could forget SpaceBalls?
One more question though, how much did you pay for Ronald Dumsfeld?
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