Gwiz's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the golly-gee-whiz dept
This week's favorites post comes courtesy of Gwiz.I have to admit that when I first said I would give the Favorite Posts a shot, I didn't realize how hard it would be to pick a few favorites from so many interesting articles. I happened to luck into a shorter week due to the holiday and I thought it might be easier, but not so much. Anyway, without further preamble, here are my picks for the week:
As an average working stiff with no vested interest in the industries usually discussed on Techdirt, my interests tend to lean towards the articles that deal with the slow erosion of things I hold dearly, like privacy, due process and protection against unreasonable search and seizures. The story about Austrian police seizing computers used as a Tor exit node was especially interesting to me. I found the initial discussion concerning anonymity on the internet to be very enlightening. This article also spawned an interesting phenomena in the comment section when one of the commenters voiced an extremely distasteful view of pedophilia. The subsequent reaction of the Techdirt community to this commenter became a very good argument in itself as to why the internet really is not a wild west that needs to be regulated and can do a fine job of policing itself.
Along the same lines, we had a few articles concerning PROTECT IP and the technological implications of this bill, which actually made me go and read the white paper written by some of the most knowledgeable people in regards to the DNS system. And, as an added bonus, we got to see a video of Mike discussing this issue. We also had the RIAA more or less attacking the public domain and telling us that it really has no value. At least, to offset that to some degree, we had the Polish Prime Minister realizing that things funded with public monies should be in the public domain. We need more thinking in that direction.
Making an account on any website is something I rarely do, but I felt compelled to register a profile on Techdirt for one main reason, the generally high level intelligence and mostly civil debates that happen in the comments section here. I have learned quite a bit from reading both sides of the debates and have on occasion had to revise my initial stance on issues because of it. The article about the arrest of people dancing at the Washington Memorial was one such post. When I last looked there were over 350 comments and the debate over civil disobedience and the reactions by law enforcement. Unfortunately, since I needed to keep abreast of all of the Techdirt articles this week, I haven't finished reading though them all, but what I did read was fascinating.
On a brighter note, it's good to see a body such as the UN acknowledging that the three strike laws and ACTA pose civil rights problems.
And lastly, on the humorous side of things, I found it very funny to see two fully grown companies acting like children on the playground and the Malaysian man who was required to apologize 100 times on Twitter for defaming someone, kind of like a modern day equivalent of writing "I will not say bad things about Susie" on the chalkboard.
Well, that's it for my Favorites this week. I hope you enjoyed them and it's back to lurking in the comment section for me.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
citation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, I agree. Should have made the white paper about the DNS a link also and I missed that one too.
Here's that white paper (pdf) link. It really is interesting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nice ones Gwiz's pointed out.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And I just saw this one, its great LoL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Comments
I still think there is too much emphasis on "Idle Americans"; people who make a sometimes indecent "living" for doing nothing useful, however:
Until Techdirt, and being an IP attorney, I was inclined to say "we have problems in IP", and even gave up a very lucrative "standard" IP position to concentrate on small entities (read: people with very little money); but it took Mike to make me realize how bad our IP system, as it exists, is.
I would even favor discarding large sections of it; especially copyright, which is arguably unAmerican as done at the present time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Comments
He's in a similar boat to you and his website (Libertarian Papers) is very knowledgeable about IP issues as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Comments
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Comments
Link
TBH, I wish more politicians would look into IP issues than the cursory glance that they give into it. It's rather frustrating that nothing can seem to be done for the betterment of society without unneeded compromises for the betterment of a politicians career.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ban Musical Instruments
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ban Musical Instruments
It's easy. Offer them a free album if they will swallow a potassium cyanide pill.
Problem solved!
Proves once again that you cannot trust lawyers, right?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ban Musical Instruments
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ban Musical Instruments
Nice to see someone recognize that. There is a tendency to put everyone in one "shoe-box", not recognizing that people, like shoes, are different.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ban Musical Instruments
Well, the problem is that most of our elected officials aren't old shitty shoes....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Ban Musical Instruments
Amazingly, many refuse to be bought, or will agree to only a partial buy-out.
Campaign finance reform, like the police, is never there when you need it.
And the Supreme Court (to me, the worst ever) has made them even easier to buy, now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]