Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the funsightful dept

Sun, Jul 10th 2011 12:00pm — Mike Masnick

It's been a little while, but it appears that Dark Helmet has made his way back to the winner's circle for this week's highest voted "insightful" comment. It was on the post for one of Nina Paley's Mimi & Eunice comic strips concerning having to ask permission to express yourself. When one of our usual critical commenters announced that the US might have "excessive free speech," a lot of people responded, but the response that people liked best (by a lot) was this potent dose of logic and reality (bolded are the parts that DH is responding to):

"The US already borders on having excessive free speech (see the "church" people protesting at funerals), rather than a lack of it. Even in Canada where you are at Marcus, there is a near unlimited amount of free speech."

LOLwut? Excessive Free Speech? I love the concept of the serfs having too much freedom in the eyes of the Lords....

"What is the issue? Nina is still hurting from the pouding she got from the copyright industry making Sita, and can't let go of that feeling, failing to admit to herself that perhaps she made some errors along the way."

Congrats. You win the Side Swipe Award of the day, in which you take argument A, fail, and then switch to argument B, which has been debunked already, in a sad attempt to make some semblance of a point, and fail again. Your award comes with twenty motivational tapes by Deepak Chopra to help get yo mind, right, as well as two complimentary novelty Chopra eyebrows, valued at thirty-seven dollars a piece.

"Free speech doesn't mean that everything is absolutely free."

That's true. And a hot dog isn't a vibrator....but what's your point?

"What restrictions do exist are so small, that most people in the world wouldn't complain."

I want to highlight this idiotic statement, because it's important. This thought is borne of the same mind juices that produce "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear". It's an inability to recognize that the United States (and to some degree by extension, our North American neighbors) are built on a very simple concept: striving for the ideal.

Using your logic, the Civil Rights movement of the 60's never should have happened, because those people had it waaaaaay better than when they were enslaved, so they shouldn't have been complaining. Based on your logic, Chinese and Irish railroad workers who were getting their heads kicked in while being prejudized against should have kept their mouths shut, because at least they weren't enduring a worse oppressive regime or a potato famine.

Based on your logic, this country wouldn't progress, because we'd be so busy basking in our own unfinished business to ever reach a little further for the next rung on the ladder.

Based on your logic, we'd never have had these freedoms to begin with if you had been in charge all those years ago.

Nicely done. That comment also ranked highly on the funny charts... but not high enough. Second place with insightful was a simple comment from an anonymous coward in response to the story about corruption and fraud accusations involving the music collection society in Spain. The comment was directed at all the people who claim that copyright infringement is "theft." This AC pointed out the obvious:

^^^ THIS is piracy. THIS is theft.

You paying attention trolls?

As for editor's choice, our first one comes from MrWilson, responding to a blog post from a guy, John DuPuis, who works for an anti-piracy company, in which the entire point of the article was to attack Senator Ron Wyden for daring to take into account the best interests of the people in his state (and elsewhere), rather than just getting in line with the entertainment industry's demands over ProtectIP. Wilson picked out one of the many stunningly ridiculous claims from DuPuis and chopped it to bits:

"I can�t help but think Senator Wyden should put his country�s survival before the needs of his misinformed and misdirected constituents."

Hm. So let me get this straight. DuPuis is saying that instead of doing what Senator Wyden was elected to do (represent his constituents), he should instead listen to monied interests and property holders.

More people should be balking at the fact that he just honestly admitted that he's suggesting the subversion of representation in our government in favor of property owners.

Why do individuals need to vote when their corporations can vote for them?!?

And, for my second and final insightful editor's choice, we have this wonderful comment from Karl debunking the MPAA's more ridiculous claims about how ProtectIP is needed to stop people from getting malware in their pursuit of infringement:

Complete FUD

His whole post is filled with fail, and here's why.

One of the major points in his blog is that the botnet is spread through "affiliates." Such situations are not new, but are novel for this particular type of malware.

However, Brigner then says that these "affiliates" are "rogue websites." In other words, he's strongly implying that the affiliates of botnets and other malware are also websites that are "dedicated to infringing content."

Except this is absolutely false. The "affiliates" do not, themselves, distribute any content whatsoever. Usually, they try to trick users into believing they're getting content (or legitimate software, or "antivirus programs"), but the users get the malware instead. In other words, the botnet affiliates have the same relationship to "rogue websites," as phishing emailers do to Bank of America.

As an illustration: among all the sites ICE seized for copyright infringement, not one was even accused of spreading malware. And why would they? Sites that are "dedicated to infringing content" are almost exclusively community-driven.

This is where his argument falls apart. The PROTECT-IP act considers "rogue websites" to be websites that are "dedicated to infringing content." If the act passes, not a single malware affiliate will be affected by it.

They will not be any more unlawful than they are now; law enforcement will have no more resources to fight them than they do now. In fact, law enforcement will have fewer resources, because the money that could be used to fight malware affiliates would be diverted into fighting "rogue websites" instead.

Nor will it particularly harm the botnet affiliates if every single "rogue website" shut down. By the time that happened (assuming it even could), the botnet affiliates would have long ago moved on to whatever other types of websites are popular at the moment.

If you want to know what FUD actually means, this blog post is a textbook example

Okay, now that you're overstuffed on insight, let's find some room for a dessert of funny. The top rated funny comment this week won by a lot. It was the very first comment on my latest post on RIAA accounting, and was written by Chris Rhodes, about the news that a standard record label contract, thanks to sneaky clauses, could really mean that the label gets 97.5% of the revenue, even if the official royalty rate is 10%. Apparently, I just don't understand the business:

Without a 97.5% cut for the middlemen, there would be no incentive for anyone to ever create music! Why do you hate music?

It's a good question. Coming in with a strong second was a fantastic retort from an Anonymous Coward to one of our regular... er... fact- and logic-challenged commenters, explaining what makes his comments so great to read:

I like you, you don't let little things like the words in an article effect what you think the article is about.

We've got three editor's choice funny comments for the week (because I just couldn't narrow it down to two). First up is an anonymous commenter who decided to go by the name "Restaurant shill" for the comment, in response to my point about movie theaters, and how people like going out for the experience. In that post, I noted that claiming theaters can't compete with home theaters is like saying restaurants can't compete with home cooking. Restaurant shill took this idea and ran with it:

Oh my god.... We have to stop this! the fact that you freetards think you can just make food at home is whats wrong with this country. How are these hardworking restaurant owners supposed to make any money, when every meal you make at home = one lost sale for every restaurant in a 50 mile radius!

These 'grocery stores'(more like infringment stores amirite?) are just as bad as google is to music about aiding and abetting these clear and present dangers to restaurants.

I think we need to get legislation where restaurat owners can tell the government who they catch making food in their homes and have their electricity/gas stoves cut off(whoever thought those would be a good idea, they are clearly made to defeat restaurant DRM)don't even get me started on grills...

Then we've got Nina Paley's comment on our (fun!) discussion about whether or not monkeys get the copyright on photos they took:

Without copyright monkeys would have no incentive to photograph themselves.

And, finally, because it really made me laugh, we have Capitalist Lion Tamer's response to another comment, where the commenter insisted that life for musicians absolutely sucked today because musicians actually have to work for a living, and concluded the post with: "Nice work, asshole pirates." CLT responded:

I never need to pirate assholes. There's always plenty in the comment threads.

Ah, well. And they say there's no civil discourse online any more. Either way, get your own civil discourse ready for next week, and we'll be back at it tomorrow morning.

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35 Comments

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Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 12:54pm

I get no respect!
I never see my comments in the insightful/funny of the week! I can be just as introspective and amusing as any of the other shills! Why does Mike hate humor and perception?
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- Jay (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:17pm
  
  Re: I get no respect!
  You're the Rodney Dangerfield of Techdirt. There's no respect, no respect I tell ya!
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  - Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:19pm
    
    Re: Re: I get no respect!
    Does that mean I'm also dead?
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    - Liz, 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:49pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
      Just your stand-up.
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- Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:20pm
  
  Re: I get no respect!
  Without proper recognition you have no incentive to post
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  - Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:30pm
    
    Re: Re: I get no respect!
    I agree. We must legislate to protect my recognition property ("RP") or else nobody will post comments anymore!
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    - Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:36pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
      Site operators should be held liable for not providing the necessary recognition.
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      - Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 2:35pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        Exactly! They are enabling recognition infringement and it's taking away my ability to be recognized for the comments I worked very hard to write. Does Mike not value my hard work? Of course he doesn't! He's supports recognition piracy! Keep drinking the Kool-Aid you sheep! You will rue the day!
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    - Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:36pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
      I have a right to be recognized!
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      - Dark Helmet (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:40pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        No, recognition should be limited to only myself and a handful of other people for, oh I don't know, say life plus seventy years. Once that time has expired, only then can someone else steal our recognition for free....
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        Liz, 10 Jul 2011 @ 1:54pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        The ironic part being that someone with more RP than you will take what you have. Then create a number of children's themes and market that via toys and kid's meals at popular restaurant chains that have even more RP.
        
        The entire system of enforced Recognition Property makes it difficult for small time Recognizists to come up in the world.
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        Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 2:37pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        Ok Tim, you and I will start a recognition cartel to keep competition out and control the market. All for us and none for all!
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        Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 3:19pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        We already have that. It's called the FCC. Only broadcasting, cableco, and other government established monopolists can get recognition.
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        Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 3:20pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        The U.S. is a government established plutocracy at its finest.
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        Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 5:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
        Yea, and we can setup a group to pick who gets recognized!
        
        We can call it the Recognition Industry Association of America or RIAA for short!
        
        RIAA will get 97.5% of the recognition since they make all recognition possible.
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- Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 2:40pm
  
  Re: I get no respect!
  This just might be the beginning of the "funniest/most insightful thread of the week"!
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  - Greevar (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 2:41pm
    
    Re: Re: I get no respect!
    But I get the credit! No dirty recognition pirate is going to steal my hard work that I got everyone to do for me!
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    - Atkray (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 3:50pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
      Facepalm
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    - Recognition Industry Association of America, 10 Jul 2011 @ 5:40pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I get no respect!
      RIAA has determined that you are only entitled to 2.5% of the total recognition that only we can make possible.
      
      Also, you owe us $500k, it cost us $800k to provide you with a comment box to seek recognition and your comments have only earned $300k.
      
      We hear that selling tickets to live recognition performances is a great way to pay off the debt you owe us.......
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- Chargone (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 6:43pm
  
  Re: I get no respect!
  no one of these posts is quite funny enough to really rate clicking the funny button... but the thread as a whole makes me wish there was a 'even more funny!' button :D
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Joe Publius (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 5:55pm

A desert of funny?

I thought this week's wittiest lines were far from dry!
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Nicedoggy, 10 Jul 2011 @ 6:43pm

Did any of you get consent from the government?
Without the license you have no rights, thank God we are not like China.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/10/why-the-transformers-cant-beat-their-way- into-beijing/

Glorious China has a moratorium on entertainment from the outside this month so the Chinese can see their Glorious government movie with a censored story that skips that bad parts of it.

In spite of this and rampant piracy companies complain vigorously about that, which I don't understand they should be happy that the biggest pirate haven in the world is curbing piracy by not allowing the root of the cause to be legal.

Now there one stats that can't be true in a freetard country, they are building 2 theaters a day in China despite no controls whatsoever.

Quote:
China's control over its movie industry actually raises much larger issues. Studio heads in Los Angeles salivate over the thought of China's 1.3 billion citizens turning into a Hollywood film buffs. There is already great interest in going to the movies in China. China is said to be building two new movie theaters everyday. But the Chinese government is not allowing market forces to determine who watches what movies.

Piracy is bad everybody knows that, we wouldn't finance anything if it is allowed to continue just look at China those theaters that opened today will close tomorrow because I'm saying so.
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- Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2011 @ 4:54am
  
  Re:
  I know, right? Remember people, if someone requests permission from you to do something, well, you might as well live in China.
  
  It's so simple...
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2011 @ 9:20pm

Nice to see that Dark Helmet's crap got top honors. It's a remarkable case of intentionally missing the point.
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- Nicedoggy, 10 Jul 2011 @ 9:50pm
  
  Re:
  Bum just because he outwitted you there is no need to be a sore looser.
  
  LoL
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  - The eejit (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 11:46pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Did you just loose some sores on the AC?
    
    AWESOME!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2011 @ 5:22am
    
    Re: Re:
    Outwitted? Is that a secret code word for "totally misrepresented my opinions"?
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    - Dark Helmet (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 5:32am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Yes, you've broken our "say the opposite of what we mean" code, you generally likeable and intelligent person....
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Nicedoggy, 10 Jul 2011 @ 11:32pm

Words from The Missionary Church of Kopimism

Quote:
Throughout history, various groups around the world have been persecuted by oppressors. It has since taken refuge in religion and wanted a peaceful coexistence. Without threats and harassment.

In our belief, communication is sacred. Communication needs to be respected. It is a direct sin to monitor and eavesdrop on people.

The absolute secrecy is holy in the church of kopimism.

In the individual pastoral care and confession with the kopimist priests (the Ops), priests are protected under Swedish law by an absolute professional secrecy.
Copyright Religion is our absolute opposite � Ongoing obstruction of copying.
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 10 Jul 2011 @ 11:54pm

Accidental or Intentional?
Hmm, my post was described as a "desert of funny". A Freudian slip, no doubt. ;)
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Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 4:22am

Rampant piracy
That's true. And a hot dog isn't a vibrator....but what's your point?
I am so going to find myself using that line at some point whether I want to or not.
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rumplesnitz, 11 Jul 2011 @ 5:05am

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments of the Week
A total waste of my time... One big clique of circle-jerkers patting each other on the back after another love-fest.
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- Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 8:08am
  
  Re: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments of the Week
  Better than the human centipede you guys got goin'.
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Bruce Ediger (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 5:26am

Serious inquiry about "excessive free speech"
I've noticed the tendency to put speech on a scale, with some speech being "excessive", coming from Anonymous Cowards in the recent past. I don't think that most AC's post enough to get a good sense of who they are, but I have a feeling that the AC in question is the legally-trained one, the one who also tends to either say outright or imply that asking a lawyer is the first step in determining the safety of just about everything.

In his or her case, saying something that un-American is a really good reason to remain Anonymous. If this is the legally-trained Coward, then it's more proof that "legal" thought has come completely unstuck from reality, and crawled up inside itself. The very thought that one can decide that someone else has "too much" free speech is just embarassing, something best kept to yourself. it's just plain weird that someone who (probably) has studied the US Constitution can arrive at that conclusion.
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- Greevar (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 8:49am
  
  Re: Serious inquiry about "excessive free speech"
  I've had a run-in with that particular AC. It (because I don't know what this person is) didn't do such a good job arguing its point and I pointed out its non-sequitur statement as the false rhetoric it was.
  
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110629/02005314900/rihanna-sued-yet-another-photographer- who-doesnt-understand-that-homage-is-not-copy.shtml#c518
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