Mike C's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the prenda,-prenda,-prenda dept
Prenda, prenda, prenda... (hat tip to Jan Brady). What... you thought I'd lead with something else? Ohhhhh, fine!So here we are at the end of another week and what a week it was. We started off Monday with April Fool's Day and there were a couple of fools to be found. How Viacom expects the judge to keep a straight face when blatantly misconstruing the clear regulations in the DMCA is beyond me. And NATO... WTF? As a home based employee, I'm lucky if wear pants on any given day. There's no way your run of the mill "hactivist" is going to wear a uniform. Of course, the biggest tease of the day has to go to Mike's reminder of the looming appearance by Prenda Law in Judge Wright's courtroom. After that article posted, I barely got any real work done as I was scouring for other opinons. Of course, that drove me to follow Popehat on Twitter which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the week.
Tuesday started out with a hint of the logical disconnect to come with a follow-up story about Paul Hansmeier and his attempt to branch off as a professional Class Action Objector. I'm beginning to believe he's gotten to the point where he really believes the words coming out of his mouth are true - a scary proposition. Of course, we didn't have to wait too long for the extinction-level event to take place. Prenda showed up, plead the fifth and left - all in less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered. They pissed off the judge and gave me (via Ken/Popehat) my favorite phrase of the week: incandescently angry. Ken White's analysis was, to put it mildly, also a great read. We now get to wait for the delivery of what we hope to be a nuclear (but well reasoned) response. Of course, that agony ended up being tinged with anger at seeing how Congress is planning to debate CISPA behind closed doors. A government of the people, by the people and FOR the people? Not lately...
Wednesday gave us a follow up to a prank from Monday which led to my 12 year old son asking "Why are people so stupid?" Even in 6th grade, he understands enough basic chemistry to know what that is. Of course, in our panic driven environment these days (if you see something, say something), you have to wonder if it was an inevitable outcome. And speaking of outcomes, does anything think this could possibly have a good one? Of course, predictions seen on Techdirt could never come true, could they???? We also had the USPTO offering a final rejection of an Apple patent that Samsung supposedly infringed. Since the case is still rattling around the courts, who wants to bet this adds another 2-3 years to it's duration?
On Thursday, I had a combination of family and work matters intrude, but did manage to catch what turned out to be my Favorite Techdirt Comment of The Week. In a follow-up story to DMCA takedown by Prince, Mike posted a link to the video in question and an analysis of why it was Fair Use and how the takedown should have taken that into consideration. Of course, we had a few copyright trolls show up to which reader S. T. Stone gave a rather comprehensive reply, garnering a First Word. Trolls being what they are couldn't let it rest, but S. T. Stone came back with a second, just as eloquent and insightful response. Well done!
Nothing like finishing out the week with a little insanity where the EFF helpfully points out that based on public statements from the DOJ, it's illegal for a 12 year old to read the New York Times online, but perfectly fine if he reads the print version. Cue the dog with the tilted head/WTF? look on it's face. And of course, how can we have a week without the entertainment industry telling us how we're doing it wrong? Wait... I know... I've got the perfect solution to the music industry financial crisis - bands just need to sell ads to be placed in the middle of their songs!!! All they have to do is take their own advice now and we'll all be saved. Yay!!! Something tells me they're not going to listen though. Oh well - back to waiting for Judge Wright's incandescently angry order... :-)
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An example of creative thinking that most people would dismiss can be seen right here in this very forum almost every day, when bob or out of the blue try to post people just report the post, it is being used as a censor tool, not that I mind I just pointing out that people and it has to be more than one because you need to rich a threshold to get it hidden apparently naturally gang up together against those perceived trolls I say perceived because I am not going to get into if they are or not really trolls I believe they are trolls and deserve that form of social exclusion, but that could be just my opinion of them and my bias talking this is why I am choosing to use perceived and not "are", but I digress, going back to the "creativity" demonstrated everywhere else I can see it happening every day some good some bad, the Hansmeier affair coupled with his buddy Steele from my point of view is the creativity being used to harm others making use of granted monopoly powers to do that, which brings back to a large number of people being affected by creative laws that undermine the rights of the many for the rights of the few this won't end well at all because the people who most need freedom and information are the most likely to be excluded from it by intellectual property laws, when you are poor you have to build and do it yourself and intellectual property is like the communist party of the ex-USRR saying to people that they can't do something even if they know and need it for some reason, we all know how that ended and we all know how this will end.
Those are the things that cross my mind when I see copyright/patent trolls acting out, they are the spark that will light a fire that will be remembered for a long time.
My thoughts go to people who have to produce their own medicines and have to deal with patents, my thoughts go to little busker on the streets that get persecuted by authorities because of copyrights and laws being passed that affect them and how they can earn a living, my thoughts goes to people trying to build anything out of need and having somebody knock on their doors and call them criminals because they supposedly did something that somebody else is claiming ownership over it, my thoughts go out to people find themselves unable to do anything because they don't have the money to buy it and can't even do it for themselves anymore because of IP laws, that are monopolies, created by the incompetent and managed by the greedy that uses the states force to make compliance obligatory, I feel sorry for the people who have to live under that threat is like Communism has been reborn with another name, this is truly Communism in a defacto manner, where one central government decides who can do what and when and doesn't allow market forces to apply to find the natural easiest way that doesn't have too much attrition, instead some governments want to expend millions just to keep that system going, this machine is not well oiled anymore is showing signs of grinding and it may be just a matter of time before it stop working altogether, until them good luck everyone, we all will need, because those people will go down kicking and screaming and will harm a lot of folks in the process. Which maybe will make people realize that they should never grant monopolies to anybody, it doesn't work, monopolies should be natural with an obvious scape route so it doesn't become a monster, granting monopolies just hurts everyone.
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I skip pretty much all of your posts. You just aren't as interesting as you think you are.
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That entire wall-of-text second paragraph is a single sentence. Ditto with the last one, except for the last two lines. It's almost a work of art.
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Curious as to what he said is a misapprehension of the law. The only thing he noted that might possibly be a bit of an exaggeration (but only barely one) is that breaking TPM on a single game might be seen as a criminal offense. That's not quite true, but not that far off. Every other claim he made is well supported by reality.
So, do tell, which mistakes did he make?
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