Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the oregon-trial dept

Sun, Feb 16th 2014 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

This week was surprisingly slow for funny votes, with the overall score of insightful comments rocketing past them. Nevertheless, there are lots of great comments, so let's get started with first place for insightful — a simple response from silverscarcat to the idea that copyright duration is truly "limited" in any meaningful way:

I'm sorry, but if something is under Copyright from before I'm born until well after I will likely be alive, then, it doesn't matter if there *IS* a limit, for me, it's eternal.

And that is why I do not support copyright, it is eternal, regardless of what is said.

(Furthermore, the fact that retroactive extensions have happened in the past renders the current limits utterly meaningless, as the government has already demonstrated that it is not committed to holding up its end of the bargain with the public.)

In second place, we've got a response to an even battier notion — giving creators huge cellphone discounts as a way to compensate them for the free consumption of their work. Violynne suggested the alternative, which artists seeking handouts never seem to consider:

Here's a better idea, Jarre: Work. For. Goddamn. Hire.

The rest of us have to do it, what the hell makes artists any different?

This entitlement is the reason copyright maximalists keep pushing to steal (an appropriate use of the word here) more money from our wallets.

"Our" being the consumer.

Want me to pay for your work? Good luck with that, because I don't pay for your "work". I pay the middlemen who mark up your work and give you a pittance in return.

So stop whining. If you want more money, talk to your goddamn distributor and leave everyone else out of it.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we'll start with one more related comment, this time on the subject of remixes and derivative works. When a bunch of big artists joined forces to fight a compulsory derivative license, insisting (ridiculously) that many artists would not release any work if they thought people might remix it (it's not like artists are jostling each other for the privilege of being remixed by DJs with bigger followings or anything like that, right?), Ninja calmly offered a reply that appropriately amounts to "if that's true, then good riddance":

We accept the wealth of new creations in detriment of the possible "losses" suffered due to short sighted morons not releasing their works.

Signed,

Culture
Common sense

and specially

The People.

Next, we've got a short, interesting idea that was offered amidst this week's discussion about strong passwords. Anyone who's ever worked in an office with an IT department will likely appreciate this anonymous idea for encouraging stronger passwords:

perhaps we could reward users for making a stronger password by expiring it less often

Over on the funny side, first place comes from our post about the French privacy agency that DDOSd its own website by forcing Google to send it traffic that it wasn't prepared to handle. The Mighty Buzzard made the joke that you just knew someone had to make:

Even their websites surrender.

In second place, we've got an anonymous response to the UK's plans to start filtering extremist content online:

How can you not see that we have to do this in order to stop the spread of radical ideas promoting a social order that controls it's members by restricting information and vilifying all those who disagree with their narrow views of what is acceptable.

For editor's choice on the funny side, as is often the case, we've got a pair of comments sparked by failures. But not the failures of the NSA, or the MPAA, or an aging rocker or a young producer, but rather our own failure to catch some typos in out post about ASCAP's collusion with record labels. First, when we accidentally dated an email in 2014 rather than 2013, before we could fix it, an anonymous commenter offered an explanation for the discrepancy:

Their email servers are probably also calibrated to use Hollywood math so even the timestamps on the servers are off.

Next, on that same post, we referred to the "trail transcript" between Pandora and ASCAP — a bizarre but intriguing notion that put one anonymous commenter in mind of a classic game:

They all died of dysentery.

Though we try to catch as many typos as possible here at Techdirt, it's nice to know the ones that slip through can still serve a purpose. That's all for this week, folks!

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42 Comments

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MrWilson, 16 Feb 2014 @ 1:19pm

The idea that artists would not release works out of fear of their works being remixed against their wishes is laughable on the face of it because the act of not releases your work for any form of experience by an audience makes you, in a social sense, not an artist at all, and therefore, you'd be removing any relevance that your opinion might otherwise have as "an artist."

And if you can successfully withdraw your cultural contributions from society so easily out of contempt for what the rest of society might do with them, then you probably already have enough money that more wouldn't have mattered and you're probably too anti-social anyway. I would just say thank you for allowing other, possibly lesser known artists to move in to fill the void that you left in the market.
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Wayne, 16 Feb 2014 @ 1:31pm

Typos noooo
"rather our own failure to catch some typos in out post about", I'm sorry typos in which out post?
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revfelix (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 1:50pm

"typos in out post"? I see what you did there.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 2:37pm

homer voce
I am the champion,
I am the champion,
No time for losers,
Cause I am the champion,
Of the world
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 16 Feb 2014 @ 3:15pm

Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
Seems as good a place as any to raise this subject.

As you may know, Microsoft is going to end support for its Windows XP operating system this April. It has been selling it, and supplying updates to it, for over 12 years, and many are saying it�s quite reasonable to stop now. This in spite of the fact that a third of the installed base of PCs are still running it. It should be quite all right for Microsoft to wash its hands of all responsibility for those miliions of users, isn�t it?

Except, I think not. All those installed copies of Windows XP are still very much Microsoft�s responsibility.

Why? Because, remember, it never sold any of those copies, it only licensed them. It claims they are its intellectual property.

Imagine you had a piece of property that you abandoned and neglected, letting it get covered with weeds, occupied by squatters, interlopers dumping rubbish etc: the city council would prosecute you for creating a noxious neighbourhood nuisance. All those abandoned Windows XP installations come under the same principle.

After all, property is property, right?
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- That One Guy (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 5:50pm
  
  Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
  For situations like that, I'd say there would be a good argument of 'if you're not supporting it, the customers deserve the ability to do so on their own', meaning if a company drops official support for something, whether it be software, a pieces of tech, or whatnot, then it, if not enters the public domain, at least has the rights 'loosened' enough that people don't risk a lawsuit from reverse engineering it in order to maintain and patch it themselves.
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  - Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 16 Feb 2014 @ 6:37pm
    
    Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
    Sure, except there�s no such provision in current copyright law anywhere in the world, as far as I�m aware.
    
    Copyright terms last something like 90 years nowadays. Therefore, Microsoft should be forced to provide support for that long, don�t you think?
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    - btrussell (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 2:40am
      
      Re: Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
      Yes. I have stated as much as these comments elsewhere too.
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  - Don Hills, 16 Feb 2014 @ 7:40pm
    
    Re: Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
    Or they could do what IBM did with OS/2.
    
    IBM dropped all support many years ago, but licensed it to a third party. Their version of it (eComStation) is still available, with support and updated drivers etc provided by a small group of developers. www.ecomstation.com
    
    But it's not in Microsoft's interest to do that, it might impact sales of their own later versions, a scenario that IBM didn't face.
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    - btrussell (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 2:43am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
      Then they need to build a better OS that an ancient one can't compete with.
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Feb 2014 @ 5:58pm
  
  Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
  "Except, I think not. All those installed copies of Windows XP are still very much Microsoft�s responsibility.
  
  Why? Because, remember, it never sold any of those copies, it only licensed them. It claims they are its intellectual property.
  "
  
  Then MS is responsible for the Licenses and not for the software.. you said it yourself !
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- WysiWyg (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 10:21am
  
  Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
  But in that case they would just revoke the license instead, wouldn't they? All of a sudden you're not sitting on an unsupported OS, you're sitting on an illegal copy of an unsupported OS.
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  - That One Guy (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 10:42am
    
    Re: Re: Windows XP Support And Intellectual Property
    A bunch of whom would then go searching for a cracked version of the OS, since they've already paid for the product, only to have it yanked away from them.
    
    Short sighted, stupid, driving people to other options... yeah, I could totally see them doing something like that.
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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous, 16 Feb 2014 @ 4:51pm

The new ACLU theme song
Sue, sue, sue
It's all we ever do
Sue, sue, sue
We're the ACLU
Forget the state, we want a federal judge
The will of the voters doesn't mean fudge
Tenth amendment? Just forget it!
Sue, sue, sue
We're the ACLU
Don't you say your prayers, boy
Or we'll sue you too!

Brought to you by the We Don't Care What The Voters Decided In The Democratic Process Or What The Tenth Amendment Says We'll Make Sure No State Can Set Its Own Definition Of Marriage And If That Means Getting One Federal Judge To Overturn The Will Of The People So Be It division of the ACLU.
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Feb 2014 @ 5:06pm
  
  Re: The new ACLU theme song
  And when "the will of the voters" decides that you are unequal?
  
  Enjoy your tyranny of the majority.
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  - That One Guy (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 5:47pm
    
    Same song, slightly different notes
    Hey, if the majority of the people in a state object to interracial marriages because it would 'destroy traditional marriage', then obviously that means people of different races don't deserve the right to be married, because it's the 'will of the people'. /s
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    - Anonymous, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:17pm
      
      Re: Same song, slightly different notes
      If, if if. Your scenario is irrelevant since IF does not equal what IS.
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      - That One Guy (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 7:50pm
        
        Re: Re: Same song, slightly different notes
        Umm, try again, that was very much a real issue in the US for a good while there, to the point that it took a 1967 ruling of the Supreme Court to finally kill off the various laws in place that prohibited that very thing, laws that were in place in 16 states at the time of the ruling.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States
        
        However, such is getting off track from what I was trying to point out, that the panic over 'homosexuals getting married' was pretty much just a rehash over the panic of 'interracial couples are getting married', and equally stupid, even if the terms had been changed slightly.
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- Rikuo (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 11:57pm
  
  Re: The new ACLU theme song
  I suppose me bringing up the point that state laws can never trump the US federal frikkin' Constitution would just be ignored, am I right?
  If you really want your state to ignore that very important piece of paper, then campaign to get your state to secede from the US of A and become its own independent nation. Until or if that happens, you are bound by the Constitution.
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  - Anonymous, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:15pm
    
    Re: Re: The new ACLU theme song
    Oh, you mean the constitution that says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people"? THAT constitution? That IS the constitution you're referring to, right? So tell me, where in this constitution you mentioned is regulation of marriage a power granted to the federal government and prohibited to the states?
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    - Anonymous, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:54pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: The new ACLU theme song
      So as you can see, this has nothing to do with state laws trumping the US constitution. Your comment was either deliberate deflection or misinterpretation on your part. Whatever the case, it didn't go ignored. I replied to you, now please answer my question.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2014 @ 7:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: The new ACLU theme song
      First amendment. Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Expression.
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Digitari, 16 Feb 2014 @ 7:25pm

Banning Remixs
I firmly support banning remixs if this will put an end to Miley Cyrus, is she not merely a remix of Billy Rays??
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- That One Guy (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 7:32pm
  
  Re: Banning Remixs
  Now now, I can certainly understand the temptation(SOPA will stop the next Beiber dead in his tracks? So... Very... Tempting...), but it's better to endure the crap, so the gold has a chance to shine.
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Just Sayin', 16 Feb 2014 @ 10:15pm

censorship
Another week goes by and none of the censored gems of wisdom by out_of_the_blue, darryl and average_joe. This is a disgrace. And you're going to censor this comment too, I bet.
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- CK20XX (profile), 16 Feb 2014 @ 11:24pm
  
  Re: censorship
  Whadaya mean you don't know what censorship is? Are you trying to make the word lose all meaning, like the words 'liberal' and 'hipster'?
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- Rikuo (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 12:00am
  
  Re: censorship
  That would be because they never posted. My own pet theory as to why is that they all died. Simultaneously, since such dedicated trolls could only ever be stopped by death.
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  - BSD32x (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 1:21am
    
    Re: Re: censorship
    So they were probably either in the same car, or maybe...just maybe...all the same person?
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    - btrussell (profile), 18 Feb 2014 @ 4:15am
      
      Re: Re: Re: censorship
      Did they find that plane in Italy yet?
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  - Pragmatic, 18 Feb 2014 @ 3:16am
    
    Re: Re: censorship
    Well the one thing they all have in common - correct me if I'm wrong - was continually whining that we hid their comments, often just on principle, and called it censorship.
    
    Since we then pointed out that their comments could be un-hidden at will, I think they're trying to "prove" they've been censored and are hoping that someone will mount a campaign to "reinstate" their "posting rights."
    
    As far as I'm concerned, good riddance.
    
    I think Just Sayin' may well be a sock puppet of AJ or Darryl, not a new troll. They're not fooling anyone.
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- btrussell (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 2:58am
  
  Re: censorship
  You aren't foolin' anyone aj.
  Just sayin'.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:09am
  
  Re: censorship
  horse with no name just hates it when due process is enforced.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:26am
  
  Re: censorship
  Let me guess, you're going to write to Beryl Howell whining about how Otis Wright makes your dick sad.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:48am
  
  Re: censorship
  Well, you havewn't Kaio-Ken'd enough. So yes, I am going to hide it.
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Ninja (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 2:23am

Wow! I really, really liked the idea of increasing password expiration times for those who use strong passwords. We should also start teaching people that strong passwords don't mean impossible to remember. I like the idea of pass phrases (with blank spaces and all). But then we need IT developers to allow long passwords and spaces. It's way easier when you use phrases.
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- btrussell (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 3:58am
  
  Re:
  I too like phrases except I modify them.
  
  Phrase:
  The feet of the cat went over the fence before the tail.
  
  Password:
  Defeat of De cat went over Defense before Detail
  
  or one of the ways I actually use:
  D3F34tofD3C4tw3nt0v3rD3f3nc38$D3T417
  
  Notice that the password I would actually use is a two-step process. Alter the phrase in a way you remember, then put it in code you can remember.
  
  Everyone is unique. You need to think of what you think is unique to you and use that to your advantage.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2014 @ 2:59am

best comment
"How can you not see that we have to do this in order to stop the spread of radical ideas promoting a social order that controls it's members by restricting information and vilifying all those who disagree with their narrow views of what is acceptable."

I can't believe this comment didn't get #1, it certainly should have.
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- btrussell (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 4:15am
  
  Re: best comment
  Something could be screwy. My google joke about having "GO" and "GLE" tattooed on my ass cheeks didn't even register as funny. Should I have mentioned the color scheme of the letters? Is it a common tattoo?
  
  If only I had used a semicolon.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2014 @ 4:37am
    
    Re: Re: best comment
    "If only I had used a semicolon."
    
    That would require a painful medical procedure though.
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    - btrussell (profile), 18 Feb 2014 @ 10:54am
      
      Re: Re: Re: best comment
      I saw a woman with the same tattoo but using a semicolon instead. Everyone wanted to see hers, no one wanted to see mine.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2014 @ 9:53am

Perfectly Logical
"How can you not see that we have to do this in order to stop the spread of radical ideas promoting a social order that controls it's members by restricting information and vilifying all those who disagree with their narrow views of what is acceptable."

That reminds me of the similar logic of death penalty supporters:

"We kill people who kill people because killing people is wrong."
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Anonymous, 18 Feb 2014 @ 2:33pm

I should have known Rikuo would chicken out!
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