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Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the the-invention-of-lying dept

Sun, Sep 7th 2014 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

As per usual, the latest copyright war of words (this one in the UK) came complete with a lot of misleading language and twisted ideas. TruthHurts scored first place for insightful this week by reminding everyone what copyright is for:

Copyrights aren't about passion or money.

Copyrights are about getting works into public domain after a reasonable period of time.

Only corporations have twisted it to mean money.

A lot of this week's discussion was focused on the claims of non-inventor of email Shiva Ayyadurai. Some people tried to compare Ayyadurai's nonsense with that old rumour about Al Gore claiming to have invented the internet. John Fenderson took second place for insightful by setting the record straight on that front:

There are two major problems with this comparison:

1) Gore never claimed to have invented the internet
2) When people started saying that he did claim that, he didn't devolve into batshit insanity in his attempt to continue to make a claim he never made in the first place.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start with tomczerniawski and another response to the UK Culture Secretary's comments:

“technology companies should be the partners of rights companies, not their masters” he says, while implicitly wishing for rights companies to become the masters of tech companies.

Meanwhile, with Deadmau5 picking on Disney to make a point about trademark hypocrisy, Tim R has noted that the double standard is already being exposed:

I think the real question to be asked here is why hasn't the entire domain been taken down yet. I mean, that is the correct and measured response that we've been told.

Isn't it?

Over on the funny side, first place goes to another reaction to the invention-of-email debacle — a simple, anonymous and inspired one:

I say we forward all spam to the inventor of email

Second place for funny comes from Michael in response to Ferrari's restrictive after-sale terms and conditions:

I was just about to buy one of those, but now that I read this, I'm going to get a Dodge Dart instead.

For editor's choice on the funny side, let's go ahead and grab two more responses to Shiva Ayyadurai. First we've got Crazy Canuck leaving the 56th comment on the post:

First comment
This is actually the first comment here as the first comment is defined as having a subject "First comment", starting with "This" and being exactly twenty nine words long.

And last but not least, after the Huffington Post claimed to have not received one of our emails inquiring about their coverage, one anonymous commenter made the connection:

You know who to blame for that don't you?

That's all for this week, folks!

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9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Sep 2014 @ 2:02pm

"Copyrights are about getting works into public domain after a reasonable period of time."

Not quite on point in my view in that the original copyright act, like its British counterpart, was for "the encouragement of learning". In more mundane terms, copyright is intended to facilitate the public dissemination of the expression contained in works of authorship. The sentence quoted above is a bit off to the extent it suggests that entry into the public domain is the key motivation.
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Beech, 8 Sep 2014 @ 1:24am

Re:
yeah, but what would encourage learning more than having a bunch of freely readable material available?
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Michael, 8 Sep 2014 @ 6:34am

Re: Re:
free snacks.
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Ninja (profile), 8 Sep 2014 @ 7:59am

Re:
And how locking up the stuff encourages spreading of knowledge in anyway? Copyrights should promote creation by giving the authors tools to profit on their works for a limited time thus benefiting the public in the mid to long run by adding more things to serve as fuel for more creation. So it is actually one of the things copyright SHOULD be doing.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Sep 2014 @ 12:39pm

Re: Re:
Something that is published and available for perusal by the public can hardly be said to be locked up. Every textbook I have ever used has been inscribed with a copyright notice. Amazingly, I was able to put each of them to good use in my academic work (well, except perhaps the one dealing with thermodynamics).
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John Fenderson (profile), 8 Sep 2014 @ 1:32pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yes, but there are many, many cases of books that have gone out of print and will never be printed again because of copyright. That's effectively locked up. That you or I might own a copy of the out of print book doesn't really factor into it.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Sep 2014 @ 3:32pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
It would be highly unusual for a book no longer in print to be completely unavailable to anyone who wants a copy.
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John Fenderson (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 8:22am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you have to go to extreme measures to obtain it then it's locked up.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Sep 2014 @ 9:51am

You mean something like locating a copy at a library or from a used book seller? Right now if I want a copy of a book I locate it at a library or from a new book seller. This hardly seems to be locked up.
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