Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the holiday-edition dept

It's been a short week, and a slow one for comments and votes, but as always we've still got few great ones that rose to the top. On the insightful side, That One Guy won first place with his thoughts on the developer who urged people not to buy his game as a Christmas gift:

You only get one first impression

I'm going to have to side with the developer on this.

If someone, somehow, got me a game that 'Looked great', but the copy was before it was run through bug hunting, had numerous glitches, and was obviously incomplete... well, I probably wouldn't be too happy, with them, or the game itself.

If someone's first impression of a game is based upon a game-in-development, odds are that impression is not going to be very good. And if the first impression is rubbish, or even just mediocre, the recipient of the gift isn't likely to care about the game whenever it does come out, and any 'reviews' they give, to friends and family, are going to be based upon the incomplete game they received, which isn't likely to be very flattering to the game or developer.

Now, to anyone who knows about the game already, someone who is already interested in it, and has been considering picking it up, they might be a good recipient. But anyone outside of that narrow category is probably best presented with a complete gift, for the sake of everyone involved.

In second place, we've got an anonymous comment about the lawsuit against Snowden and others, supposedly pursued "on behalf of the American people":

As this is being done on 'my behalf' I would like to formally drop all charges.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two comments from two different Thats — first, another nod to That One Guy for his thoughts on Finland's replacement for copyright levies:

No steps forward, two steps back

"...voted overwhelmingly to replace a levies system that has existed since 1984 with the creation of a government fund designed to compensate artists for private copying of content such as music and movies"

With a levies/'You must be a pirate' tax, you only got 'taxed' if you bought something that fell within the purview of the law, like a blank CD, MP3 player or whatnot. However, if they're planning on replacing that with a 'government fund', then everyone is going to be paying, because who do you think is ultimately funding that?

This change isn't an improvement, it's making the situation worse. All it's doing is replacing one system of free money for the movie and recording industries with another, further enshrining the idea that, even after you've bought something, you still need to pay extra to use it however you wish.

Of course the real question, and one I don't believe I've seen answered yet, is, if private copying is legal, why exactly do the copyright owners deserve to get paid, again, for people doing so with what they bought? If I buy a CD, or a song online, why exactly does the copyright owner(rarely the actual creator) deserve to get paid again if I want to back it up or format shift it to another device?

And if the idea behind such taxes/levies is to 'compensate' copyright owners for piracy, that's even worse. That's slapping people with an extra fee, based upon what they might do. That would be like sending everyone a ticket for speeding because some of them might speed; it's punishing the innocent and guilty alike.

Getting rid of levies/'You must be a pirate' taxes would be a good thing, but simply replacing them with a slightly different system, and one that affects even more people? That is most certainly not, that's making things worse.

Next, it's That Anonymous Coward with some scathing words for Rep. Mike Rogers, who called for cyberwar with North Korea:

Because going to war has worked out so well for us.

The war to end all wars was fought twice.
The war on drugs has done nothing but enrich a few.
The war on terror has shown that we can be worse than those we call terrorist.
A cyberwar will do nothing but funnel more money and resources into something endless that will serve no actual purpose. It will escalate from tit for tat, until someone decides that isn't enough and there must be blood shed to prove they are the best.

He is a moron, he will not be missed. His desire for a more fearful populace beholden to the snake oil saviors, paying them protection money for the magic rock that repels tigers, made the entire world worse off. He is a prime example of someone more beholden to corporate bottom lines than representing those who elected him to make their lives better. He would burn allow the public to be crushed in his rush to shovel more money into the corporate coffers.

I look forward to seeing which corporate sponsor takes him on, so we can see how little it cost to subvert the ideals of a nation.

Over on the funny side, Michael dominated the voting, taking both first and second place with comments about Comcast's "secret phone number" given to lawmakers, supposedly for good customer service. Doubtful, Michael figured there's only one way that's possible:

I have to assume that the secret phone number is simply the number of another company.

Later, after we were accused of misleading reporting, Michael could only agree, since to a Comcast customer, anything is more likely than good service:

It's very misleading. Right in the headline:

Secret Phone Numbers To Reach Good Customer Service

With or without one of these cards Comcast customer service is awful.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we'll start with one more comment from the Comcast post. Observer upheld the internet rule that there's an XKCD for everything:

Presumably these priority cards have the word "shibboleet" on them.

And finally we've got Roger Strong, playing holdout against the latest data on the cord-cutting revolution:

Cord cutting is a myth. I read it in the newspaper.

That's all for the holiday week, folks! We'll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled content.

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