Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the court-of-wolves dept

It's hard to decide which is more infuriating: culture being stymied by copyright abuse, or simply by intricacies, stupidities and failures at the systemic level (with a dash of apathy and negligence thrown in). The latter is what led to the death of a classic game re-release this week, prompting Yes, I know I'm commenting anonymously to win most insightful comment of the week with a simple suggestion to fix the issue of orphaned and ambiguously-owned works:

I propose the same solution as for those `disappeared' mortgage contracts: contest the ownership in court and if it isn't quickly proved, the judge can declare a forfeit on the ownership (basically public domain-ing the content).

In second place, we've got a response to the idea that the government's seizure of Kim Dotcom's assets is justified by his failure to come to the US and appear in court. Jupiterkansas offered a poetic summation of the situation:

The high court of wolves said, "Of course the sheep can have justice. All it has to do is walk into our lair. If the sheep won't do that voluntarily, then obviously the sheep has done something wrong."

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an excellent anonymous comment responding to a call for more moneymaking institutions for creators:

By institutions do you mean institutions like Kickstarter and Patreon, or services like bandcamp and Youtube, which are already being built; or do you mean new forms of publishers, who take control of works for their own profits?

All the creative arts are changing, and the balance is shifting towards models where the creator forms a more direct relationship with their fans and supporters. The changeover will be painful for the traditional publishers, and the creators who rely on them, mainly because the alternatives can function with mush smaller fan bases, so long as the role of middlemen is kept to a minimum, and the creators look to try and make a reasonable living, rather than a vast fortune.

Next, we've got another anonymous comment, this time in response to the idea that patents protect small inventors from big companies:

Patents protecting small-time inventors from the big corporate baddies is the kind of nonsense you read in fairy tales. Even acquiring the patent in the first place is expensive (USPTO cost summary here), let alone suing for infringement, let alone the countersuit the big baddies can and will file against the upstart. How many lawsuits can a basement genius afford?

They'd be hard-pressed to design a system more rigged against the mythical "poor, lonely inventor".

Over on the funny side, first place goes to That Anonymous Coward for thoughts inspired by SpaceX's public domain release of photos:

When they start launching people, I have a list...
oh they have to be willing?
Nevermind...

In second place we've got jakerome, who responded to a slight misquote in our post about the tech-confused Rep. John Carter with a credible impression of a Techdirt troll:

Another massive mistake by The Masnick

It's not "big super computers" as you hyperventilate in your post. Rather, the well-informed representative was placidly referring to "big giant super computers." Try to get it straight next stop & end this dedication to pursuing your agenda from clouding your judgment.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with one more response to that post, this time from David with some recommendations for the esteemed Representative:

Perhaps he needs to get out more.

This new-fangled encryption stuff is scary. Maybe he needs to relax and go see a nice movie. I've heard "The Imitation Game" is good.

Finally, we've got a comment from Ninja, who responded to the image of a cannon-defended Music Biz Island with some small revisions for accuracy:

Too modern, I'd picture them throwing rocks while brandishing a few roughly assembled weapons made of wood and stone and making grumbling noises. The mere sight of the led lamps in the boats is met with wild and violent reactions. It seems they haven't discovered fire yet.

Sounds like Back To The Future IV: Jurassic Music.

That's all for this week, folks!

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team