Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the histories-and-hypocrisies dept
Recently, Bell seems to have woken up to the fact that lots of people use VPNs to access Netflix in other markets — and has decided that's a terrible thing. This week, they urged the public to shame such users, prompting both our first and second place comments for insightful this week. First, it's an anonymous commenter pointing out just how absurd this whole thing has gotten:
You know we're in crazy land when even paying for content is theft
Next, it's DB underlining the double standard when it comes to regional restrictions:
Businesses want to choose in a global labor market, but they don't want 'their' customers to have unmediated access to the global services marketplace.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start with a comment from John Fenderson, responding simply and elegantly to the idea that Edward Snowden gave up his right to due process:
If it's possible to give up due process, then "due process" means nothing at all.
Next, we head to our post about how police and the media make efforts to disparage those who have died as a result of bad police behavior, where one anonymous commenter highlighted how the system inherently favors bad cops over good ones:
That's why I automatically assume the police and press are lying when they say anything negative about the person they just shot.
Although I did once meet a former officer who had quit after almost shooting an unarmed man, and I do believe his story. The problem is, he quit because he was a good cop and couldn't stand the thought of shooting someone who was unarmed, even though the officer thought the person he was chasing had a gun and was about to shoot him.
So the problem is, people who should be cops quit when they come close to shooting an unarmed person, and those who shouldn't be cops don't quit. So you see how police forces quickly become full of people who shouldn't be cops.
On the funny side, we start out on our post about a UK official claiming that torrents are a gateway to more serious crime, and expounding the need to prevent kids from going down that path. That One Guy won first place by noting a certain unintended wisdom in his words, and adding an additional statement to his list:
"There are many of our young people, and not only young people, who are becoming highly skilled and capable in a digital environment," he said.
"It's important that they put those skills to good use and are not tempted to become involved, unwittingly in cyber criminality.
"They are members of forums and are exchanging ideas in a marketplace that criminals are looking (at).
"They are looking for people with technical skills who can compliment their criminal business.
"They are looking to recruit those people.
"They try to induce and manipulate them."
"And that is why it's so important to sit down and talk to your sons and/or daughters, because if you don't, they might end up working for the government."
Next, we head to our post about a scrap over copyright and Javascript, kicked off by a threat letter from Airtel to a guy who exposed their practice of secret Javascript injection. DannyB won second place for funny by noting the similarity in tone between the threat letter and some more well-known bullshit correspondence:
From threat letter:Your act also amounts to a criminal offence under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Information Technology Act, 2000. This act of you have caused great damage to our client's business, as well as to its name and reputation, and although such looss cannot be compensated in terms of money, our client will be entitled to claim and recover from you substantial amount by way of compensation/damages.I was expecting to see an additional paragraph:We will forego any damage if you will help our wealthy client to move a large sum money out of the country in exchange for half the proceedes. Please to be sending us your bank account informations so we can be depositing the large sum into your account.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we remain on that post for a moment, where we also examined the whole idea of copyright and code and just how such things should work. Is simply viewing source code copyright infringement? One anonymous commenter adapted an old defence to this new purpose:
i looked at the words, but i didn't inhale.
Finally, we head to our post about the ongoing fears (and fights) related to cellphone radiation. One commenter pointed out the deja vu feeling of this issue for those who were told to fear radiation from good ol' television sets, leading to a conversation about the days before remote controls, and finally this gem from commenter RightShark:
My dad had a voice-activated remote control back then.
He would say "Son, go change the channel."
That's all for this week, folks!
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Funniest of Week is what did NOT appear: Apple and Spotify focus on getting freeloaders to pay!
About three months after Masnick and Geigner pronounced JayZ's Tidal doomed because of $10 monthly subscription fee, BOTH Spotify and Apple have announced that the central problem is TOO MANY FREELOADERS and that they must get more people to PAY. No matter how Spotify and Apple try to spin it positive, the sheer fact is that on-line streaming just isn't profitable.
Spotify's Daniel Ek said not enough revenue* with 15 million PAYING listeners and 45 million freeloaders, even though latter listen to advertising that does pay some too! Ek also gives evidence that Apple (and Google) subsidize their audio streams from other income.
Apple will go to 3-month free trials, then $10 bucks a month just like Tidal.
And by the way, why didn't Masnick cheer JayZ? He claims to like experiments and can rant about paywalls if flops! But Masnick RUSHED to say Tidal is DOOMED, and after only two months, Geigner added his tiny (paid for) echo.
Despite this TIDAL WAVE (get it?) of empirical evidence that streaming audio can't be provided free, not a PEEP out of Masnick and minions! They don't let facts form their notions, so why expect them to change opinion later?
Another of Masnick's ivory-tower hippie-ish notions is now proved UNEQUIVOCALLY FALSE in TWO full-scale well-funded attempts.
Techdirt is a FAITH-BASED personality cult. -- Around a dull weenie who only re-writes! In itself, proves that low quality is what you get for free.
All Masnick has shown after SEVENTEEN YEARS is astounding ability to ignore facts and keep spouting the same loony piratey ideology. Except in his own walled-garden with faithful fanboys, he's a JOKE!
* Spotify has tried to lower the cost of content, meaning pay artists less, a typically sleazy move so that a few untalented grifters can live high off artists. How is its "business model" better than the old system?
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Re: Funniest of Week is what did NOT appear: Apple and Spotify focus on getting freeloaders to pay!
So who is cheating the artists again?
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Re: Funniest of Week is what did NOT appear: Apple and Spotify focus on getting freeloaders to pay!
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Why?
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More FUN from Techdirt's side pages: "As a general policy"!
https://www.techdirt.com/adpolicies.php
It's a lawyerly non-statement that seems clear and specific yet isn't at all: "general" and "policy" are rubber words that stretch as needed. The only firm part is that all after the comma HAS EXCEPTIONS. And then the little specific actually excludes the general.
However, the major point is states nothing about Techdirt! [Readers] "can always be certain", eh? Thanks for permission I don't need. But of what if anything does Techdirt assure me?
What readers can be "certain of" is narrowed to "one thing", so doesn't include after the second commma: "Techdirt retains total editorial independence from all of our advertisers and sponsors". First, who exactly is "Techdirt"? It appears to be only a brand name of Floor64, which is another mysterious entity. So does that include the PERSONS who write for Techdirt's front page? Or just some fictional "editor"?
Then "retains" implies past tense. It's not stated as "maintains". Sounds copied from a purchase agreement. Is there any prior to retain? What's the present state?
Now what about corporations or persons other than "our advertisers and sponsors", such as automated advertisers or clients or any other relation including investments either paying or not including deferred and/or non-monetary benefits? Where's even a list of "our advertisers and sponsors" so that I can gauge Techdirt by them?
Last, the floating comma-ed clause which isn't the "one thing", then I can't be certain Techdirt "stands behind" anything. And since Techdirt has clear position that NO content is original, and nearly all facts related are only copy/paste reporting of what others have stated for which have no liability, what does "our original content" mean?
Yet again when I look to Techdirt for statements, all I find is ambiguous. Readers can't even rely on common law principles when actually a disclaimer.
Editorial integrity can't be conditional or partial. Here's what should be stated: Techdirt has total editorial independence and stands behind all of our content.* When not said just that plainly, there's a reason.
Clearly, readers are intended to mistake it for a positive, but it's more of Techdirt's characteristic lawyerly way of having it all ways at once trying to never be pinned down.
[* Comments by readers are not entirely Techdirt's liability though of course at same time Techdirt fully claims comments when to advantage.]
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Re: More FUN from Techdirt's side pages: "As a general policy"!
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Re: Re: More FUN from Techdirt's side pages: "As a general policy"!
How the world has settled low in the bogmire of legalese!
There, got that of my chest - now back to planning the dressing of the ovine residents next door. Yummy. BBQ, slow cooker, roasts all coming my way.
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I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm being 100% honest here, it sounds as if Major Hootage has forgotten to take their meds or something, based on everything he/she wrote. What a mess.
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the Big Time
Of course, I have to thank my Dad. Without him, I would not have known how to change channels.
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Re: the Big Time
In the circle-jerk of Techdirt you've got the soggy biscuit.
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On Al Jazeera Last Week ...
Anybody else watch Al Jazeera? Probably the highest-quality news network in the world right now.
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Re: On Al Jazeera Last Week ...
Not a high barrier to cross. I tried making a "Paralympics" joke, but in reality we are more like talking about beer-bellied has-beens in the boat house of a former elite rowing club who'd capsize the boats even if there weren't holes in the hulls.
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Re: On Al Jazeera Last Week ...
In short, they have credibility. And they have earned it.
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“couldn't stand the thought of shooting someone who was unarmed”
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Re:
Speaking of which, it's sad to see how society is slowly sliding backwards to a time when law enforcement was indeed completely arbitrary, where one could find themselves jailed for simply looking at someone the wrong way and never see the light of day again.
Sounds like a world the spiteful little trolls here would love now that I think about it. Of course, it's only because they arrogantly believe they'll be the ones getting to decide who is guilty and who is not, all without due process. No more pesky trials, no more having to prove anything with real, honest evidence.
It's easy to see their hearts are brimming over with barely contained hate given the posts they make and I actually feel sorry from them because of that. It's sad to see anyone willingly allow their very souls to be poisoned and corrupted just so. The stress of obsessing must surely wear on their health, no?
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TV set radiation
Early color TVs could emit soft X-rays if the high voltage circuit was running too high. I had always wondered if any cats that slept on those TVs developed mutations.
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Re: TV set radiation
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Old habits...
Ehm, really?? I though it was a thousands-years-old tradition of market sellers to end the haggling with lines along of "May gods curse you for stealing food from the mouths of my children!" - pretty much regardless of how the haggling went (or if there even were any children....)
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He would say "Son, go change the channel.""
Yes, I remember having two voice-programmed automatic dish washers back in the '70s - two daughters. Worked pretty well.
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