Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the chitter-chatter dept
This week, we looked at an example of something all-too-rare: a rational response to terrorism, and a way to save more lives. Brent Ashley won first place for insightful with his thoughts on why that's not going to appeal to the powers that be:
This presumes that the goal of the current security developments is actually to reduce the effects of terrorism as stated. If it turned out that the real goal was to increase power and perpetuate revenue, we might find that there is little appetite among those in control for a rational approach to saving more lives. Perhaps the current strategy is serving their goals already.
Meanwhile, we also saw Netflix attacked for throttling its own traffic, and faced some claims that this is no different from ISPs throttling Netflix. That's plainly wrong, and John Fenderson took second place for insightful by simply pointing that out:
But it's not the same thing at all. Netflix is throttling its own traffic, not other people's. It's an enormous difference.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two responses to the RIAA's anger (expressed through lawyer Steve Metalitz) over people making use of the DMCA that it basically wrote (with his "instrumental" help). First, we've got an anonymous commenter expanding on just what it means that Metalitz represented the copyright industries' interests:
Ahh, so he has no interest in representing the public interest but has only represented private industry interests. Yet he was instrumental in the passage of laws that affect the public. So our laws are then not representative of the public but are representative of those that are instrumental in representing private interests.
Also if copy protection laws are really about the artists (though they should only be about the public) then why is the penalty structure one sided against artists that have their works falsely taken down? Why don't artists and service providers that receive false takedown notices receive the same protections as copy protection holders that get their works infringed upon with equivalent penalties against those filing those bogus takedown requests? Is it because these laws are not intended to serve the artists?
Next, we've got That One Guy with some more thoughts on the RIAA's complaints:
Whining about how having to consider fair use before sending a DMCA claim is too difficult is basically whining that they aren't allowed to target anything and everything without having to bother about such trifles as 'collateral damage' or 'innocence' first.
By that same logic people shouldn't have to worry about whether or not a use of something might be infringing before posting it because doing so would just be 'too difficult', and they can always just take it down later if it reaches that point. 'Accidents happen' after all, if they want to use that excuse to cover for bogus DMCA claims regarding other people's content because checking first is just too difficult, then they don't get to complain when someone else uses it with regards to their content because checking whether or not the use might be infringing would take effort on the part of the poster.
On a semi-related note, it would almost be worth it to have them get what they are demanding here, if doing so resulted in sites having the guts to apply it fairly. If context doesn't matter, and once claimed always down, then taking down an un-authorized post of a song or movie clip would result in the authorized version being taken down and blocked from being posted as well. After all without context the files are the same, the songs/clips are the same, so both need to be barred from being posted. Perhaps having entire services completely blocked from their use might drive the point into their thick skulls how stupid their demand really is.
Over on the funny side, we start out on the story of Comcast demanding over $60,000 for a broadband hookup it never actually delivered. Jo won first place for funny with a salesman's flare:
Attention unhappy Comcast customers! I will fail to provide internet service for half the price that Comcast charges to fail to provide it. Yes, that's right, you too can not have internet in Mountain View, but now it will only cost you $30,450!!
Next, we head to the news of TP-Link's blocking of open source firmware for its routers, where AnonCow won second place with an excellent headline revision:
"TP-Link Announces New Plan To Dramatically Reduce Router Sales"
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start with the big news that the FBI apparently successfully unlocked the infamous iPhone, where one anonymous commenter was concerned that they'd forgotten about a significant risk:
In other news: Dormant Cyber Pathogen Released
Finally, we head to the news that the MPAA actually... stood up for free speech. This was obviously a little tough to process for many, and Pixelation suspected traditional trickery on either our part or theirs:
April Fools!
That's all for this week, folks!
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