Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the your-words dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous commenter responding to the claim that the Blurred Lines ruling isn't a problem because lots of songs are not similar:

I'm not sure you understand.

Similar songs are what's called a genre, because they all share basic similarities in structure, composition, and 'feel' or 'groove'. You can instantly identify a rock and roll song from a jazz song because they have different similarities. Rock and roll was born out of a few different artists all riffing off each other and other styles to create something new. If making similar songs was illegal back then, rock and roll would have died in the 50s.

If it's now illegal to create a new song that feels or sounds similar to another song, you've just made music genre's illegal and automatically outlawed somewhere around 75% of all music on the market today because it all builds off songs, styles, and artists that came before them.

As an example, consider the I–V–vi–IV chord progression. It's extremely common in a lot of songs but would likely now be illegal because it gives songs built off of it a similar feel. In fact several comedians have built routines off of this and other chord groupings.

Another famous example that comes to mind is Pachelbel's Canon. Do you have any idea of the sheer amount of songs and music that are based off of or riff off of that work? It's used in many works from artists as varied as Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Vitamin C.

TD isn't spreading FUD, it's actually pretty on point.

In second place, we've got another anonymous commenter with a thought on our post about Craigslist becoming the first victim of SESTA:

Slight correction

Mike, Craigslist was the 2nd victim. Common Sense was the first one.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got another comment about SESTA, this time from PaulT responding to the claim that fixing the law's problems would harm Hollywood:

Even if it actually did significantly harm Hollywood, would you rather have the major studios harmed or the victims of sex trafficking? Hell, there's a fair argument that the activities of some of the studios is leading to some of the trafficking in the first place! I'd bet that the fallout from Weinstein's activities have revealed some involvement in some way, at the very least.

For an issue that's so regularly been based on emotional rather than factual arguments, it does seem like a strange tactic to try getting people to root for the major corporations here. I'd love to think it's because they've finally realised that they're being called out on how much it would harm actual victims if passed, but I'm not confident that's actually getting said outside of sites like this.

And finally, we've got a response from Daydream to the story that dominates things on the funny side, about the YouTuber who faces hate speech charges in Scotland for training his girlfriend's dog to act like a nazi:

It seems to me that these prosecutors sending people to jail for teaching a dog politically incorrect tricks, are the real ones causing fear and stirring up hatred.

It was Gary who took first place on the funny side with his response to that same story:

Wrong Target

Why hasn't the dog been charged?

Next, we drop slightly out of our usual order to slip in our first editor's choice for funny, since ShadowNinja had a good response:

Because he was just following orders.

In second place on the funny side, it's ryuugami with another take on the prankster's situation:

On the plus side

There's no better way to annoy a girlfriend than having to spend a year in prison for doing something stupid.

Last but not least, we move away from that post for one more editor's choice, which actually racked up precisely equal votes for both insightful and funny. It's That One Guy with a bit of a script-flip on the idea of video games causing violence:

'I reject your studies and substitute my self-rightousness'

Nah, I've saved several kingdoms, planets, even a galaxy or two, that's plenty to 'sooth the last pangs of conscience' over killing digital people.

(Understanding the difference between fantasy and reality might help too, but I'm sure it's of negligible importance in comparison.)

After all, if ending a digital 'life' is supposed to be something to feel guilty over, then saving one should more than make up for it, especially given the difference in scope.

That's all for this week, folks!

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Reader Comments

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  • icon
    Richard (profile), 25 Mar 2018 @ 12:15pm

    Comedy

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ECA (profile), 25 Mar 2018 @ 12:38pm

    For the Dogs..

    And Who is acting as a Nazi now??
    The Gov.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      David, 25 Mar 2018 @ 1:56pm

      Re: For the Dogs..

      Fascism is a doctrine about the relation of government to constituents. So is socialism. So who else but the government is effectively going to act as a Nazu?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        ECA (profile), 25 Mar 2018 @ 2:37pm

        Re: Re: For the Dogs..

        Humans are idiots..1 way or another..

        And placing someone into jail for being an idiot..
        is Idiotic..and CAN get the Gov. in abit of hot water..

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Richard (profile), 26 Mar 2018 @ 2:53am

        Re: Re: For the Dogs..

        Fascism is a doctrine about the relation of government to constituents. So is socialism.

        Not really true. Fascism is about the relationship of a particular subgroup in society to the rest. Whether that subgroup controls the government is not the point.

        Any mob can act quite effectively as Nazis. On the other hand socialism is really about relations within a subgroup.

        It can also exist as a society within the rest of society.

        Arguably the early Christian church was socialist in that sense - since they held all things in common. This tradition is continued by monastic communities to this day.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 26 Mar 2018 @ 3:04am

          Re: Re: Re: For the Dogs..

          The early Christian church was much more communist, as are most monasteries, whatever religion they practice, that is to say everything is owned by the community. Socialism on the other hand is the state owning everything on behalf of the community, group etc., and was meant to be a step on the way to communism, but those who gained power under that system liked the power and refused to give it up to make the transition to communism.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Richard (profile), 26 Mar 2018 @ 4:47am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: For the Dogs..

            I think you make an artificial distinction between the state and the community. Every community of any size has leaders who organise things on behalf of the community.

            If the whole nation constitutes the community then the community==the state.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              Bergman (profile), 2 Apr 2018 @ 12:19am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: For the Dogs..

              The crucial difference is in the nature of those leaders.

              If the leader is placed above the commoners, that's socialism.

              If the leader is the leader solely because of being the best planner and has no authority outside of that specialty, that's communism.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 26 Mar 2018 @ 7:16am

          Re: Re: Re: For the Dogs..

          Not really true. Fascism is about the relationship of a particular subgroup in society to the rest. Whether that subgroup controls the government is not the point.

          I see you're using your own, private dictionary again.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Richard (profile), 26 Mar 2018 @ 2:55pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re: For the Dogs..

            I see you're using your own, private dictionary again.

            Why shouldn't I?

            It seems everyone else does

            Read the following from the wikipedia article on "Definitions of Fascism"

            What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915.

            If you read the rest of that article you will see that my definition is not an outlier.

            link to this | view in chronology ]


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