Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the the-votes-are-in dept

Sun, Nov 18th 2018 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is James Burkhardt responding to the idea that the EU Copyright Directive may not have blocked the Wonky Donkey viral sensation because "no one is required to enforce copyright":

Article 13 requires proactive efforts to ensure copyright is not infringed. Article 13 requires Websites to enforce copyright, despite not knowing if content is infringing.
You lie.

In second place, we've got That One Guy making the fair point that our word-choice when describing the cop who lost qualified immunity for shooting a man with his hands up wasn't nearly harsh enough:

There's setting the bar low, and then there's throwing it out
"Officer Minchuk screwed up."
Using the wrong paperwork for something would be an example of someone who 'screwed up'.
Parking in a handicaped zone because you weren't paying attention would be an example of someone who 'screwed up'.
Writing not one but two bogus tickets could possibly be classified as 'screwing up'. (Though the attempt to get paid to make them go away would seem to suggest it was more an attempt to get a quick buck.)
He didn't 'screw up', he attempted to extort someone for money via bogus tickets, assaulted him, attempted to destroy evidence that would contradict his claims, and then attempted to murder someone who had surrendered.
To call that a case of someone who 'screwed up' is to set the bar so low it might as well not exist.
He should not only be stripped of qualified immunity and fired, but charged with assault and attempted murder at the least.
"If officers are justified in shooting surrendering suspects, this leaves arrestees zero options to avoid being shot. That's an obviously ridiculous outcome."
More than 'ridiculous' it's dangerous, to the police. Basic psychology is that desperate people are more willing to take extreme actions if they feel they need to, making even otherwise peaceful people much more likely to fight, possibly to the death.
If people come to believe that surrendering to the police has good odds of getting them killed then they are going to be much more likely to do everything they can to escape, up to and including attempting to shoot if not kill the officer(s) in question, and that's not a good outcome for anyone sane.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more response from James Burkhardt, this time to a confusing argument that Facebook's content moderation failures are somehow linked to it being not eager enough to kick people off the platform:

How does facebook's unwillingness to kick people off the platform have anything to do with Facebook's unwillingness to be transparent about why they removed content, potentially leading to loss of members, and the EFF proposing a solution?

Next, it's an anonymous response to every Trump apologist insisting there is obviously no legal basis to CNN's lawsuit:

Except, you know, the dozen legal citations provided in the article.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Killercool, who had to apply some real outside-the-box thinking to defend Denuvo:

It's obvious!
Since the DRM was broken before release, any sales lost because of it are negative losses! Therefore, if my calculations are correct, Denuvo has saved the company eleventy billion dollars in lost sales.
Hitman 2 is now the best selling game of all time.

In second place, it's Thad being very unsurprised about one particular defense of Trump kicking out Jim Acosta:

Who had "but Obama" on their Bingo card?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got an anonymous response to yet another common-but-stupid take on the CNN lawsuit — that Acosta wasn't actually asking important questions:

Damn straight! He should be asking the things the public wants to know, nay NEEDS to know...like "what's Trump's favorite color?", or "how great are North Korea's beaches really?"
Anything else is just grandstanding or partisan hacking. Let's ask the questions middle 'Murica is really concerned about.

And finally, we've got an anonymous commenter with some simple brand consultation for Denuvo:

They could change their name to Titanic.

That's all for this week, folks!

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36 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 1:23pm

Denuvo's new name
Perhaps Denuvo's new name should be the SS Principessa Jolanda.
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FZ Hunter, 18 Nov 2018 @ 1:37pm

First: No one is required to enforce copyright.
It's not a lie, it's fact.

Websites may be -- aren't explicitly yet -- are not the persons who own the copyright, which is CLEARLY the context: they are businesses which the copyright owners and rest of society REQUIRE to do some policing. But anyone not worried about enforcing their copyright is NOT required to. -- By your notions, no bar is required to ID people or even call the cops for obvious crimes, like you getting robbed; no pawn shop is required to be suspicious when highly valuable items are pawned by ill-dressed nervous people, and so on.

You are simply a pirate, "James Burkhardt", with a pirate's view of law.
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FZ Hunter, 18 Nov 2018 @ 1:38pm

Now, you want FUNNY? -- The Zombie Report!
The week started ominously with tawsenior or Troy A. Wilson Sr. or Troy crawling out after sixty-five months! This account has 26 total comments (3 per year average) all the way back to 11 Jun 2008!

https://www.techdirt.com/user/tawsenior

Then on the 14th "united9198" made one-fourth of its 8 comments; it averages only one per year, has 3 year gap from 2015 back to its first in Jun 22nd, 2012! https://www.techdirt.com/user/united9198

On the 15th out crawled relatively fresh "Bill Jackson" after only 30 months; a bit more believable with 98 comments, 12 average per year, but still old, from 26 Jul 2010.

https://www.techdirt.com/user/aurizon

The zombies never remark were gone or at changes in Techdirt -- that'd point them up as odd when the apparent purpose is to provide believable background for the few real persons here. They're blandly supportive of the site. I've been pointing at them for at least year and half now. -- If anyone new here, which I doubt: these aren't even the oddest! -- I've replied to most having long gaps, and only a couple responded, never with explanation for why the long gaps.

I've made a list -- of course the fanboys say that collating incontestable data only proves that I'm crazy -- "tawsenior" is not unique; there are at least 78 "accounts" average three per year or less; at least 36 average ONE per year! And like these, go back up to ten years!

Isn't that ODD?

The key funny is that site and fanboys just ignore. None will look into this for fear of finding it true. A few have tried to downplay, "you're crazy", and so on, but it's IN-EX-PLIC-ABLE. except as astro-turfing.

As lawful good paladin I'm obligated to suppress the unnatural. Here's what you can do to help reduce zombies:

1) Don't take your brains out to play with: it attracts zombies and shows the Zombie Master you're easy targets. You're getting them dirty, too.

2) Always check "account" comment history. Many zombies pop up only once a year, go back three years or more within twenty comments on first page.

3) If you see nothing -- gaps in history -- say something! This plague won't stop while you ignore it.

But since no one yet even agrees it's ODD (supporting the conjecture are NO non-zombies / non-fanboys here), thanks in advance for your NON-assistance.

By the way, the fun of my position in this area as all else, based in Truth and Fact, is that NO MATTER WHAT you kids do: evade, go on without mention, or stop this obvious astro-turfing, I WIN.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:13pm

Re: Quit while you’re behind.
“By your notions, no bar is required to ID people or even call the cops for obvious crimes, like you getting robbed; no pawn shop is required to be suspicious when highly valuable items are pawned by ill-dressed nervous people, and so on.”

That’s all true. Glad you figured it out finally. Good job. It only took ten years and thousands of man hour to explain the concept of liability, to you.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:17pm

Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
YOU WIN by keeping a spreadsheet of occasional commentators to fuel your paranoid fantasies.

I think it’s pretty self evident who’s “winning” here.
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Killercool (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:24pm

Re: Re: Quit while you’re behind.
Except his analogy is bullshit.

If I take a gold watch without the owner's permission, he's lost his gold watch, and it's stealing.

If I post a video/MP3/whatever without the owner's permission, he is not missing any copies, AND, depending on the context, I may be posting a perfectly legal critique, a parody, a review, a comparison between works A and B, or many, many other legal uses.

As copyright maximalists love to say, fair use is only a defense. Under Article 13, how can a website allow any use that does not have an explicit license, if the only way to prove fair use or fair dealing is a literal court case?
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Killercool (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:25pm

Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
He's woke, fool! Ain't no chem trails getting their fluoride through HIS tin foil!
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David, 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:30pm

Re: Denuvo's new name
Still didn't sink before launch date.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 2:39pm

Re: Now, you want FUNNY? -- The Zombie Report!
Yes, this is funny, but not in the way you (and literally only you) think.
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 3:13pm

Your mental illness is not funny. It is a warning sign.
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David, 18 Nov 2018 @ 3:19pm

Re: Now, you want FUNNY? -- The Zombie Report!
The occurence of multiple independent coincidences cannot be coincidence. This just has to be a conspiracy.
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That One Guy (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 3:20pm

Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
It's a telling glimpse into what passes for their mind that they think making public their obsessions and delusions about 'zombies' is supposed to make them look better and more rational.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 3:27pm

Re: First: No one is required to enforce copyright.
I said it before and I'll say it again.

Every time copyright is enforced, i.e. some poor sap is harassed because he can't fight back, you scream about how copyright has to be enforced.

If copyright didn't have to be enforced as you put it, you wouldn't spend the last five years demanding for mandatory filters like ContentID and ISP-run schemes on the RIAA's behalf.

Have yourself a DMCA vote. Boom, copyright enforcement!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 3:29pm

Re:
You cheer when people are harassed by the likes of John Steele just so pornographers can afford a bigger mansion.

You are terrible at "lawful good". That ship has sailed a long, long time ago.
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Gary (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 4:50pm

Re: First: No one is required to enforce copyright.
Websites may be -- aren't explicitly yet -- are not the persons who own the copyright, which is CLEARLY the context: they are businesses which the copyright owners and rest of society REQUIRE to do some policing. But anyone not worried about enforcing their copyright is NOT required to.

The referenced article/quote in this week's nods was specifically discussing how Article 13 will make enforcement mandatory and pre-emptive.
So, you lie. Stop digging.
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Toom1275 (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 4:55pm

Always fun to see how often the most insightful comments are in reply to the least imsightful comments.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 5:39pm

Re:
It's not surprising.

If you dig a deeper hole, obviously it takes more to fill it up.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 18 Nov 2018 @ 5:40pm

Re:
Not so sure that incentive is either needed, or wanted. But given the facts, I wonder if anything would actually be lost if we didn't explain things to the simple minded, or egregious assholes as the case may be.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 18 Nov 2018 @ 6:02pm

Re: the most insightful comments are in reply to the least imsi
Back in the day, my table-tennis-playing school chums would term that a “smash”.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 6:27pm

Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
Zombies are the bread and butter of blue/John Smith/Ajit Pai/Richard Bennett's economy.

They sue zombies for copyright precedent.

They use zombies to vote for net neutrality repeal.

They share a sense of solidarity since none of them has enough grey matter between them to qualify as a functioning brain.

Hell, I'd wager that blue has been keeping tabs on Techdirt threads so he can spam responses he knows nobody reads, just to mark it as a "personal victory" over Techdirt. Like the Devin Nunes thread.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 8:08pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
I personally would put money blue goes back to six month old threads and has one sided arguements with the strawmen in his head.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2018 @ 11:28pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
Well, what else would you expect? Blue liking it when due process is enforced?
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David, 19 Nov 2018 @ 1:40am

Re:
Well, wrestling with a pig without getting mud all over you is an admirable display of skill.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2018 @ 2:02am

Re: Re:
The replies are not so much to enlighten the troll, bu=t rather to help prevent them misleading more reasonable people.
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David, 19 Nov 2018 @ 3:06am

Re: Re: Re: Quit while you’re behind.

If I post a video/MP3/whatever without the owner's permission, he is not missing any copies

Well, that's sort of a red herring since the copyright owner is not even interested in the possession of copies (apart from the master tapes). When I hack into your bank account and clear it, you are not missing any coins in your wallet either but "merely" the right to go to the bank and ask for more, just that in this case we are talking about your record company rather than your bank.

Bootlegging as a revenue driver is a thing but it ceases doing so if the bootlegged copy stops being inferior and/or less convenient in any tangible kind of manner. Bootlegged cassette tapes were no real danger to CD sales. Even bootlegged MP3 streams can help selling CDs. Counterfeit CDs obviously block sales of legitimate CDs, and driving CD sales stops being a thing if people don't even own CD players any more.

So stuff is complex and it doesn't help that we are basically trying to work with laws designed at a time where the only useful copies were physical tangible copies. Tape drives were already tricky (like photocopiers), analog recording to digital media was trickier (DAT was feared as the devil), tangible digital copies like CD burning even more so.

But we have reached a point where most copies are intangible. Not yet with books (though ebook readers try) but certainly with music.

And in that context, saying that the author is not missing anything because he still has all tangible physical copies he could desire (which typically are the master tapes not even in possession of the artist) is nothing short of word play.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2018 @ 4:15am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Quit while you’re behind.
The other consideration is that if your business depends on stopping people doing something that they can do simply, it is time to change your business model, rather than wreck the best communications medium and its associated flowering of published works. Why should the desire of a minority, usually publishers, to make a fortune be allowed to prevent the majority from telling their stories and partaking in human culture.
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Killercool (profile), 19 Nov 2018 @ 5:20am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Quit while you’re behind.
Calling it "theft" when no copies are missing is also word play.

You're comparing depriving me of money that I have already earned to maybe losing money that has not yet been earned, compounded by the fact that as many units are available for sale after "theft" as before "theft".

Yeah, I'm the one putting out red herrings.
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 19 Nov 2018 @ 8:38am

Why should the desire of a minority, usually publishers, to make a fortune be allowed to prevent the majority from telling their stories and partaking in human culture[?]

Because the minority wouldn't be able to exploit their control over culture and make a shitload of money in the process. 🙃
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That One Guy (profile), 19 Nov 2018 @ 8:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
No bet, I've seen it happen at least once when I was looking for something and stumbled upon just that, where they were leaving comments literally months after the article in question went up in what I can only assume was some desperate attempt to 'win' by getting in the last word.

When I say they're obsessed with the site I am if anything grossly understating their relationship with TD.
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That One Guy (profile), 19 Nov 2018 @ 9:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
Like the Devin Nunes thread.

In fact rereading your comment we might be talking about the same article they were plaguing for months afterwards, and if they've done it once it would hardly be surprising if they've done it in other articles.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2018 @ 9:08am

Re: Now, you want FUNNY? -- The Zombie Report!
Isn't that ODD?

Literally not even a tiny bit, no.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2018 @ 10:52am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
Touché.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2018 @ 6:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
Pretty sure we are.

It's time readers revisited that thread to report all the spam he's made.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 20 Nov 2018 @ 5:36am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.
We readers have better things to do with our time.
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That One Guy (profile), 20 Nov 2018 @ 12:29pm

So many things higher on the list...
That wet paint isn't going to watch itself, nor the grass either.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2018 @ 1:09pm

Re: Re: your shit got pushed in by a zombie last week.

I think it’s pretty self evident who’s “winning” here.

Tiger blood!
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