Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the words-within-words dept
Our first place winner for insightful this week is Mason Wheeler with a response to the idea that bogus DMCA takedowns are a tiny exception rather than the rule:
Nope. The truth is actually exactly the opposite of what you just said. According to Google, 99.95% of all DMCA notices are not only bogus, but one specific flavor of bogus. Everything else (including all of the other kinds of bogus DMCA notices!) is included in the last 0.05%. Notices targeting legitimate infringement are so rare as to be statistically almost nonexistent.
Legitimate takedowns truly are the anomaly; the DMCA takedown program is used entirely (or close enough as makes no difference) for abuse, and therefore needs to be done away with.
In second place, we've got That One Guy tackling Axel Voss's notion that maybe YouTube shouldn't exist:
Let the purge begin
If 'it can be used for X, therefore it was created for X, and needs to be treated as though it's only used for X' is the idea he wants to run with then forget just gutting the internet, time to take a chainsaw to other industries too.
Cars can be used to commit crimes, therefore they need to be treated as though their only use is for committing crimes and outlawed.
The roads that cars travel on can be used to facilitate crimes...
Phones can be used...
The mail can be used...
Stores selling pretty much anything can result in crimes..."Everyone has these obligations. They have created a business model with the property of other people – on copyright protected works."
Funny thing is, he's technically correct here, just not in the grossly dishonest way he intends it as. Yes, platforms like YT are built upon copyright protected works, because barring public domain works everything is copyright protected, and when someone uploads a work technically YT and the like are benefiting thanks to 'property of other people', generally the same person who uploaded the work.
He's trying to conflate two very different things here, infringing works that wouldn't fall under fair use and aren't owned by the person who uploaded them, and works which would fall under fair use or are owned by the person who uploaded them, and acting as though the sites were created for the former rather than the latter.
At best he comes out yet again looking like an ignorant buffoon, but far more likely I'd say is that this is yet another example where he'll say whatever he things will benefit him the most at any given moment, though he may have overstepped himself here, as making clear that YT is definitely in the cross-hairs is likely to cause a notable backlash.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with Michael Barclay raising an important point about the fair use ruling for a Dr. Seuss-Star Trek mashup:
Oracle v. Google causing mischief again
This case is another example of how dangerous and harmful the Oracle v. Google opinions are. The district court in this case is in the Ninth Circuit, and there are plenty of Ninth Circuit fair use decisions to guide its district courts. Since those cases apparently weren't working for the plaintiff, it instead cited the Federal Circuit's Oracle opinions and argued that they should control the case.
What's worse here is that the district court didn't reject the plaintiff's argument out of hand. The district court should have said, "Oracle isn't binding, rather Ninth Circuit law is binding." Instead, the district court treated Oracle as controlling law, but was able to distinguish it on the facts.
If the Supreme Court doesn't review the Oracle decisions, we can expect them to be cited in many future cases, instead of Ninth Circuit law, and in cases where Oracle can't be meaningfully distinguished on its facts.
(Disclosure: I'm counsel of record on an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to review Oracle v. Google.)
Next, we've got cpt kangarooski with a little copyright lesson:
I’m a lawyer.
I can tell you that this:
Queen Anne establishes copyright to protect authors FROM a public that was stealing their work.
isn’t true. Anne herself was not known to be particularly involved in the passage of the law. It’s just named that because she was Queen at the time. It was the particularly vigorous Parliament of the day that did it. And it wasn’t at all to protect authors from the public; the public didn’t own printing pressses. It was to impose order on the publishers (who had lost their monopoly in the 1690s) while not restoring their power to what it had been. This meant vesting rights in someone else, and authors were a good prospect for that. It didn’t help authors much — they still tended to get ripped off by publishers as they do to the present day. It also helped the public by establishing the public domain and limiting the scope and duration of the rights Parliament doled out.
Even the American version of copyright law uses this limited window to ensure that content creators are compensated
Bzzt, wrong. No one ensures compensation; most works have no economic value whatsoever, and of the remainder most have no copyright-related economic value. Authors go without compensation all the time; why do you think there’s a stereotype of starving artists? Copyright simply directs some of the revenues associated with a work to the copyright holder. How much revenue there is and who gets shares along the way is not guaranteed. Usually it’s zero or thereabouts.
copyright just isn't doing the job for which it was intended, due to piracy, which is why we now have things like Article 13.
Nah, that’s bullshit.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is crade with some blunt sarcasm in response to a comment about the Yelp-for-MAGAs app being taken down due to security flaws:
You heard wrong. It was actually due to a left-wing conspiracy to suppress conservative speech.
In second place, we've got an anonymous take on the Oh The Places You'll Boldly Go mashup, and another Suess-Lovecraft mashup:
Just be glad the Cthulhu Estate isn't angry with you. The Seuss estate at least has to work within the bounds of the law. The other side won't even bother staying within the bounds of reality.
For editor's choice on the funny side, why not start with Bruce C. offering one more Cthulhu joke:
They probably called it that to avoid the inevitable lawsuit if they called it "Horton hears a Cthulhu".
Finally, we've got an anonymous headline for the online reputation management company that brags about absuing copyright to get bad reviews taken down:
Work at home lawyer uses this one trick to get anything you want taken off the internet! Judges hate him!
That's all for this week, folks!
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Reader Comments
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Re:
Article 13 isn't going to give you as much free money as you're claiming, Jhon.
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Re: Re:
That is original spam. Not Jhons' GMO crap
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Re: Re: Re:
He’s too dumb to figure out how to change the font.
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Re: Re: Re:
And it still manages to be more honest about it than Jhon.
For one thing Jhon absolutely refuses to tell anyone who he's scamming for!
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Re: Re:
The deliberate misspellings of someone's name reflect a rather disturbing underlying thought process, made even more disturbing by the fact that they are replying to the wrong person.
Just another symptoms of Masnick's extremely questionable internet ties which guide a lot of this site, in stealth (to most), of course. Suppose I could start calling him MICK or something if I wanted to go tit-for-tat with the titless.
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Re: Re: Re:
The deliberate misspellings of someone's name
"John Smith" isn't a name. It's an intentional pseudonym specifically chosen to avoid accountability while levying threats at other users. A cursory search of the site will show that he has also referred to himself as "Jhon Smith". Whether or not this was intentional misspelling is immaterial. If John chooses not to check his spelling when furiously typing replies into his mobile phone and it becomes an easily recognizable trait, it's on him, not anyone else.
made even more disturbing by the fact that they are replying to the wrong person
How would you know that the wrong person is being addressed? Most anonymous posters are termed "Anonymous Coward". John Smith himself in fact abandoned his own pseudonym after he realized his chosen moniker was turning into an equivalent synonym for idiocy. The only way you would know that the wrong person is being replied to is if you yourself are the intended recipient.
Suppose I could start calling him MICK or something
Sure, go ahead. By all means. If you decide to come up with more ways for everyone else to identify the mailing list scam artist by showing up vengeful and petty he is, I'm all for it.
tit-for-tat with the titless
Not having tits is something worth mocking over?
Are you saying that you have tits? Thanks, I seriously did not need that mental image.
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Re: Ten bucks he has sad old man tits
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
When "they" do it it's "exposing" and "accountability," and when someone else does it it's "threats." Avoid accountability for what? More like avoiding defamation and harassment, which inevitably occur when people are emotionally invested in winning an internet argument. MICK knows a lot about defamation, since some of his friends engage in it quite a bit. Eliminating Section 230 would bankrupt many of these people.
Of course there are NO alternate explanations the cyberbully would accept. Look at the tone....the "anonymous coward" wouldn't dare talk like that unless cloaked and hiding behind a monitor.
How would you know that the wrong person is being addressed? Most anonymous posters are termed "Anonymous Coward". John Smith himself in fact abandoned his own pseudonym after he realized his chosen moniker was turning into an equivalent synonym for idiocy. >>>>>
Proof by assertion! MICK allows the anonymous to gang up on people here, sadly. Too bad his sponsors don't reign that in.
<<<<<<<The only way you would know that the wrong person is being replied to is if you yourself are the intended recipient.>>>>
The logical fallacy of this claim speaks for itself, but one has to wonder WHY this person is so invested in lil' ol' me?
And if I weren't anonymous, that statement would trigger a defamation lawsuit.
Don't care what you need.
Oh and since MICK has no ties to the hacker/lawyer mafia that defames and harasses its adversaries (and which has threatened to KILL me and others they think associate with me), he won't care when proof of said mafia starts showing up on lawyer-review sites.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
See MICK is a sick little fuck who likes poking bears. If he wants to let cowards continue to grind his axe because he's a cowardly little shithead, he'll still get credit for it.
One member of this group has flipped sides. Good luck figuring out who.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
One member of this group has flipped sides. Good luck figuring out who.
Ooooooh. Suspense!
Can we, uh, clarify what "group" we're talking about here, though?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Okay, first off, let's include "doesn't understand how to use <> formatting" as another note on the list of your recognizable characteristics...
When "they" do it it's "exposing" and "accountability," and when someone else does it it's "threats."
If you don't want your shit pirated - oh, I'm sorry, "stolen" - you might consider steps to prevent it from happening. Or citations to encourage people to take you seriously instead of some lunatic demanding settlement money. Not only have you not done that, you've gone and proposed ludicrous suggestions, such as people would murder content creators to make sure they lose access to their copyrights.
And yes, it is "threats" when coming from your side. You're the one announcing lawsuits and police investigations. The biggest threat pirates have is stealing your mailing list, which only you seem to think holds any monetary value. Somehow in that twisted mind of yours that ranks higher than police action and a SWAT team breaking down someone's door to spray bullets into the family pet.
Of course there are NO alternate explanations the cyberbully would accept.
You've yet to present yours. If you have another explanation by all means offer it up. Personally, this is one of the few times I'm thankful Techdirt doesn't allow editing of comments so everyone else can perform a search of "Jhon Smith" for themselves and evaluate your slipping sanity.
MICK allows the anonymous to gang up on people here, sadly. Too bad his sponsors don't reign that in.
You're more than welcome to bring your posse of sleeping giant hurt artist friends and shout down everybody you disagree with. There's supposed to be millions of them, right? Why haven't they bothered to help you? Is it because this website is insignificant? But if it is, then why does its existence bother you so much?
WHY this person is so invested in lil' ol' me?
Why would I not be concerned about someone trying to attack everyone else with a lawsuit and SWAT team?
Okay, honestly, I don't think you're capable of levying those threats, but even if you were, how is the above considered unwarranted concern?
And if I weren't anonymous, that statement would trigger a defamation lawsuit.
You mean the same one you've been saying will happen for months? That lawsuit? That's still going to happen even though you're anonymous anyway? Yeah, nobody cares if you're anonymous; you're still going to threaten your baseless, toothless lawsuits.
Oh and since MICK has no ties to the hacker/lawyer mafia that defames and harasses its adversaries (and which has threatened to KILL me and others they think associate with me), he won't care when proof of said mafia starts showing up on lawyer-review sites.
Oh, Jesus Jackrabbit Christ, you're still going on about that Anonymous collective conspiracy theory aren't you. You're fucking anonymous! Nobody cares if your feelings got hurt!
See MICK is a sick little fuck who likes poking bears
Pretending to be 4chan is not a good look for you John.
One member of this group has flipped sides. Good luck figuring out who.
And capping it all off with the passive-aggressive "I know something you don't know" gambit. Yawn. Peddle your snake oil somewhere else.
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Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
Oh shit the cyber-lawyer-assassain-cowboy-submariners are back in the saddle. Better watch out before they steal your scammy spam mail lists and and hurt your feel-feels again.
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Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
Imagine a world where anyone, even those of terribly low character and absent any moral basis can publish anything about anyone totally unchecked without a hint of liability. Imagine a world where slander becomes the norm and the most decent of us live in fear of the reckless ruthless angry mob. Imagine a faceless electronic mob comprised mainly of false names behind false biographies that dedicate the majority of their time to slander and diatribe. Imagine - wait, no need to imagine. We’re here right now.
Time to rethink Section 230.
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Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
Since when does one guy who keeps misspelling his own false name constitute a "mob?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
One thing fairly consistent about leftist-fanatics is that they project their own insincerity and dishonesty onto others in roughly the same form that they practice. For example, I think MANY of the commenters here are actually ONE commenter. However, the MANY to ONE ratio applies to those DEFENDING this site, not the inverse. There are MANY critics and FEW supporters.
Very few supporters. Of the few, mostly phoney liars and charlatans posing as a combination of bogus bios and ACs.
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You should see someone about your mental illness.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
So you're saying that there's multiple people actively spending time and effort trying to shout down a website they consider insignificant?
...how does this scenario make you LESS of a deranged lunatic? Because there's more of you letting a single nobody occupy real estate space in your head?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon b
If you saw a policeman in a fight with an obvious disgusting and dirty criminal, would you help the policeman?
Kowjai?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jh
No. There's no way to know the policeman is a real policeman and that the "obvious disgusting and dirty criminal" is really the criminal. There's also no way to know, without having witnessed the entire exchange (you said "saw ... in a fight implying we stumbled into this situation), whether the policeman is enforcing the law or just his ego.
Back to you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you ar
Additionally, as a civilian not empowered to enforce the law and lacking in training, it is in most cases better to stand aside and not interfered. My assistance may not be actual assistance, but may in fact be an impediment - by interfering, I may force the policeman to now have to worry about my safety, and thus enable the criminal to escape.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jh
No, because unless the policeman and I were trained to fight together, I'd be more likely to get in his way than to actually be of help to him.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
"Since when does one guy who keeps misspelling his own false name constitute a "mob?""
Well, there's some evidence that we ought to refer to Baghdad bob/Blue as a "one-man-army", if for no other reason than that the amount of sock puppets he's tried to poop on threads with was battalion-sized before he had to resort to just posting as an AC.
I personally think the angry kitten troll generator he was using to generate instant nicks ran out of unbanned combinations in it's RNG list. Or the I-am-not-a-robot captchas had him beaten.
That said it's still remarkable that no matter his alias or lack of such his style is instantly recognizable. As is his penchant of forgetting which alias he's posting under and respond to something aimed at another of his sock puppets.
I think we can call him a mob. If for no other reason than that the confused voices in his head appear to be legion.
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Re: Re: Re: what a sad sad little man you are Jhon boy
Imagine a sad little crybaby named Jhon.
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Re: Re: Re:
Bro. Bro. Bro. You have spelled it that way on multiple occasions. If you don’t like it you are free to create an account with your real name.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Posting under my real name would inevitably lead to a level of lawbreaking that would have too many people sued or locked up.
MICK is a "free speech absolutist," yet that belief, now almost unique to the US, has resulted in the rise of bigotry and hate crimes. It's obvious from the internet that the masses cannot handle the responsibility of free speech, which is why it will be regulated, if not outright revoked.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Posting under my real name would inevitably lead to a level of lawbreaking that would have too many people sued or locked up.
And? Wasn't that your desired end goal, to see anyone and everyone who disagrees with you locked up?
I'm calling your bluff, Jhon.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Personally I find it all sorts of funny that he apparently thinks that people care enough about him that they'd go so far as to break the law to go after him.
Mock him? Absolutely.
Ridicule him? Why not?
Call him out on yet another lie/impotent threat/both in a never-ending line of them? Only on days that end in 'Y'.
Break the law to go after him? Not even close to worth the effort.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let’s change the law then.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let’s not.
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Re: Jpoor Jhin boy can’t even remember how to spell his name
Cool story bro. That or you are just a sad, old, impotent, fuckwit.
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Re: Re: Jpoor Jhin boy can’t even remember how to spell his na
Can you define “fuckwit”?
I am not sad, but old, potent, powerful and hilariously happy.
Sometimes I like to step on the dicks of small boys like you, I enjoy hearing you squeal.
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FBI, OPEN UP
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Re: Re: Re: Jpoor Jhin boy can’t even remember how to spell hi
You're powerful?
I thought you lost all your power because pirates still your mailing list and just left you with the copyright?
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Re: Is that another impotent threat?
Sure you are bro. That why you spend your days impotently lying about all the cool stuff you can do.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
hahahaha
If you don't like it, why not move somewhere that lacks free speech? Don't expect the world to change for you.
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Google should start charging for DMCA notices.
The manpower and processing power involved in processing these notices needs to be accounted for. While the actual cost in time, electricity and bandwidth is minuscule, together they add up to a considerable sum in wasted time and wasted processing power, that could be used for other purposes more beneficial to the public; verifying bitcoin transactions, testing protein folds, evaluating the security of various programs against brute-force attacks, and so forth.
Google needs to start charging for processing DMCA notices, at cost. $0.005 (yes, half a cent) for each link to be evaluated is fair. People who send less than 200 links to Google a month can be excused from paying, but those corporations and associations that send millions of notices need to learn to pay for what they're so demanding.
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Re: Google should start charging for DMCA notices.
That’s a right smart idea.
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'Have to' doesn't mean 'have to make it easy to do'
In addition to charging for review, penalizing for bogus claims would go a long way to cutting down on abuse.
If, after having sent X amount of clearly bogus DMCA claims they were no longer able to use the automated tools, and had to send individual claims via snail-mail, one address per claim, then they'd be much more careful in what they claimed or they'd quickly find themselves stuck in a position of having to do some actual work making those claims, and that simply would not do.
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Re: Google should start charging for DMCA notices.
If only that were legal... Unfortunately, I don't believe it is.
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Re: Re: Google should start charging for DMCA notices.
Well, there's nothing in the DMCA that says you can't charge for processing a takedown notice, but it's not practical. Suppose someone doesn't pay. Then you do what - fail to process their takedown notices? Hello liability.
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Re: Re: Re: Google should start charging for DMCA notices.
Well, a while back, there was that thing with Antigua and Barbuda where they were given the go-ahead by the WTO to pirate lots of stuff to pay for debts owed to it by the US.
So I could see that as a remedy; if the MAFIAA use Google's stuff and don't pay up, then Google can use their stuff without paying. Think a court could be convinced to sign off on that?
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So MICK allows people to call me a scam artist.
Ready to be called out in a much larger media venue, MICK?
Matter of time.
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Re:
Glad that MICK thinks bad reviews are so legit that the targets must always be wrong.
Hope he remembers this when his lawyer buddies start being "exposed" for their criminal misdeeds on attorney-review websites.
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Re: Re:
Yeah, Masnick is going to be so disappointed and heartbroken because a few lawyers have less business.
Are you going to punish people with the comfy chair, next? Or are Monty Python references not allowed in John Smith's "No Fair Use" Land?
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Re: Re:
And you're supposed to be the one who's not "emotionally invested" in this Internet argument. I mean of course, why would taunting someone with a nickname of his own design and piss and moan and scream be considered "emotionally invested"?
Nobody believes you, bobmail.
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Re: Re: Re:
I believe him.
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Re: Can’t wait to see mike indicted for eating a sandwich
Last week it was mikes gonna have a 60 minute special on his misdeeds. Today’s it’s someone he may or may not know might have a bad review written about him on yelp.
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Re: Re: Can’t wait to see mike indicted for eating a sandwich
So far, all we've seen mustered against "Mike and his criminal review lawyer friends" was "someone" digging up the old laughably ridiculous defamatory anti-TD conspiracy dreamed up by Roca Labs in its legal filings.
Particularly, the hallucination in which Marc Randazza was secretely working as more than PissedConsumer (or, as a characteristic 'tell' spelled it half the time, "pissedconsummers") 's counsel, and Techdirt is just a vehicle for PC/MR's "defamation" of poor scammers like Roca.
So just utterly divorced from reality and completely unoriginal just like everything else.
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Re: Re: Re: Can’t wait to see mike indicted for eating a sandw
Anyone else think that John Smith suspiciously resembles Michael Avenatti?
https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1106336031823921152
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Re: Just another impotent threat
What about all those police investigations bro?
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Re:
Careful, bro, your impotence is exposed.
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Re: Re:
Spoken from someone who cannot decide if he is gay or straight, white or black. You are the ultimate phoney, “bro”.
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Re: Re: Re:
You’re the one who misinterpreted my posts that way, honey.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
How to misinterpret “I am white”?
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Re: Re: Re:
No, you choose to let that be a defining point of the argument because... reasons. I have no idea what a person's race or sexuality has anything to do with your personal fetishization of copyright law, but you do you. Were you hoping for marriages to copyrights to be legalized?
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Hen and egg problem
That's like saying that crime in face of the police is an anomaly and thus police patrols need to be done away with.
You cannot really judge the necessity of preventive measures if you are lacking the comparison. That's similar with anti-vaccers: they consider vaccination unnecessary since their personal risks may be lower if one of them is the only one not accepting the personal cost of vaccination and the respective disease is in check because of general vaccination.
I am not saying that the whole DMCA takedown business is a good idea. It's just this particular "insightful" argument, while easy to gather public support (and I definitely expect this comment to be thrashed) is not separating cause and effect cleanly enough.
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This might have more relevance if the DMCA takedown system was a “preventive measure”.
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Re: Hen and egg problem
In addition to what Stephen pointed out about how the DMCA process is not a 'preventative measure', I felt it worthwhile to highlight another problem in your example.
That's like saying that crime in face of the police is an anomaly and thus police patrols need to be done away with.
If said patrols were finding one actual criminal for every several hundred or even several thousand people that they arrested and brought in only to clear as innocent, then yeah, I'd say those particular patrols could and likely should be done away with.
When the ratio of abuse to legitimate is so skewed towards the former that the latter is effectively non-existent then it's probably safe to say that while the goal may be good(crime reduction/taking down legitimately infringing content), the method is clearly fatally flawed, and it's not honest to claim that the abuse is a minority, when in fact it's the other way around.
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Re: Hen and egg problem
A better comparison would be between the number of criminals that police shoot dead on-site and the number of innocent civilians who get caught in the gunfire.
Because if the numbers of civilians that got gunned down was in proportion to the number of abusive DMCA notices you can bet your ass institutional changes would occur.
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Re: Re: Hen and egg problem
No, it wouldn't, since it absolutely is not part of the police's job description to shoot criminals. Police, like other citizens, may act in self-defense. When they do, people may get killed. There is absolutely no difference in the culpability of police whether any person killed in such an event is a criminal or an "innocent civilian". The only question is whether there has been a reasonable assumption of self-defense. If there has been, the question is whether the police did everything reasonable to avoid such a situation coming up in the first place in the context of doing their job that includes identifying and apprehending suspects.
Penalties, and most certainly the death penalty, are the job of courts to decide on. The police does not get a first serve at being judge and executioner if they so desire.
In contrast, the DMCA is designed to take sites off the web even before a decision has been made whether or not they have been infringing.
The relation between law and effect thus is a completely different one.
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Re: Re: Re: Hen and egg problem
No, it wouldn't, since it absolutely is not part of the police's job description to shoot criminals.
Could've fooled me...
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Re: Re: Re: Hen and egg problem
"In contrast, the DMCA is designed to take sites off the web even before a decision has been made whether or not they have been infringing."
"The relation between law and effect thus is a completely different one."
Which only serves to underscore a few ways in which the DMCA effect is a very good example of very bad law.
The proper analogy to the DMCA would be; authorizing police to shoot people based on hearsay before valid suspicion of malfeasance could be established.
After which we'd get Baghdad Bob claiming the unwarranted deaths are exceptions - probably from the top of a mountain of corpses.
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