Why Is The NYC MTA Going After A Random Artist Who Created A Different Subway Map For Infringement?

from the seriously? dept

It's been a while since we last wrote about the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), but in the past, it's always been for incredibly stupid reasons. There was the time it claimed it owned the facts of its schedule and went after someone who created a better scheduling app. There was the time it claimed that its "unlimited rides" card really meant no more than 90 rides. We didn't write about this other one, but a few years back, the MTA actually sued a bagel place for calling itself "F Line Bagels." And now we have it filing an incredibly questionable copyright takedown notice over someone making a nicer subway map.

The NYC Subway map is fairly iconic, but that has never stopped people from making their own variations. Indeed, making new subway maps of NYC and many other metropolitan train systems is something many people do (there's even a -- somewhat addictive and amazingly fun -- subway map design simulation game called Mini Metro). Jake Berman is one of many people who redesigned the NYC subway map, after getting upset with the official MTA subway map. His map is consider so useful compared to the official one, that the Wikipedia page for the NYC subway map shows his directly next to the official map:

That's Berman's map on the left there. And he has it in a few places, including Etsy. And for unclear reasons, the MTA sent a copyright infringement takedown notice over the map. The Vice article, linked above, includes one of the best quotes ever about this kind of thing from copyright lawyer Thomas Kjellberg:

“The basic question [for the MTA]” offered Thomas Kjellberg, an intellectual property attorney with the law firm Cowan, Liebowitz, and Latman, “you guys really give a shit?”

There are obviously strong fair use arguments here, as well as strong arguments about whether or not anything in Berman's map is actually infringing. While the MTA claims that his map copies a specific style of NYC subway map, the so-called Vignelli map, the currently used version of the Vignelli map from the MTA, was actually created after Berman's map was created:

“Yes, there are minor differences between your map and the MTA map,” Freundlich wrote in his email. “But given your access to the MTA map on the MTA website, and the substantial similarities of your map to the MTA map, the only rational conclusion is that your map is based on the MTA Vignelli map.”

But there is a potentially critical flaw in that logic. The MTA created The Weekender in 2011, two years after Berman created his map, which he uploaded to Wikipedia in 2009.

Even so, Berman thinks his map stands alone on its merits. “Even assuming that I had a time machine,” he wrote via email, “they're not the same thing.”

It helps that Berman, himself, is actually a lawyer. He seems to understand that whatever may have been "copied" here certainly wasn't copyrightable.

To prove his case, Berman listed eight differences between his map and Vignelli’s. For example, they display lines running along the same route differently. Berman uses different symbols for trains that only stop on nights and weekends. Vignelli uses “gentle curves” whereas Berman uses “hard angles.” Berman shows streets and labels neighborhoods. They use different colors and shapes for geographic landmarks. He went on, and added that he could have continued to go on for much longer.

“In general, the only major similarities are that both are subway maps and both use 45-degree angles in our diagrams, which has been standard transit map practice since 1933,” Berman asserted. “It’s certainly not copyrightable.”

The bigger question, still, is why? Why does the MTA care? Yes, it can sell some Subway map posters, but honestly most people probably want to buy the official one -- not some random dude's (even if it is a nice map). The article also notes that there are a ton of other NYC subway maps on Etsy that the MTA didn't go after.

The whole thing is so strangely stupid. Even if you could (and you shouldn't) argue that because he was selling prints, that somehow harms the MTA's own merch and licensing business, as Vice points out, that's a negligible source of revenue for the MTA anyway.

But there's an even larger point here: as we've discussed many times in the past a government agency doesn't and shouldn't need copyright. It has perfectly practical incentives for creating a map: to get people to use the Subway. That's how it makes its money. It should want more people creating compelling maps that get more people to ride the subway. And, instead of fixing the incredibly broken down Subway system, it wants to waste its time on this nonsense?

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, jake berman, mta, nyc, subway, subway map, vignelli map
Companies: etsy


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    Norahc (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 3:09pm

    I really hope he doesn't let the MTA off the hook here. A court decision stating government works are Public Domain would be fantastic.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 4:28pm

      Re:

      They aren't, though. Only federal government works are public domain.

      The better argument is that he didn't copy anything copyrightable. The raw information of where the subway runs is not copyrightable; it's fact. Anyone who wants to convert this information into a subway map is probably going to use certain conventions; north is up, water is blue, parks are green, subway lines are, well, lines. The colors of the lines are the same, but that's apparently because those colors are used on signs (and not just on the maps.)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Norahc (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 4:34pm

        Re: Re:

        That's my point though...all public funded government works should be public domain.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 8:08pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Well, but I'm not sure that should be done by the courts rather than Congress. The reason federal government works aren't copyrighted isn't because the courts say they can't be; it's because that's written into copyright law. It might be bad public policy for the NYC MTA to get copyrights, but I don't think it's actually unconstitutional.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
            identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 9:39pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            Like anybody gives a fuck about the constitution. You lefties are ready to impeach someone for no crime at all. Is that "constitutional"?

            I don't think so. And neither does great great grandfather Webster. He told me, just the other day, well just the other night, in a dream, well, maybe it was early in the morning, he said "son, that's just not a constitutional impeachment, like, at all, not even a little."

            Face it - all you fucking lefties are now going to have to live with BERNIE as your candidate! yes, that's right, the Boston Bomber will vote him in from PRISON, along with 16 year old VIRGINS! FACE THE BERNIE MUSIC, OR CITIES WILL BURN(IE).

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              Madd the Sane (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 10:07pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              Like anybody gives a fuck about the constitution.

              Exhibit A: Donald Trump. He cares not for the rights of the people, just that he gets what he wants, no matter what.

              You lefties are ready to impeach someone for no crime at all.

              No crime? He tried strong-arming Ukraine to investigate a political rival. The fact that he got caught and he decided to give them monetary aid does not make what he did any less heinous.

              He's been enriching himself on the taxpayer's dime, going golfing to his own resorts and paying with the US taxes. He's been putting his friends in places of power, places where they have a clear conflict of interest. He's been pushing for policies that are unpopular, inhumane, dangerous, and possibly authoritarian.

              I hope he gets thrown out of office. That's the new way of doing things. Yes, new as in 1776 new. We don't want the old way: with torches, pitchforks, and a dead head of government.

              Is that "constitutional"?

              The constitution is a set of checks and balances so no one government body can overpower the other. One of those powers that Congress can use is impeachment.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

              • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                identicon
                Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 10:22pm

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                Ok, good, you have an opinion. If you read the constitution, perhaps you would have an informed opinion. What is the crime again? A thought crime? He thought about doing something, but never actually told anybody what he thought or what to do, but you are going to PROVE in a court of law that he THOUGHT about ... what again did he think about?

                Where do you live? Fantasyland?

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • identicon
                  Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:22am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                  “Where do you live? Fantasyland?“

                  That’s some 4K projection right there bro.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                • icon
                  Madd the Sane (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:30pm

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                  What is the crime again? A thought crime?

                  Conspiracy. Conspiracy to rig the 2020 election. Deny aid to Ukraine. And yes, the GAO has said what he did was illegal.

                  […] but you are going to PROVE in a court of law that he THOUGHT about[…]

                  Oh, he did more than think about it. He went about to implement it. Recent news has come out that he tried to pressure the previous president of Ukraine as well.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

              • icon
                PaulT (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 12:19am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                "No crime?"

                He's obviously talking about the guy who was impeached because he was railroaded into answering questions about his personal sex life that had no business being in front of Congress in the first place.

                It would be silly if he was talking about the bankrupt conman, for whom trying to coerce a foreign power into helping undermine his political opponents is merely the first crime that came up for impeachment, and almost certainly not the last the can be proven in a court of law.

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • identicon
                  David, 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:14am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                  He's obviously talking about the guy who was impeached because he was railroaded into answering questions about his personal sex life that had no business being in front of Congress in the first place.

                  "Abuse of power" is the second article of impeachment for Trump. Using one's exalted position as a president in order to solicit sex from an intern certainly seems to fit the bill.

                  Compared to European "standards" where Mitterand had a sort-of official mistress, it may be laughable, but the U.S., for better or worse, is a Puritan society to be represented by its president.

                  So laughing the one thing off and being totally in arms over the other is not a natural conclusion.

                  You really have to look at the actual impact to arrive at a difference, and tampering with elections and getting foreign countries to help with the meddling is more corrosive to the institution of government and presidency than, well, consensual hankypanky.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • icon
                    PaulT (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:31am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                    "Using one's exalted position as a president in order to solicit sex from an intern certainly seems to fit the bill"

                    Perhaps, but it's a long way from actual the crimes affecting the nation as per Trump. It also astoundingly hypocritical, given what Newt Gingrich et al were getting up to at the same time. It was clearly a fishing expedition, one of hundreds that have turned up nothing across the careers of both Clintons. They just happened to get lucky by stumbling across actual evidence on that particular trip.

                    The puritan thing I get, but you can't be up in arms about Clinton's blow job, while simultaneously supporting the self-proclaimed adulterer and sexual assaulter Trump without being a massive hypocrite or lying somewhere.

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      David (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:38am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                      If it is a crime, it is a crime. It doesn't matter who else did the same or similar things. If you want to point out hypocrisy, look at the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server. Comey spent almost 15 minutes listing her crimes but said that she should be charged because she didn't mean to do it. It that is the case, everyone in jail for involuntary manslaughter should be released. The charge itself says that they didn't mean to do it. If I text while driving and kill someone, I guess I shouldn't charged either. I wouldn't have meant to kill the person.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        PaulT (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 6:05am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        "If it is a crime, it is a crime"

                        Yes, and in Clinton's case, the crime was perjury, not sexual activity with an intern. If he'd not lied in front of Congress, he wouldn't have been impeached.

                        Similarly, even though Trump is known to have paid off the porn stars he screwed and has publicly admitted to sexual assault, he's not been charged with that and as such has been charged with the crimes he's provably committed.

                        The only hypocrisy is saying that Clinton deserves to be impeached because of his sexual acts, while giving Trump a free pass on committing the same and worse.

                        "If you want to point out hypocrisy, look at the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server"

                        But her emails! This is boring...

                        "Comey spent almost 15 minutes listing her crimes but said that she should be charged because she didn't mean to do it."

                        You forgot to mention the fact that she hadn't broken any laws at the time she hosted that server and was in fact following the policies in place at the time that weren't tightened up until after she left. If you want hypocrisy, look at her predecessors who either hosted their own server or hosted official emails on AOL accounts for the same reasons she used. Deleted emails are the issue for you? Look at what the Bush admin did to theirs. The problem is potentially classified information being sent out through unofficial channels? Try looking at Trump's 3am Twitter tantrums.

                        Unless you somehow have some information I've missed, this has been discussed ad nauseum and at worst she made a poor technical decision that could have resulted in (but did not result in) some negative consequences.

                        "If I text while driving and kill someone, I guess I shouldn't charged either. I wouldn't have meant to kill the person."

                        Yes, but there's no real evidence that Clinton's email server was actually compromised. Meaning that in your analogy you'd be charged with manslaughter because you were caught texting, even though nobody had been killed, only because someone could have been.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • identicon
                          Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:05pm

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                          If any officer in any branch of the military had sex with a subordinate while on duty, he or she would have had to surrender his commission or face military tribunal in a court martial for conduct unbecoming an officer. Does the Commander in Chief get a free ride?

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:21am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                            "Does the Commander in Chief get a free ride?"

                            According to the law? Apparently. It's shabby but there is, in fact, no law against the president using his staff to...polish his staff. Assuming it's consensual.

                            Were it otherwise it would often place the First Lady in a somewhat strange situation.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 4:35pm

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                              Why would not the CIC not be held to the Highest standard according to the UCMJ? Using the Oval Office as a sex parlor? Come on.. Really? Staff polishing Staff? Wtf??

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                nasch (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 7:56pm

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                Why would not the CIC not be held to the Highest standard according to the UCMJ?

                                Because he or she is not subject to the UCMJ.

                                https://www.quora.com/Is-a-president-as-commander-in-chief-subject-to-the-UCMJ

                                See the second answer in particular.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:02am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                "Why would not the CIC not be held to the Highest standard according to the UCMJ?"

                                Because the president is specially exempted from numerous regulations which concern military personnel?

                                As I said earlier, were it otherwise the first Lady would end up in a very awkward position. Similarly, I dare you to name ANY military officer who'd get away with having his kids and son-in-laws appointed to officer/NCO positions the way Trump does it.

                                It's shady as fuck but not unlawful or illegal.

                                Bill Clinton's impeachable offense was being called in front of a congressional hearing and on the question on whether he did or did not have sex with his intern tried to weasel out of it rather than simply saying "With respect, senator, that is none of your business!".

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 6:17am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        "If it is a crime, it is a crime."

                        Fiat Iustitia Ruat Caelum? That's not a healthy thing to say in a country where the average citizen commits three or more federal crimes daily. Overlexification is a thing.

                        "It doesn't matter who else did the same or similar things."

                        True enough. Bill Clinton should have said "Uh, yeah, my intern DID offer to puff a few times on my cigar" and that'd have been the end of it from any legal standpoint. Unless you count possible divorce proceedings etc, and of course the investigation that the intern in question felt no coercion.

                        A case can be made that he lied in public about that and this deserves impeachment. I don't know if that's the case.

                        But if that's the precedent we want to go by then Trump should have been impeached mere minutes after swearing the oath - and GWB's administration should have been gutted over the yellowcake fiasco.

                        "It that is the case, everyone in jail for involuntary manslaughter should be released. The charge itself says that they didn't mean to do it."

                        Not really. The determining factor is intent.
                        Did Hillary mean to use a private server in the full knowledge and intent to circumvent law? If that is provable, then we have a criminal charge to administer, which could include conspiracy.

                        Did she use said server simply because it was more effective than whatever public dinosaur requiring a week-long SLA and frustrating tech support every time you wanted to add a new approved address? Then she may be guilty of another crime - probably some form of dereliction of duty - and possibly one for which the proper legal sanction is getting chewed out by her superior and possible administrative punishment.

                        Is she simply an IT-blind idiot who didn't reflect on what tools she was using to send email and was going along with what someone she trusted saw as an expedient solution? Then she might not be in the position to be charged with anything but should certainly receive internal censure of some sort. Lack of knowledge precludes intent.

                        Whereas when it comes to driving a vehicle, doing so with less than full attention is directly a crime in itself and that you had no intent to fail to control your vehicle has no bearing on the fact that you DID take your hands off the wheel/text/pay attention to other things than your vehicles position in traffic.

                        That's why, if you run someone over because someone smeared a can of white matte pain on your windshield while you're driving you'll get off scot-free where you'd be solidly charged if you ran someone over while texting. Intent to commit the criminal act is the key definition.

                        Hillary using an unsanctioned mail server is serious, yes, but depending on the situation, may be deserving of nothing more than a good scolding - the public shaming probably suffices.

                        Trump pressuring a foreign country to dig up dirt on his political adversaries at home, however, is essentially having a foreign sovereign nation performing espionage to be used against senior politicians and government agents of his own country.

                        It's a tad more severe.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          PaulT (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 6:42am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                          "A case can be made that he lied in public about that and this deserves impeachment. I don't know if that's the case."

                          There's no question about it. He was under oath in a Congress hearing and he lied. That's perjury and is impeachable.

                          "But if that's the precedent we want to go by then Trump should have been impeached mere minutes after swearing the oath - and GWB's administration should have been gutted over the yellowcake fiasco."

                          Yes, but there's numerous other factors involved in actually bringing a successful impeachment.

                          "Hillary using an unsanctioned mail server is serious, yes, but depending on the situation, may be deserving of nothing more than a good scolding"

                          https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/08/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-st ate-department

                          https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/04/rove-and-co-broke-federal-law-email-scam /

                          The bottom line is that other people in her position did similar things, and the policy was not tightened until after she left that office. If they're going to hold Clinton responsible for what she did with email, they need to hold a lot of the Bush administration to the same standard.

                          "It's a tad more severe."

                          Especially since, for all the gnashing and wailing about what cloud have happened with Clinton's email server, I'm yet to see any evidence that it did happen. While Trump has literally confessed to his crimes, and provided the summary of the transaction.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                            identicon
                            Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:22am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                            Right, and you are an expert on American Constitutional Law, yes? Or are you an uneducated BRIT lesbian separatist posing as a man vacationing in Europe?

                            Tell the truth -were you BORN PAULT? OR DID YOU INVENT PAULT?

                            Fucking phony pony asshole impersonator.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Glen, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:30am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                              Boring troll is boring.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                                identicon
                                Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:33am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                Not true - everyone likes it. People go on and on about it. More and more comments, over and over, again and again, it's like a drug, but better than a drug.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                That One Guy (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:52am

                                'Dance my little puppet, dance.'

                                And yet, as that very troll just pointed out, they still get you and others to respond. Why bother with better bait when the current garbage is more than enough to do the job?

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • identicon
                          Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:39pm

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                          What kind of choice for a Secretary of State who holds the security for a whole nation when that person supposedly does not know to keep classified, Top secret and confidential documents secure on a government server, but instead has thirty thousand and more records on a private server? Just one more piece of evidence that these people do not have America's best interest in mind.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:27am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                            "Just one more piece of evidence that these people do not have America's best interest in mind."

                            Something lamentably common in top-layer politicians. It's pretty indicative that when people today in the US talk about an unshakably moral incorruptible politician they describe Sanders and...uh...
                            Damn, all they've got is a venerable senior citizen who looks like methuselah was allowed to dry in the sun?

                            Future of US politics is looking bleak.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

              • icon
                David (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:31am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                How many times did Obama say that the Constitution prevented him from doing something and then do the prohibited action a few months later? Our federal government hasn't worried about the Constitution is decades. It it had, the federal government would be considerably smaller than it is today.

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • identicon
                  Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:56am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                  Thanks Obama

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                • icon
                  Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 6:23am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                  "Our federal government hasn't worried about the Constitution is decades. It it had, the federal government would be considerably smaller than it is today."

                  It would, but seriously, there have been exactly two rather persistent actors who have both taken turns swelling the government into a monstrosity.

                  It's past time for the US citizenry to realize that whether republican or democrat the end result will be a sock puppet following the lead of a corrupt party leadership completely disconnected from it's constituents.
                  Or they can go on a few more years with the current setup and possibly end up trying to fight a second civil war.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                    identicon
                    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:20am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                    OR they can just vote for TRUMP again and we can all GET RICH! Did you see the MARKET?

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      Wendy Cockcroft (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:21am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                      If all you have is money, how very poor you are.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                        identicon
                        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:23am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        Spoken like the socialist lesbian separatist you are, Wendy.

                        Fuck you and your lesbian friends. No one cares at all in my country or yours what you think - just ask Jeremy Corbin what normal Brits think.

                        SOCIALIST LESBIAN SEPARATISTS SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN SMALL ISLAND, and soon perish without any offspring.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • identicon
                          Glen, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:32am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                          Boring troll is extremely boring.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                            identicon
                            Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:41am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                            Got you to feed me! Who won that round? Care to say more? Sure you will lose?

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Glen, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:45am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                              Lose what?

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:19am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                              I think you'll win just like Shiva was supposed to win that election against Elizabeth Warren.

                              Oh snap!

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Wendy Cockcroft (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:07am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                            He has claimed that he was joking about this on several occasions, so how in the world can anyone possibly take him seriously?

                            How funny that he feels threatened by little ol' me!

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:13am

                          I wonder: Would you call that “put them on a small island” thing your final solution to the “gay problem”? 🤔

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
                            identicon
                            Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:46pm

                            Re:

                            It would be a great start, but unfortunately a'small' island would not suffice!

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • identicon
                        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:13pm

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        Old hamiltron is broke as hell. As well as a bad liar.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • identicon
                      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:30am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                      "Did you see the MARKET?"

                      The economy is and continues to be "good" for the very rich and a total disaster for everyone else and the stock kiting is probably making many even more rich. But to what end .. how much is enough and how do you know you have reached that point? I do not think the very rich think such things, they probably think the economy is great for everyone and do not care to look while some enjoy watching it burn.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • identicon
                        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:35pm

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        And by the "very rich" you mean people (unlike you) who have a job.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • identicon
                        Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:48pm

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                        Those winners in the stock market are buying up yuan and rubles knowing what's around the corner.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:31am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                          So they are. The current US fiscal surge is largely propped up by another shadow banking bubble which makes the one from 2009 look like the fizz in a glass of coke. It's anybody's guess if whatever government is in charge when it collapses will do more than a token wrist slap to prevent the same irresponsible crap from happening a third time.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • identicon
                      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:31am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                      Wrong, vote for trump and the 1% get richer while the rest of you suffer from polluted environments as that allows the rich to get even richer.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:12am

                      The stock market is not the economy. The vast majority of Americans have no investments in the stock market. And rich people getting richer doesn’t mean poor people are getting less poor.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

              • identicon
                Baron von Robber, 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:40am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                FYI, he still didn't release all the money even after getting caught.

                "$35 million in Pentagon aid hasn’t reached Ukraine, despite White House assurances "
                https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-19/documents-show-nearly-40-million-in-ukraine -aid-delayed-despite-white-house-assurances

                link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:20am

              Fat stupid and racist is no way to go through life son

              link to this | view in chronology ]

              • identicon
                Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:55pm

                Re: Fat stupid and racist is no way to go through life son

                So what's your point?

                link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Atkray (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 11:28am

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            Actually all copyright is unconstitutional that is why the exception to the constitution that congress MAY allow copyright was written in.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 5:50am

          Re: Re: Re:

          "all public funded government works should be public domain"

          Yes .. should be.
          iirc, at least one state in the us thinks its laws are protected in some way via copyright.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:43am

        Re: Re:

        Map making is a historic art, one that has always been for the benefit of people. To try to stop one from serving the population the MTA should be ashamed and decist its attack.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Thomas à Beckist, 16 Jan 2020 @ 3:56pm

    Vignelli-style

    Beck-style, surely.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 2:26am

      Re: Vignelli-style

      Whatever you wanna call 'em, I wish everywhere would stop using them as their official maps. It's a pain in the arse trying to figure out where I am relative to something above ground using the damn things and their misleading lines, and it's not too easy to open up google maps and stick on the rail line overlay while in a tunnel.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 3:57pm

    Well they needed a good place to sinkhole a large amount of money they we're using to improve the system...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    JoeCool (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 4:35pm

    Infringing

    Since the MTA clearly consider it infringing, and since his came FIRST, clearly THEY are infringing HIS copyright. He can happily start sending takedown notices on their images. ;)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 16 Jan 2020 @ 4:43pm

    Time for layoffs

    Clearly there are too many lawyers on the payroll at MTA.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    icon
    Zof (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 5:21pm

    Before reading the story, I'm going to make a guess

    Because they are cunts.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 6:53pm

      Re: Before reading your comment, I'm going to make a guess

      You’re going to say something that’s not only wrong, but idiotically wrong. And do it in a way that implies you’re about fourteen.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        AricTheRed, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:38am

        Re: Re: Before reading your comment, I'm going to make a guess

        Me thinks Zof is actually correct here, about the MTA'a solicitors, thet they are in fact cunts.

        Sometimes it takes someone, like a 14 year olde, that lacks depth and sensitivity, to accuratly locate and identify the real cunts in life.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
          identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:40am

          Re: Re: Re: Before reading your comment, I'm going to make a gue

          Insightful. It takes someone insightful. Zof is insightful. I've noticed that many times.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            JoeCool (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 11:07am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Before reading your comment, I'm going to make a

            About one quarter of Zof's posts I mark as insightful or funny, and most of the rest are flagged. His posts are still worth reading first rather than simply always flagging them.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:15pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Before reading your comment, I'm going to make a

            It’s quite telling you think a guy with a teenagers mentality is insightful. He must seem like a mental giant to you bro.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:47am

      Re: Before reading the story, I'm going to make a guess

      Zof Zof Zof... we are all hoping for so much more from you. Do you Like being flagged for some reason? Do you crave abuse.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Code Monkey (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 7:40pm

    Where is MTA's Notice of Copyright

    Although not officially needed, if the MTA has a Notice of Copyright, then ok, whine about an obviously better map.

    What? The MTA doesn't actually possess a Notice of Copyright? Hmmmmmm.

    So, what they're actually suing him over is that people think the MTA map sucks.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:49am

      Re: Where is MTA's Notice of Copyright

      Corporations have turned an American institution (Copyright) into a terrible quagmire of murky stench.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:34am

        Re: Re: Where is MTA's Notice of Copyright

        "Corporations have turned a British institution (Copyright) into a terrible quagmire of murky stench."

        FTFY.

        The US took what was originally shit british legislation openly aimed at consolidating distributor monopolies of printing and distribution and made it even worse.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 4:45pm

          Re: Re: Re: Where is MTA's Notice of Copyright

          Then I was essentially correct?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:13am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Where is MTA's Notice of Copyright

            "Then I was essentially correct?"

            Only if your original statement that copyright was an american institution which corporations turned into a quagmire had been factually correct in either assertion.

            So no.

            Copyright was originally an old political-religious censorship tool the british queen Mary (bloody Mary) used to suppress anyone who wanted to print and distribute protestant literature.
            Afther her time that tool was taken over by the protestant queen Anne who continued using it to suppress catholic literature.

            After the british parliament had enough of the outright censorship the pseudo-government apparatus both queens had used to implement the censorship - the Guild of Stationers - decided they really wanted that law to stay because it'd allowed them to rake in the money for many years and bought a continuance of the law - under the name of "copyright".

            So the truth of it is that Copyright is just an old british censorship law from the 17th century which still operates exactly the way it was designed to - by allowing a small number of gatekeepers to control culture production and distribution of information to the detriment of just about anyone else.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 7:50pm

    Bullshit Propoganda

    Ever hear a lawyer argue? They don't argue like normal people. Say their client is accused of killing someone at 1AM in Chicago with gun. The lawyer's argument goes like this: My client wasn't in Chicago. And if he was in Chicago, it wasn't at 1AM. And if he wsas in Chicago at 1AM, he didn't have a gun. And if he did have a gun he didn't fire it. And if he did fire it it was in another direction. And if he did fire and kill someone with the gun at 1 AM in Chicago, he had a good reason, and it was self defense.

    To normal people, this sounds like gibberish. Layer upon layer of denial and deflection that only a lawyer could appreciate.

    Much in the same way that your article sounds like gibberish.

    He didn't copy it. And if he did copy it he didn't copy all of it. And if he did copy all of it he's helping you anyway. And if he's helping you, why do you care? And by the way, why not fix your subway instead of bothing this poor soul.

    Your article sounds like legaleez jibberish. What happened to Journalism?

    I'm guessing this guy is your client and he paid for this article and your business is publishing bullshit propoganda.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 11:32am

      Re: Bullshit Propoganda

      Nice attempt at diversion then, but you are the one with the bullshit lawyer-speak.

      It's not if, it's all of the above, you obtuse fuckwit.

      Not sure about which part of his map was first that you don't understand. (So guess who is infringing, Mr. Fuckwit. I'll give you 3 more guesses, and do you the favor of ketting you know your first one was wrong.)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 12:57am

      Re: Bullshit Propoganda

      Ever hear a lawyer argue? They don't argue like normal people.

      Is that why Charles Harder failed? Because he failed to argue like a normal person? That sounds legit.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:53am

        Re: Re: Bullshit Propoganda

        Nah he failed because he’s a failure like you

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:56am

      Re: Bullshit Propoganda

      You failed to mention that his client lost use of his fingers in the war and that he was completely temporarily insane on the night in question plus he was in bed at the time with his lawyer's wife!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sharur, 16 Jan 2020 @ 7:55pm

    Re; MTA & Government Copyrights

    Umm, I was under the impression that things created by the government were not copyrightable; or more accurately were instantly placed into the public domain.

    Not just as policy, but actually written into the US Copyright laws...unless that only applies to the US Federal government...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 11:46pm

      Re: Re; MTA & Government Copyrights

      Umm, I was under the impression that things created by the government were not copyrightable; or more accurately were instantly placed into the public domain.

      Federal government, yes, if created by full time employees.

      State and local gov't? Not necessarily. Also, not if it was contracted out.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 8:48pm

    Tell the truth

    Tell the truth - this guy is your client, right? He paid for this piece, right?

    He didn't copy it. Well, if he did copy it, it doesn't matter. It's not the same. And if it is the same, it doesn't matter. He's helping you, so shut up. And if he's not helping you, it doesn't matter. If he is doing something he shouldn't, why don't you just shut up about it and improve the subway system.

    Propaganda much?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 9:11pm

      Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

      Do you smell burning toast? Cause it sounds like you just stroked out hard bro.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 9:16pm

        Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

        Well, the other day I was looking at the trees and admiring the green leaves and beautiful birds and then everything went a little grey. Well, not grey, maybe a little brown. I thought "well, that's it", I'm a goner, I'm going to fall down dead as a doornail in the dirt in a minute or less.

        But then I heard "sorry sorry sorry" from my mother-in-law who was sweeping and when combined with a little breeze made everything look monochrome.

        But HEY I'm still here, not dead, not stroked, but STOKED! I'M STOKED!

        How 'bout you, friend? See the debate? That sucked, didn't it. Warren is a bitch but CNN loves her, that's for sure. Bernie's going to take it! Or they will burn down cities! Did you get a pen? Nancy sent me a pen! Well, not me, my grandfather, and he's dead, but he told me so in a dream. He said LOOK! A PEN! A NANCY PEN! and then I woke up.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:37am

          Re: Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

          Hey hamiltron. Remember when you used to pretend you were a poor put-upon inventor who just thought that IP laws were screwing him over?

          Yeah me neither bro

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
            identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:32am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

            Poor? I never recall saying anything about being poor. As I recall, my comment of record was that my stereo likely cost more than your car. If you have a car.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:16pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

              Your memory’s not so good bro. Not surprising what with the titanic about of lies you tell here.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Rocky, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:47pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

              If you bought a stereo that costs more than a car, may I suggest you where taken for a ride...

              link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 10:59am

          Re: Re: Re: Tell the truth it’s not your first one.

          Dude.. you haven't woke up. Put your doctor's phone down and go back to your group session. SOMEBODY HELP this man, he's sleepwalking!

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    TKnarr (profile), 16 Jan 2020 @ 9:53pm

    Why does the MTA care? Probably because they want to change to the Vignelli style for their official map and if they do a) their lawyers told them Berman could sue them for infringement and b) everybody will believe (probably rightly) that the MTA's professionals couldn't come up with anything better than an amateur did.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 11:02pm

      Re:

      Really? i don't see it that way at all.

      It looks to me like the MTA is doing what it think it needs to do to protect it's interests.

      That seems normal and usual.

      What's abnormal and unusual is this whole RESISTANCE farce that Techdirt seems to be a part of. RESIST the best economy in the world. RESIST the freedom of people in Iran, in China, in Taiwan. RESIST common sense, risk/rewards, RESIST RESIST. RESIST TRUMP with impeachment. What a pathetic bunch of losers you leftists are.

      All these things going on the world, and you want to focus on some idiot who is accused of taking a map.

      How fucking uniformed are you assholes?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:25am

        Re: Re:

        “What a pathetic bunch of losers you leftists are.“

        “How fucking uniformed are you assholes?”

        Congratulations bro you’re now the king of projection.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 11:43am

        Re: Re:

        You don't get to do whatever you want to "protect your interests", whatever uou imagine those are at the time, and succeed all the time. Neither you nor the MTA nor Trump are king of the universe. You get 5o live in a system where the apparently leftist founding fathers forgot to write in a law that says "whosoever claims to have been wronged first, wins". Wow, what pathetic weak babies your type are. Everything hurts you. How sad.

        The other sad part is that you'd be calling the MTA a socialist overreach anywhere else, in most any other situation. So sad.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 2:31am

      Re:

      That's my guess too. Far too many urban light rail overground and underground systems use them, and it's super frustrating to those of us who like a realistic representation of relative distances and where stations are relative to overground landmarks. It's the "web 2.0" of rail maps. All blobby edges in case we cut our fingers touching them, and indistinguishable designs. It makes sense one of the biggest such systems in the world would want in on that. Were they to win here, you could probably expect a substantially similar map to his to be the new official one within a few years.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2020 @ 11:28pm

    Nothing is an accident

    You know, it's been nearly three years since Trump was sworn in, and Shiva filed his case. A lot has changed, for the better.

    Taxes are lower, investments are higher, several high profile Muslim terrorists have either been killed, blown themselves up (along with their children) or been the recipient of a hell fire missile up their ass. Even Techdirt has changed for the better.

    Chelsea Manning is not talked about much here anymore, that's good. Shiva doesn't get much attention either, another good thing. You talk about Russians less. Stephen T. Stone smears a little less shit than he used to. Mike hasn't gotten any stupid leftie awards lately.

    Personally, I'm optimistic. Maybe the coverage here will include some fair and balanced journalism. Maybe even Techdirt will realize that the only political candidate that they even COULD support is BERNIE SANDERS!

    Bernie is the epitome of what you want here at Techdirt. Russian style authoritarian government. Prisoners voting from Prison. Mandatory gun confiscation. The whole world could become like one big globalist paradise, everyone strip searched for weapons, sitting still with their arms by their sides, with CNN blaring the same talking points over and over, and armed guards like Stephen and Mike walking around ready to silence any speech they don't like.

    Face it - you have to endorse Bernie, he's the only one who comes close to the ideals so tightly embraced by you leftist assholes. It's going to happen.

    Then we're going to bury you in the next election. Yup. Watch it happen.

    All you lefty fuckers should just leave America like you promised. Maybe we can pass a law. Gotta wait for the next election though. Thanks for being so transparent. It helps the cause of freedom and justice to see you all continue to embarrass yourself, and Bernie will be the cherry on top of the cake. What a face! Loser Extradorinaire. But, at least he's honest. That's more than I can say about the people here.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 2:55am

      You know, it's been nearly three years since Trump was sworn in, and Shiva filed his case. A lot has changed, for the better.

      One thing that hasn’t changed and will never change: Shiva Ayyadurai didn’t invent email.

      Bernie is the epitome of what you want here at Techdirt. Russian style authoritarian government.

      Given his bizarre (and near-sexual) adoration of Vladimir Putin and other like-minded dictators, his attempts to ban people from entering the country based on ethnicity and religious creed, his directing federal agencies to put undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers alike in concentration camps, his decision to route around Congress and assassinate a foreign dignitary on mutually foreign soil, his continued obstruction of federal investigations into his administration and himself, his not-so-thinly veiled support of White nationalists, his constant attacks on the press, and his attempt to have Ukraine influence an American election by way of announcing an investigation into a political rival, Donald Trump seems far more like an authoritarian than Bernie Sanders ever has or ever will.

      Prisoners voting from Prison.

      Not for nothin’, but I don’t see how that’s a problem. American citizens are American citizens even if they’re in prison. They deserve just as much of a voice in how they’re governed as does an obscenely wealthy oligarch who’s paying for lawmakers to pass laws that will help him keep his wealth.

      Mandatory gun confiscation.

      I haven’t heard Sanders advocate for any kind of gun confiscation. (Beto O'Rourke did, though.) But I know he supports banning assault weapons.

      you have to endorse Bernie, he's the only one who comes close to the ideals so tightly embraced by you leftist assholes

      And which ideals would those be — the ones that say a government should take care of its people, the wealthy shouldn’t be allowed to hoard obscene amounts of wealth, and healthcare should be a guaranteed human right instead of an expensive privilege that only the obscenely wealthy can afford?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:19am

        Re:

        Not surprising that you want prisoners to vote, likely your whole family is there already. Not like you to visit much though. Bernie represents exactly how you think - as I recall, you went to Moscow along with Bernie to make as many friends as possible on your honeymoon. ON YOUR HONEYMOON! Is that bizarre or what. Your dick get hard and your wife pussy gets wet just talking about RUSSIA! YOU ARE ALL PERVERTS OF THE FIRST ORDER!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:21am

          Re: Re:

          Putin is Trump's schoolboy crush even though Trump already has his lips tightly around Kim Jong-Un's "nuclear missile", so I'm not sure what your issue with Russia is.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:18pm

          Re: Re:

          Melenias still never going to know you exist bro. And she’s just a third rate eurotrash hooker who won the golddigger lottery.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 11:13am

        Re:

        I can't get beyond the fact (no disrespect intended) that Bernie Sanders looks like he my fall over at any time. The longevity of a leader's ability to survive a term of Office of the Presidency of the USA should be close to the top of the list of prerequisites of qualifications for that Office.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      PaulT (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 3:19am

      Re: Nothing is an accident

      "A lot has changed, for the better."

      Not really, although the silence of your type over actual crimes being committed by Trump is notable after years of braying every time Obama wore the wrong colour suit or chose the wrong condiment.

      "Taxes are lower, investments are higher, several high profile Muslim terrorists have either been killed"

      All of which were true during the last administration, strangely enough.

      "Chelsea Manning is not talked about much here anymore"

      Has there been as much newsworthy in the last couple of years? Are you expecting someone to be talked about constantly without new material to report on?

      "Shiva doesn't get much attention either"

      Yes, after his lawsuits and election bid failed and it was proven he was in fact another lying conman trying to fleece the gullible, he's been quiet hasn't he?

      "Maybe the coverage here will include some fair and balanced journalism"

      Why do you expect that from an opinion blog?

      "Bernie is the epitome of what you want here at Techdirt. Russian style authoritarian government."

      So, you still don't understand Sanders' platform or the words spoken by people here?

      "Then we're going to bury you in the next election. Yup. Watch it happen."

      I can believe that to a degree. Not because you were actually outvoted of course, just that you've managed to corrupt the government so much that it's possible to lose an election by millions of votes yet still manage to take power.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 11:42am

        Re: Re: Nothing is an accident

        Has there been as much newsworthy in the last couple of years?

        Um... the fact that she's been jailed, pretty much continuously, for the past ten months for refusing to testify at Julian Assange's grand jury arraignment?

        I mean, TD mentioned that she was subpoenaed and that she intended to fight it, but I'm a little surprised that being jailed for contempt of court didn't get reported on.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 11:56am

          What do you want, a weekly or monthly update that says “Chelsea Manning is still in jail”? Until and unless her imprisonment status changes, reporting that she’s still in jail isn’t really newsworthy until it hits a “benchmark” number (e.g., six months, one year).

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 2:16pm

            Re:

            Well, reporting that she was in jail in the first place would have been nice...

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 1:36am

              Re: Re:

              Not everyone has imprisonment fetish fantasies like you, fam.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 12:04pm

            Re:

            We could make a website like the old "Abe Vigoda status" site.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 1:38am

          Re: Re: Re: Nothing is an accident

          "Um... the fact that she's been jailed, pretty much continuously, for the past ten months for refusing to testify at Julian Assange's grand jury arraignment?"

          So, nothing new to report on in those months, then? What's being missed since the article you linked to? If nothing, then what's the problem with not having mentioned her as much as when there were newsworthy developments?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:27am

      Nothing is an accident except when your dad “forgot” to pull

      Three years and you’re still a shit eating loser bro. No amount of delusional bullshit is gonna change that fa t.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:28am

      Re: Nothing is an accident

      “Shiva doesn't get much attention either, another good thing.”

      Your pretend lover lost so bad he had to go into witness protection bro.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:16am

        Re: Re: Nothing is an accident

        I saw this interesting show today about societal responsibility. It put things rather nicely. It used to be, in the old days before everyone became "anonymous", that people would tend not to stray to far from the truth. Politicians, yes, car salesman, yes, but we all accepted that for what it was and acted accordingly.

        Now, pretty much everyone seems willing to stray any and all distance from the truth to promote their goal. Anonymity brings with it no sense of shyness.

        Once you become aware of this trend, then you can choose your place in it.

        Take Trump, for example. The only president that endured nearly as much abuse from the "resistance" was Abraham Lincoln, big hat and all. Honest Abe. Honest Trump. Honest Jhon Smith. Honest Chip. Honest Shiva. Fuck, almost everyone in the universe is more honest than the crowd here. Sometimes Stephen T. Stone is black, sometimes gay, sometimes white, sometimes Wendy Cockcroft is a conservative, sometimes a programmer, sometimes ...

        What a slimy dishonest bunch you are. Not like me and my friend Donald J. Trump. We speak truth. But then, truth without love is just too brutal. We speak truth with love of America, and no fucking love at all for you leftie assholes.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Wendy Cockcroft (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 7:26am

          Re: Re: Re: Nothing is an accident

          sometimes Wendy Cockcroft is a conservative, sometimes a programmer, sometimes ...

          Programmer? I can't program. This is why I don't tend to comment on the more technical posts -- I know too little to say anything of value there. I have never pretended I could program.

          I'm conservative by the standards of the Eighties; my positions haven't moved much since then. I'm not going to shift with the Overton Window because the mass media told me to.

          Sooner or later you're going to have to learn to live in a world where people disagree with you instead of having an absolute cow when we do.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          teka, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:06am

          Re: Re: Re: Nothing is an accident

          wow.
          just wow.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:10am

          Fuck, almost everyone in the universe is more honest than the crowd here.

          Then why are you still here? You “know” we’re “liars”. You know your that bullshit isn’t welcome here and it won’t change anyone’s minds about anything. Why bother hanging out with a bunch of “liars” on a site that you hate when, as you put it, literally “everyone [else] in the universe” is worth more of your time than this site?

          Hatefollowing a site and the people who frequent it isn’t good for your mental health, chief. And if you want to pull out the “I was only trolling” defense: You can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 11:05am

      Re: Nothing is an accident

      You are deluded if you think anyone's vote is going to change or actually count. You think right is better than left? Right is only better than wrong. If everyone was right, there would be no one left. Your logic is a little disappointing.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 3:08am

    1. Stephen, no one cares about who invented Email. You are a fanatical idiot gibbering about gibberish that no one understands.

    2. When you choose to live outside the law, that is, to flagrantly break the law, rape, kill, mutilate, whatever it is that many people do (and you fantasize about), you lose those privileges afforded to law abiding citizens, like me. Everyone knows that.

    3. There is nothing wrong with competing and winning. Competition is good for everyone who competes. Even people who compete badly still do well in America, because we lead the world in every important category.

    4. If you don't want to abide by the rules, act like a citizen that respects other citizens, contribute to the good of society as a whole, then GET THE FUCK OUT OF AMERICA and leave it for the people who do. We don't need, want, or give a shit about your obviously mentally deranged opinion.

    5. Thank you for not smearing shit on the walls like you usually do. That's progress, as I mentioned before. Thank you for your consideration.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 17 Jan 2020 @ 3:41pm

      And here I thought you’d run off with your tail between your legs like you usually do when I wreck your shit worse than a NASCAR pile-up. But since it’s the weekend and I wanna blow off some steam, let’s go.

      no one cares about who invented Email

      The multiple lawsuits filed by Shiva Ayyadurai say otherwise.

      When you choose to live outside the law […] you lose those privileges afforded to law abiding citizens

      Last I checked, voting was a guaranteed right to all citizens of voting age, not a privilege. And while I do agree with the idea of placing limits on which prisoners get to vote (e.g., misdemeanor convictions mean people can vote from jail but felony convictions mean they can’t), I believe even imprisoned American citizens deserve a voice in how they’re governed. For all your bluster about how they’re criminals, they are still American citizens.

      Even people who compete badly still do well in America, because we lead the world in every important category.

      Like school shootings — nobody beats the U.S. in that category.

      But to the broader point: Competition in society is generally acceptable, but let’s not act like everyone is on a level playing field or that “losers” make out well. American society isn’t built on “fairness”; if it were, Black people wouldn’t have been considered three-fifths of a person when the Constitution was ratified.

      If you don't want to abide by the rules, act like a citizen that respects other citizens, contribute to the good of society as a whole, then GET THE FUCK OUT OF AMERICA

      When will you be calling for the deportation of Donald Trump?

      We don't need, want, or give a shit about your obviously mentally deranged opinion.

      And yet, there you are, having replied to my opinion as if you’re taking it seriously. What does it say about you that you say you don’t give a shit, but you still say something anyway?

      Thank you for not smearing shit on the walls like you usually do.

      Projection, thy name is Hamilton.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:48pm

      Re:

      no one cares about who invented Email

      And now that Shiva spent thousands of dollars on a lawsuit to prove exactly that... how is a monetary loss supposed to be a victory, again?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:20pm

      Re:

      “Stephen, no one cares about who invented Email.

      Cept your boy who lost so hard he had to go into hiding.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Rocky, 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:50pm

      Re:

      There is nothing wrong with competing and winning. Competition is good for everyone who competes. Even people who compete badly still do well in America, because we lead the world in every important category.

      Can you enumerate those important categories?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      blademan9999 (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 7:06am

      Re:

      " lead the world in every important category???"

      HDI, GDP per capita, life expectancy, university enrollment, happines index e.t.c., you lead the wolrd in NONE of those.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:42am

      Re:

      "When you choose to live outside the law, that is, to flagrantly break the law, rape, kill, mutilate, whatever it is that many people do (and you fantasize about), you lose those privileges afforded to law abiding citizens, like me. Everyone knows that. "

      Hrm, all of that because Stephen dared to question your narrative about the sanctity of Copyright once or twice?

      I'm afraid, Baghdad Bob, that copyright infringement still isn't comparable to theft, rape or murder. No matter what your religious dictates in the copyright cult may say about it.

      "Even people who compete badly still do well in America, because we lead the world in every important category."

      Like; The proportion of the citizenry in jail. The proportion of the citizenry in poverty, The proportion of households which are food-challenged, and the amount of murders per capita?

      Yes, those categories are indeed important. and among the G20 you stand head and shoulders over everyone else in them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2020 @ 9:03am

    Hamilton really hasn't gotten over Shiva's loss, has he?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bobvious, 17 Jan 2020 @ 4:10pm

    That map on a t-shirt

    Do you think I could get the MTA map from Teespring?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 4:30pm

      Re: That map on a t-shirt

      No, no. You need to ask that question on Twitter for it to work.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    tp (profile), 18 Jan 2020 @ 2:09am

    subway map has clear intellectual property issues

    Here's how to regognize clear intellectual property issue:
    1) find competitor's market
    2) find elements that mimic competitor's copyrighted works
    3) check if the copy tries to attach itself to the competitor's customers

    My position is that this "attach" operation is always clear indication of copyright or trademark issues.
    In case of subway maps, these steps are executed as follows:
    1) subway
    2) clone of a subway map
    3) subway users who see the map, clearly regognize it as illegal clone of the original subway maps

    I.e. now we have clear indication that intelllectual property issues are happening. In case of subway maps, the IP in question is nearer trademark problem than copyrights.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Rocky, 18 Jan 2020 @ 3:25am

      Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

      So, according to your reasoning, should MTA pay Berman for their infringing maps?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        tp (profile), 18 Jan 2020 @ 6:52am

        Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

        should MTA pay Berman for their infringing maps?

        I think the bigger issue is: if the cloned maps become popular, who should get the money?
        1) the subway company who spent millions marketing their subways
        2) or the guy who build the ripoff maps

        Basically the ripoff maps are riding in the popularity of subway.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          David, 18 Jan 2020 @ 8:22am

          Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

          Basically the ripoff maps are riding in the popularity of subway.

          That may be how a hand-wavy imagined superpower intellectual property law system might work.

          It's not how copyright works. Inspiration is not copyrightable.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            tp (profile), 18 Jan 2020 @ 8:52am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issue

            Inspiration is not copyrightable.

            How the imagined superpower intellectual property law system handles this situation is that the inspiration must come from combination of multiple different sources. This prevents the situation where subway's maps are directly copied.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 12:11pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property i

              I guess the MTA shouldn't have copied the map, then.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Rocky, 18 Jan 2020 @ 3:34pm

          Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

          I think the bigger issue is: if the cloned maps become popular, who should get the money?

          Not the one cloning it, in this instance the MTA. I can buy the rights of a NYC-map, mark every subway station and line on it, send it to a print-shop to get 100,000 printed and then sell them without out the MTA can do jack shit about it, as long as I don't copy their maps artistic style - because in the end, the information about subway-stops and their lines are just a collection of facts which can't be copyrighted.

          But the bigger issue is, shouldn't the MTA concentrate on transporting people instead of bullshit lawsuits?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 5:14pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issue

            Look, it's Tero Meshpage Fuckface Pulkinnen.

            Even though the map is nothing like the subway's version and is original he'll still call it copyright infringement, because he's the kind of jackass that would charge people to mention his house address in a casual sentence.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 1:19am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issue

            the information about subway-stops and their lines are just a collection of facts which can't be copyrighted.

            This would only apply if they actually spent time collecting the facts, instead of just doing carbon-copy of the maps that exists in subway trains. Cloning the existing maps isn't "collecting facts"... The situation is much different if someone actually visited the subway stations, looked at sun's position and the stars to measure the current location.... i.e. did the actual grunt work needed to gather some new information.

            Your copycats would never notice if one of the subway stations is 50m off from the place where maps say it should be. But if they actually did some measurement work, such problems can be found.

            Subway company's best bet to detect copyright infringement would be to insert intentional errors to their maps, and once copycat maps have the same errors, its clear they just ripped off the original.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 3:49am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property i

              A disguised work of the brow entitles someone to make a money augment, ignoring a recursive fact. How would a person map every subway station other than by using an existing map to ensure that they did not miss some.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

              • icon
                tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 4:11am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual proper

                How would a person map every subway station other than by using an existing map to ensure that they did not miss some.

                There are several ways:
                1) you can buy satellite images from the companies who send satellites to space,
                $2,000,000 per image
                2) you can install cameras and gps devices to people's cars and ask them to travel around the country collecting information
                3) You can ask people to open their wifi networks and use the echos from the wifi routers to map the landscape
                4) you can build army of killer robots which visits every place on the planet and record information
                5) you can use ships and compass to navigate the oceans

                There's plenty of ways how this can be done without relying on existing maps.

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • identicon
                  Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 5:42am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual pr

                  And there are plenty of ways you could have written Meshpages without using existing operating systems and libraries. You might not have anything to show yet, but your work would be almost original.

                  What you seem to have difficulty grasping, despite using the works of others in your own endeavours, is that building on the works of others is how all human endeavours advance. Requiring everyone to start from scratch stops all human advancement, as people have to keep on reinventing the ways to make fire.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • icon
                    tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 7:33am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    Requiring everyone to start from scratch stops all human advancement, as people have to keep on reinventing the ways to make fire.

                    If we have noone who learns the magic of how to make fire, at some point we lose ability to do it completely. Society needs those people who is willing to drop the safequards of existing systems and who build the stuff from scratch. If we fail to do that, we're going to lose the ability to build those things completely.

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • identicon
                      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 7:59am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      Learn from others is how culture, science and technology advance. What you were advocating was start from scratch, so which is is it build on the works of others, or start from scratch?

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 8:16am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        so which is is it build on the works of others, or start from scratch?

                        Basically it depends on the amount of resources you have available, how large amount of existing system you can reinvent. Basically you need to evaluate the available resources you have, and drop part of the existing system and build then the missing module. When many people do the same, we get people who knows how to build those parts of the overall system. If enough people are willing to do that, we can at some point build a whole system from the parts.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • identicon
                          Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 8:36am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear

                          So what is wrong with using existing information to produce a map in a form that makes it easier to navigate a subway system?

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 9:41am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            So what is wrong with using existing information to produce a map in a form that makes it easier to navigate a subway system?

                            it only becomes a problem when you offer it to other people, i.e. publish your work and ask money for it. The original authors of the map might want to get part of the money you receive while doing that, given that their work was used to produce it. Basically good trick is to try to license the maps from the original authors of the material.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 7:04pm

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              it only becomes a problem when you offer it to other people, i.e. publish your work and ask money for it

                              Except that in this case, the creator of this map you're so angry about has also noted that other people are also selling their own subway maps. And somehow the MTA decided that of all the people selling maps, the one person they decided to harass with their bullshit lawsuit was a lawyer.

                              But personally I like how you spent the Disney+ thread whining and screaming that independent projects like your Meshpage should be allowed to exist and paid in mansions, because "more competition" is a good thing, and yet here we have one guy doing the exact same thing for subway maps and this "competition" is somehow devilish enough to require nuking off the Internet.

                              You know, just in case we needed a reminder of how full of shit you are.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 7:45pm

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                as also noted that other people are also selling their own subway maps. -- the one person they decided to harass with their bullshit lawsuit was a lawyer.

                                Obviously people who study the law and has most recent legal information available, should follow the law to the letter. It's not a good defense that other people are also committing copyright infringement, even if it shows that the market has participants who do not care about the law. But lawyers explicitly doing it without caring about liability was simply too much, and such person would immediately need to be sued.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • identicon
                                  Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:03am

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  Obviously people who study the law and has most recent legal information available, should follow the law to the letter

                                  Which he did. That's the problem with you copyright-types, we can follow the law to the damn letter and yet you'll toss DMCA claims left and right because someone else said "fuck your feelings".

                                  It's not a good defense that other people are also committing copyright infringement

                                  Arguably true, but once again, this was not copyright infringement. If you live three blocks down the road and I write or illustrate that and people pay me for that information presented well, that's not copyright infringement.

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                tp (profile), 19 Jan 2020 @ 9:19pm

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                yet here we have one guy doing the exact same thing for subway maps

                                according to MTA, this map guy is substituting the original tube maps, while still utilizing the data that MTA paid to the satellite companies. We have seen no evidence that the joke map guy is contributing anything to the cost of obtaining the original satellitte data from nasa's satellite companies.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • identicon
                                  Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:05am

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  Ah, we're back to the old "if this was made by an independent producer or more cheaply obviously it must have been copyright infringement".

                                  Thanks for proving once again that Meshpage, a product that was made more cheaply than Maya or Blender or 3dsmax, is a work of copyright infringement, which you have yet to take down.

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:46am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      "If we have noone who learns the magic of how to make fire, at some point we lose ability to do it completely. Society needs those people who is willing to drop the safequards of existing systems and who build the stuff from scratch."

                      So your argument is that human civilization can't exist because 99,99% of our history happened before copyright was invented?

                      I wish I could say that insanity wasn't, in fact, part and parcel of copyright cult propaganda and that it's usually uttered with a straight face...

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:10am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        "So your argument is that human civilization can't exist because 99,99% of our history happened before copyright was invented?"

                        No, his argument appears to be that anyone who wants to do anything related to fire should be forced to relearn how to do it from scratch without referring to what the original guys did lest they copy something. Also that unless people do this, the original lessons would be "lost" somehow.

                        In other words, it's the usual nonsense that bears no relationship to how the real world operates. But, it does reinforce the fact that copyright maximalists would happily inflict massive irreversible damage on human knowledge and progress, rather than miss out on some of that sweet imaginary cash that they'll never get.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                • icon
                  PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 1:54am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual pr

                  Given answer 4), I suspect that you might be a little tongue in cheeck here, but since it's impossible to tell with you:

                  Read over everything you just said. Several of those "solutions" simply won't work (such as using satellite imagery to document underground assets). Some ignore the scope of the problem (you keep saying "country" but the subject is in a single city, you mention oceans, but everything in question is land based). You have picked the most unsuitable and most wastefully expensive solutions possible, and most won't get you anything like the answer you would want to achieve. So, par for the course for you.

                  What you handily omit are the most workable and obvious solutions. Since the map required is of a public transit system, all you need to do is get some people riding the lines with the best equipment on their person to document the position of all the required assets. Simple, cheap and way less complex than your silly ideas.

                  BUT - and here's the main thing - unless someone on one side made a massive mistake the resulting data will be identical to the data already available. That's because these are immutable facts. The stations and lines will not move depending on who records the information. Therefore, done correctly, the result of all that work will be the same as the work that's already been done.

                  You think you're making some demand that people simply not "copy" publicly available information, but all you're doing is to demand that people waste everybody's time and money to avoid sharing like a decent human being.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • icon
                    tp (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:07am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    unless someone on one side made a massive mistake the resulting data will be identical to the data already available.

                    There's one big difference. The people who spent the time to actually do the operation has a huge gap in their stack of money, given that they need to pay salaries for the work. How did you plan to fix that gap?

                    Therefore, done correctly, the result of all that work will be the same as the work that's already been done.

                    This is why right solution isn't redoing the work. The right solution is to license the work to everyone who needs it. This will fix the huge money gap that exists in the people who actually did the work.

                    You only need redo the work, if you refuse to compensate the people who did the actual work. Of course if you think the people did bad work, it might be better if you redo the work to see if you can get better result. But if the quality of the work was ok, your best bet is to actually pay the requested money.

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:40am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      "The people who spent the time to actually do the operation has a huge gap in their stack of money"

                      The people who created the protocols, operating systems and standards that your shitshow of a web site depends on to operate aren't getting a stack of money from you either. So?

                      "You only need redo the work"

                      ...which wastes everybody's time and money, especially when the data is public available to begin with, and results in exactly $0 being added to the accounts of the people whose work you're supposedly replicating.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • identicon
                      Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:59am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      The people who spent the time to actually do the operation has a huge gap in their stack of money

                      Just because someone spends money to create something does not mean that they are entitles to get their money back. Failure to gain a market share is always an option, as you full well know with Meshpages.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        tp (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:12am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        Just because someone spends money to create something does not mean that they are entitles to get their money back.

                        well, you're just not allowed to use that work without paying. this is why they request $2 to enter the subway and the subway maps are only available to people who did give money forward. their goons will find people who use subway without paying. are you the kind of people who forgets to pay the amount they request for the service? how many times you've been in jail for missing payment in subway?

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:48am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear

                          "well, you're just not allowed to use that work without paying"

                          Tim Berners-Lee looks forward to your payment for using his work.

                          "this is why they request $2 to enter the subway and the subway maps are only available to people who did give money forward"

                          Once again, I'm glad that your fantasy world is not the world the rest of us live in:

                          1: No, they ask for money to provide the transportation service, not the map service.

                          2: No, subway maps are available to people who haven't yet paid to go on a train. Which is a good thing, else it would be rather difficult to plan a journey ahead of time if you've never been on it before.

                          Your psychotic fantasy: people need to pay up front for a service they may or may not need in order to access the information they need to know if they need the service.

                          The real world: MTA makes the map available free of charge here: https://new.mta.info/maps/subway/lines

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Samuel Abram (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 4:42pm

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            Exactly. I, a life-long 37-year-old New Yorker, am laughing at TP. I thought the Finnish public education system was the best in the world! What happened?

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • identicon
                              Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 4:49pm

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              My guess is the copyright trolls dropped a sleeper cell and bred an experimental family where Meshpage is the result...

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              PaulT (profile), 21 Jan 2020 @ 12:48am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              Now, now it's hardly fair to criticise one country's entire education system based on one nutter's inability to cope with reality.

                              As a side note, I was going to make a comment about maybe Finland not having the kind of Metro system we're talking about, but apparently Helsinki has a pretty expansive set of options. Old tp would love it, they have lots of free maps! https://www.hsl.fi/en/timetables-and-routes/routemaps

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:21am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              "I, a life-long 37-year-old New Yorker, am laughing at TP. I thought the Finnish public education system was the best in the world! What happened?"

                              There's always that one guy...

                              It's regrettable but the only thing the finnish education system can do is to ensure that there's exactly ONE ignorant village idiot around where in less fortunate circumstances there might have been a hundred.

                              The fact that Mr. Tero "broken logic" Pulkkinnen fails to realize that according to his own logic the one who owns the copyright the OP is about would be the taxpayers who paid for it to be created.

                              That, in the end, is what copyright adherents turn into. Cultists who ignore their own logic in favor of the faith-based assumption that surely, no produced information could be public property.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • identicon
                    Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:07am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    Let's also not forget the fact that this asshole has spent the Disney+ article arguing that his Mess-page mandates the government to allot him plans for an actual mansion, because copyright means competition and that's somehow a good thing.

                    But one lawyer makes his own version of how to get around a subway network and Tero the fucknugget loses his shit because now the official subway maps have some competition.

                    Like... did Monique Wadsted have an illict child who was dropped multiple times on the head?

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      tp (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:25am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      because now the official subway maps have some competition.

                      This isnt proper competition when they forgot to pay the people who did the actual work.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        PaulT (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:41am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        'This isnt proper competition when they forgot to pay the people who did the actual work."

                        There should be no competition regarding publicly available information about a public transportation system.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:51am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        "This isnt proper competition when they forgot to pay the people who did the actual work."

                        You mean the public transportation system paid for with tax money where every last person was paid, in the end, by the public?

                        You are trying to argue that the people who paid for the work shouldn't own the work, because some smart-aleck lawyer decided to file ownership of the IP first.

                        I'm not sure what's worse. Your obvious blindness in how you see fit to leverage the already suspicious construct of copyright or the fact that you then want to layer outright fraud on top of it, just so it can, in the end, benefit someone other than the public domain which paid for it.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          tp (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:22am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear

                          public transportation system paid for with tax money

                          you should complain to your fafourite politician, if you think your tax money is going to wrong address.

                          this tax money no way allows you to skip your subway payments.

                          if you wanr government to buy you subway tickets, they need to allocate few million a year to remove the payment requirement. but they never decided to do that so far even though large number of people have the same problem.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • identicon
                            Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2020 @ 3:59am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            So according to you subway tickets don't actually pay for the maintenance and running of subway trains, tunnels, stations and infrastructure... they pay for the maps?

                            I know Scandinavia has some pretty decent welfare and socialism in place but even a kindergartener knows that your description is clearly not how it works...

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:26am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            "this tax money no way allows you to skip your subway payments. "

                            So your answer is to conflate a service agreement with what has been built by using government money?

                            "if you wanr government to buy you subway tickets, they need to allocate few million a year to remove the payment requirement."

                            No one talked about subway tickets except the deeply dishonest copyright cultist trying to weasel his way out of recognizing that any copyright resulting from a publicly paid-for work is, by your own fucking definitions the IP belonging to the public.

                            Paris wants a word with you about the Eiffel Tower and the argument about WHO owns the copyrights to any photos taken of it.

                            I'm pretty sure your entire logic has gone down the crapper when a pirate has to point out the principle of copyright law to you. I may not agree with it, but you certainly ought to, unless you want to undermine just about every argument you yourself keep making about "ownership" of information.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        bhull242 (profile), 21 Jan 2020 @ 1:55pm

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        Facts aren’t copyrightable. Stuff in the public domain isn’t protected by copyright. You don’t have to pay for that stuff to use it in your own work.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 3:06am

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear

                          Facts aren’t copyrightable.

                          This fact defense is going to fail in copyright lawsuit. The reason is that to use this defense, you need to invoke the following procedure:
                          1) the filteration test for copyrights
                          2) separation of "fact" from copyrightable subject matter
                          3) a proof that you acquired the cloned product through hard work of
                          obtaining the facts instead of simply cloning the copyright owner's material

                          Basically, the step (3) is usually missing, and courts will declare that its more likely that a cloned product was produced, instead of obtaining the facts from the universe. When step (3) is used, the end product has certain signature which distinfuish it from other products on the market.

                          You don’t have to pay for that stuff to use it in your own work.

                          This might not be true if the product is a result of carbon copying the original.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 3:21am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            Again with your weird parallel universe.

                            You: "This fact defense is going to fail in copyright lawsuit"

                            The real world: "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed"

                            https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

                            Wouldn't it be easier on you if you stopped spending so much time and energy inventing a world that nobody else occupies, and just join us in the real one?

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 4:20am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation

                              You have completely misunderstood what this section of the copyright laws are saying. It is not a permission to copy someone elses copyrighted works simply because you consider that work to contain facts.

                              Basically the copyright minimalist view which tries to expand the scope of the permissions -area is not understanding this section properly.

                              The right interpretation is that the section protects only those people who actually obtained their facts without help from other copyrighted works. It does not protect copyright infringers who had no other source material than copyright owner's exclusive material. Basically plaintiff can easily disproof these claims simply by claiming copying of source material.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 4:45am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                "You have completely misunderstood what this section of the copyright laws are saying"

                                I quoted it verbatim from the copyright office's website. What did I miss? Bearing in mind that I have also referred to the longer explanation here: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

                                "It is not a permission to copy someone elses copyrighted works simply because you consider that work to contain facts."

                                No, it's not permission to copy any copyrighted works, since all it's saying that the things you're obsessing about here are NOT copyrighted works.

                                "The right interpretation is that the section protects only those people who actually obtained their facts without help from other copyrighted work"

                                No, that's where you wander off in to your own fantasy land again. The source of the fact is irrelevant to whether or not it is factual. You might wish that someone needs to reinvent all of humanity's knowledge from scratch in order to use it for something new, but that is not what the law actually says, nor is it something that any sane individual would wish for.

                                You, yourself, depend every day on using the work of other people, and your own work is better for it. Perhaps you should realise that.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • icon
                                  tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 5:17am

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  You might wish that someone needs to reinvent all of humanity's knowledge from scratch

                                  google vs oracle with their expensive lawyers are trying to test this "we cloned oracles work but its method of operation" -defense with poor success.

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                  • icon
                                    PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 5:32am

                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                    So, you don't understand what that lawsuit is about either? Got it.

                                    Meanwhile, you still haven't told me why the copyright office's own statement about can be copyrighted is wrong. I wonder why.

                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                    • icon
                                      tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 6:41am

                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                      you still haven't told me why the copyright office's own statement about can be copyrighted is wrong.

                                      you're quoting it out of context and trying to justify your illegal practises

                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                                      • icon
                                        PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 6:49am

                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                        What's the context I'm missing then?

                                        Although, since you decided to lie about me, I won't hold my breath for a straight, honest, factually correct answer.

                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                                        • icon
                                          tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 7:04am

                                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                          What's the context I'm missing then?

                                          how copyrighted works are created. You know, the practise of "inventing some bullsht" and instead of letting it disappear to the wind, you actually write it down for other people to enjoy. And after thats done, you can register it with the copyright office before using it to obtain settlements from alleged pirates.

                                          since you decided to lie about me

                                          You're the one who decided to rely on the section that is only used for justiying illegal practises.

                                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                                          • icon
                                            PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 7:23am

                                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                            "how copyrighted works are created"

                                            ...which has nothing to do with the statement from the copyright office that "facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation" are not copyrighted material.

                                            "And after thats done, you can register it with the copyright office"

                                            Not if it's something that the copyright office has said is not protected by copyright, you can't.

                                            Again, I am thankful that the real world does not operate in the same manner as the dystopian nightmare world that exists in your head. But, your inability to deal with the facts as told to you by the people who uphold copyright law is certainly noted.

                                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                                            • icon
                                              tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 7:42am

                                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                              > "how copyrighted works are created"

                                              ...which has nothing to do with the statement from the copyright office

                                              Well, for actual facts, the requirement for "how the work is created" is that the facts are presented accurately in your book about scandals. And once you aim for accuracy, there will be overlap with another book that collects facts about the same fundamental events. Usually these overlaps are illegal in copyright laws. But if you actually spent time collecting the facts and you independently discover the same piece of information, the copyright office allows that overlap in the works.

                                              Note that "indpendently discover" is still required.

                                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                                              • icon
                                                PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 7:52am

                                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                "Note that "indpendently discover" is still required."

                                                In your strange little head. Not in the real world. If you're publishing a fact about where an MTA station is, it doesn't matter if you got your data from Google Maps, the MTA website, or if you personally flew there. The location itself if not copyrightable.

                                                You can argue this all you want, but as usual the real facts of the matter are not what you wish them to be.

                                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                • icon
                                                  tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:05am

                                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                  it doesn't matter if you got your data from Google Maps, the MTA website, or if you personally flew there.

                                                  Of course it matters. If you just replicate information that other people have collected, the best you can do is "make the quality lower", given that your contribution to the factual contents of the information is none.

                                                  Basically a principle fundamental to copyright laws is that only the original author is allowed to publish the material. The reason for this rule is that the person who actually did collect the information has the best knowledge of the actual situation. Thus his information is more accurate and higher quality than what copycats can ever do.

                                                  When copycats are replicating the information, they often reverse the original meaning of the message, to keep it funny or worse try to cast the original author in bad light, usually because competing authors are jealous of successful author's popularity. Basically the copycats can only reduce the value of the copyrighted work. And this often happens for purposes which are completely against our values.

                                                  Thus copyright laws are controlling the publication by copycats and let the original authors of the information do their jobs without being disturbed.

                                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                  • icon
                                                    PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:23am

                                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                    "If you just replicate information that other people have collected, the best you can do is "make the quality lower", given that your contribution to the factual contents of the information is none"

                                                    Bullshit, of course. The data doesn't lose anything in replication as long as the replication is accurate. You're actually far more likely to make a mistake going to the location with wrongly calibrated equipment or inexperienced surveyors than you are copying the original digital data, which is not copyrightable.

                                                    "Basically a principle fundamental to copyright laws is that only the original author is allowed to publish the material"

                                                    Another principle is that there are a number of exceptions to those laws, which expressly include the things you're desperately trying to pretend are still covered.

                                                    Again, you have some interesting points, they just don't apply to the reality that the rest of us occupy.

                                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                    • icon
                                                      tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:36am

                                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                      You're actually far more likely to make a mistake going to the location with wrongly calibrated equipment or inexperienced surveyors

                                                      Why are you publishing anything at all, if all you can do with the equipment is false or misleading data?

                                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                      • icon
                                                        PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:50am

                                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                        "Why are you publishing anything at all, if all you can do with the equipment is false or misleading data?'

                                                        Thanks to the fact that far more professional and experienced people in that field have already published the data in a form that's not copyrightable, I'm not. You're trying to demand it, but the real world is happy with people using publicly available data that's already been verified.

                                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                        • icon
                                                          tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:58am

                                                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                          data that's already been verified.

                                                          1) data was veriied
                                                          2) trolls made it funny and insulting
                                                          3) someone decided to add humor by breaking things
                                                          4) data was still interesting, but maybe we can market our software with it
                                                          5) children wanted more smurf appearance
                                                          6) star wars is popular, so why not use it to drive trafic
                                                          7) can it actually blend?

                                                          What do you think is left with the quality of the original data after this pattern?

                                                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                          • identicon
                                                            Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 5:03pm

                                                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                            You chose to market your trash software based on troll data, not what kids want. On top of your rubbish site presentation. No shit Sherlock your garbage isn't going to do well.

                                                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                          • icon
                                                            PaulT (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 12:50am

                                                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                            "What do you think is left with the quality of the original data after this pattern?"

                                                            The original data is not affected in the slightest. If, however, you're using Star Wars memes to get your factual data, that's an issue you need to deal with yourself.

                                                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                            • icon
                                                              tp (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 11:59am

                                                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                              If, however, you're using Star Wars memes to get your factual data,

                                                              there's two million copies of star wars memes on the internet, but only 2 copies of the factual data. What version you think is easier to find?

                                                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                              • icon
                                                                PaulT (profile), 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:47am

                                                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                                The version at the primary source, or a reputable site that compiles such facts.

                                                                Again, this is only a problem if you're the sort of person who gets their facts from memes rather than real sources. Even then, the biggest issue is when the memes do not convey the facts. Memes that help spread real data are not a problem at all.

                                                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                                • icon
                                                                  bhull242 (profile), 26 Jan 2020 @ 9:39pm

                                                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                                  Of course, this is all ultimately irrelevant because that isn’t the sort of thing copyright is meant to protect against in the first place: integrity of original data.

                                                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                  • identicon
                                                    Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 8:30am

                                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                    If you had your way, you could not afford to defend your the originality of your own software in court because the cost of keeping the necessary records, and hiring the lawyers to present that information in court would bankrupt you,.

                                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            bhull242 (profile), 26 Jan 2020 @ 9:35pm

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            While I can’t recall the name of the case offhand, there was one time that one company sued another for copyright infringement because the latter copied—verbatim—every phone number in the former’s phone book and put them—unchanged—in their own phone book that they offered for sale. As proof that the copying was verbatim, the former had snuck in some fake phone numbers, all of which were in the copy. The court ruled that the phone numbers were facts, meaning they weren’t copyrightable, and as such there was no copyright infringement whatsoever here.

                            So no, the fact defense will not fail in a copyright lawsuit. Even if direct copying is found to have occurred, if the only things copied are facts, then it’s not copyright infringement under US law. Period. Under US law, there is absolutely no requirement that a defendant in a copyright case must have obtained the facts through their own hard work rather than through copying the plaintiff’s material. When it comes to use of uncopyrightable material, evidence of direct copying is completely irrelevant. If it’s not copyrightable to begin with, then it can’t receive any copyright protection at all. That’s the whole point of separating copyrightable material and uncopyrightable material.

                            Step (3) is also wrong because, in actuality, it is the plaintiff’s burden to show that the defendant actually copied the material. The defendant could then present evidence to rebut the plaintiff’s evidence of copying, but unless the plaintiff provides evidence of actual copying, the defendant doesn’t have to provide evidence that they didn’t do so.

                            So yeah, you’re completely wrong about that.

                            And while, yes, if other stuff is copied that is not fact (e.g. the cover), it may be copyright infringement, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. There are a lot of differences between the two maps that I think would show that any copyrightable elements to the map weren’t copied. It’s all just facts and scenes a faire as far as I can tell.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              tp (profile), 27 Jan 2020 @ 1:25pm

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              there is absolutely no requirement that a defendant in a copyright case must have obtained the facts through their own hard work rather than through copying the plaintiff’s material.

                              Our position is that the fundamental stuff that copyright protects is not the medium where information is fixed, but instead the effort that produced it. I.e. there's always the following pattern:
                              1) money
                              2) effort / work
                              3) end result / copyrighted work
                              4) marketing activities / spreading the product to customers

                              To be able to market a product, you must first create the product.
                              To produce copyrighted work, you need to spend some effort to decide the sequence of letters that forms the copyrighted work. To allow that effort to happen, you need to spend money to buy salaries etc for the work.

                              This whole process is what copyright is protecting, not just the letters in your book.When you use filter test to filter out facts from the product, it only
                              looks the area of the process where the work is fixed to the medium. But to understand copyright properly, you must also look at the following areas:
                              a) how is cloned product offered to public?
                              b) how was cloned product made popular?
                              c) what does customers of cloned product think about the material they receive?
                              d) how is copies being made, and what is the original source material?
                              e) how was the letters being copied chosen originally? Who is the original author?
                              f) how much effort was spent on each of the activities?
                              g) how much money was spent on commissioning of the effort?
                              h) how much of the original market opportunity the cloned product is substituting?
                              i) how much extra benefit copycats received by copying the work?
                              j) how much actual damage there is to the original author?
                              k) what is the financial status of each of the players?
                              l) what money transfers are going to fix the caused damage?
                              m) what injuctions need to be entered to prevent this from happening again?
                              n) how will lawyers for each side get paid?

                              So the inquiry related to whether the material is "facts" or other non-protected works is far from sufficient area to look at.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                bhull242 (profile), 27 Jan 2020 @ 2:04pm

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                Your “position” is irrelevant to what the law actually covers.

                                Copyright covers creative expression and only creative expression. It does not protect the effort to create nor the ideas expressed, only the expression itself.

                                Money spent, money gained, effort spent, time spent, popularity, and financial status play no role in determining whether something is infringing or not, and market substitution is only a factor when doing a “fair use” analysis. If something isn’t copyrightable to begin with, it cannot receive any benefits from copyright at all. Other than market substitution (which applies when analyzing possible fair use), each of the inquiries you mentioned only possibly apply to whether a license was breached, determining whether copying occurred at all, determining whether infringement is willful, or when calculating damages from copyright infringement. They don’t answer whether an unlicensed and unauthorized use is copyright infringement given that actual copying occurred.

                                The doctrine you’re referring to, known as the “sweat of the brow” doctrine, as well as the other ideas you mentioned, were expressly ruled against by the Supreme Court in Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co.. I mentioned it in the previous comment, and it expressly ruled that facts—even false facts—are completely uncopyrightable, and that even if direct copying is proven to have occurred, no copyright infringement has occurred if only noncopyrightable material was copied. It clearly overturned this idea that copyright protects the products of “the sweat of the brow”.

                                In other words, “the inquiry related to whether the material is "facts" or other non-protected works” is sufficient if the answer to the inquiry is that only facts or other unprotected or unproctectable material is copied. You’re 100% wrong on this.

                                Do you have any citations to evidence that prove your interpretation of copyright is true and correct under US law?

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • icon
                                  tp (profile), 27 Jan 2020 @ 2:47pm

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  I mentioned it in the previous comment, and it expressly ruled that facts—even false facts—are completely uncopyrightable,

                                  But phone book entries are special in the following way:
                                  1) the only way to obtain them are from the original directory, given that
                                  all other ways of obtaining them will result in different numbers which
                                  defeats the usefulness of the phone book -- the connection switching board
                                  decides the number that each phone follows, and other choices are not
                                  allowed
                                  2) owners of the phone switching board is in position of monopoly, if copyright
                                  was extended to the "facts" that they have arbitrarily chosen
                                  3) This is similar to choosing the wire configuration of enigma machine in world war II
                                  4) thus "facts" in a phone book are special kinds of facts and the results obtained from phone book examples cannot be extended to all facts

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                  • icon
                                    bhull242 (profile), 27 Jan 2020 @ 6:16pm

                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                    If you read the article I linked, you’d know that the Supreme Court did not rule so narrowly. There is no exception for “special kinds of facts”. Every fact is completely unprotected by copyright. I gave you a link; read it. It even discusses the impact the case had after the fact. It expressly overrules the “sweat of the brow” doctrine. It doesn’t merely say that the doctrine doesn’t apply under these circumstances; it doesn’t apply to copyright at all.

                                    Again, show me a citation that rules otherwise.

                                    Also, by definition, a copyright is a monopoly.

                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                    • icon
                                      tp (profile), 27 Jan 2020 @ 9:31pm

                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                      the Supreme Court did not rule so narrowly.

                                      You have to understand that supreme court have to rule about legal limits. But when these rules are implemented in practice, narrowly going above the legal limits simply isn't acceptable. Its like failing your classes in school, if you have
                                      trouble fulfilling the legal limitations. Proper implementation will be clearly in the legal side, using practices where there isn't significant doubt if they are allowed or not.

                                      This is why copyright maximalist approach is significantly better. When the activity is clearly in the legal side, without going near illegal areas, the activity will have certain kind of consistency and it doesn't immediately fall into illegal area every time they change the legal borders when abuses of existing rules are found.

                                      Innovation that is based only on stretching the legal borders isn't proper technology development. The advances need to come from technological inventions, not from stretching the legal areas. This is why video/movie technology is bad for innovative technology companies -- that technology is already mature and does not require new innovative solutions -- and copyright laws are controlling movie technology stronger than it would do for completely new tech which is just starting to get popular.

                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                                      • icon
                                        bhull242 (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 5:21am

                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                        Look, we aren’t talking about what you think companies or tech should do re:copyright or what you think copyright law should be. We are talking about what the law actually is.

                                        Also, this isn’t “narrowly going over the legal limit”. This is pretty clearly not copyright infringement. This isn’t a close call.

                                        As for the movie technology, what the actual f&$k does that have to do with anything we’re talking about? This is an image of a map we’re dealing with, not an animation or something.

                                        Seriously, I think you’re talking about something completely different from what I’m talking about.

                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                                        • icon
                                          tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 5:28am

                                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                          This isn’t a close call.

                                          It is, if you have to use all kinds of exceptions to the main rules, or things like fair use.

                                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                                          • icon
                                            bhull242 (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 5:50am

                                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                            But this is such a very clear exception. “Falls under an exception” doesn’t equal “close call”.

                                            Look, I’m not arguing about what the law should or should not be or what tech companies should or shouldn’t do. I’m only interested in what the law actually is. Do you have any dispute with my characterization of what copyright law actually protects and doesn’t protect, particularly regarding facts?

                                            To reiterate, I am not asking about your opinion about what you think copyright should or shouldn’t protect or how you think tech companies should innovate. Those are completely separate issues. Before discussing any of that, I want to make sure we’re on the same page about what US copyright law actually covers. Personal opinions and other issues can come later.

                                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                                            • icon
                                              tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 5:57am

                                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                              But this is such a very clear exception. “Falls under an exception” doesn’t equal “close call”.

                                              This reliance of the exceptions means the following process:
                                              1) commit copyright infringement
                                              2) once you get caught ripping off other people works,
                                              you start figuring out these exceptions to try to find reasons
                                              why your copyright infringement was legal after all
                                              3) then when courts disagree with your evaluation, you end up
                                              paying copyright damages 100k per infringement given that it's willful

                                              Basically the whole process around exceptions and fair use is based on fact that you need to first admit committing copyright infringement before your exceptional situations are taken into account. The processi above is completely broken.

                                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                                              • icon
                                                PaulT (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 6:12am

                                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                "The processi above is completely broken."

                                                Yes, you weird reimagined version of the way things work is, as usual, completely broken. We're all thankful yet again that it doesn't exist in the world where the rest of us live.

                                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                • icon
                                                  tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 6:17am

                                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                  you weird reimagined version of the way things work

                                                  This is how it worked for google's fair use defense in oracle vs google:
                                                  1) they admit copying oracles software
                                                  2) they rely on fair use principles
                                                  3) courts are disagreeing with them, 9B damage awards are waiting

                                                  How exactly can you interpret oracle vs google in any other way?

                                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                  • icon
                                                    Toom1275 (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 6:32am

                                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                    How exactly can you interpret oracle vs google in any other way?

                                                    By actually reading the case.

                                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                  • icon
                                                    PaulT (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 6:34am

                                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                    "How exactly can you interpret oracle vs google in any other way?"

                                                    Well, not massively oversimplifying the case and trying to shoehorn what you wish were the legal arguments would be a good start.

                                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                    • icon
                                                      tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 7:15am

                                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                      not massively oversimplifying the case

                                                      but you didn't have alternative theory of how the case was proceeding...

                                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                      • icon
                                                        PaulT (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 7:59am

                                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                        The reality of the case is what it is. I just don't fancy arguing the facts with someone so intent on creating their own reality.

                                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                      • icon
                                                        bhull242 (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 9:31am

                                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                        Well, for one thing, the jury and district court ruled the other way and were then overruled by the CAFC (who really shouldn’t have had jurisdiction over the copyright issue to begin with). (Also, that was the second time this happened. The first time, the district court ruled that the copied material wasn’t copyrightable to begin with and that fair use was a nonissue, which the CAFC overturned and then remanded for the jury to rule on fair use. Originally, Google wasn’t relying on fair use principles.)

                                                        Additionally, the case still hasn’t been resolved. The Supreme Court granted cert to review the case and has yet to issue a ruling. That means that Google could still prevail on this issue.

                                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                                              • icon
                                                bhull242 (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 9:23am

                                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                Uh, no. You admit to copying something. Copying isn’t necessarily copyright infringement. If you admit to copying something that wasn’t copyrightable to begin with, you are not admitting to copyright infringement. When you copy something that isn’t copyrightable, you are not committing copyright infringement.

                                                As for the Oracle case, in addition to the fact that it still hasn’t ended yet and the Supreme Court has yet to rule (and it will at some point), that doesn’t involve whether or not copyright law covers facts like the ones involved in the maps in question, so even if Oracle winds up the victor, that doesn’t contradict anything I said. That is about separation between ideas/methods and expression, which can be foggy. Facts are more clear-cut.

                                                Besides, I told you to focus on the law. Yes, the process is a bit broken, but I’m talking about what the law is. Now, do you dispute my characterization of how facts are treated under copyright law? I want to settle that before discussing anything else.

                                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                • icon
                                                  tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 10:33am

                                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                  Now, do you dispute my characterization of how facts are treated under copyright law?

                                                  it's quite explicit that the facts are not considered part of the copyrightable subject matter.

                                                  But most copyrightable works are hodgepodge of original creative aspects, small amount of facts and there's bunch of other statuses that piece of text can have. The filtration test used to analyze copyrightable subject matter means that there will always be large amount of original creative stuff left after facts have been filtered away from the material.

                                                  So basically the situations where this fact-removal process helps in copyright cases is very limited -- the material needs to have nothing else than stuff that is fact-based, or else copyright still applies to the material and copyright infringement lawsuit can go forward.

                                                  To extract just the facts away from copyrighted work is one alternative, but it is so burdensome operation that almost noone is actually doing it.

                                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                  • identicon
                                                    Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2020 @ 6:17pm

                                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                    Translation: "I still don't know how copyright law works. Not only that, I give copyright enforcement full license to do whatever they want, sue whoever they want, even if it's incorrect, but the government still owes me a mansion because my code MUST be in one of their Nokia cellphones from the late 90s."

                                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                                    • icon
                                                      nasch (profile), 29 Jan 2020 @ 6:37pm

                                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                                      "I still don't know how copyright law works, and I refuse to be taught."

                                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                PaulT (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 12:59am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                "Our position..."

                                You keep saying "our", but not only does nobody here seem to agree with you about anything you claim, but what you say also goes against documented law and legal precedent.

                                Who are the "we" you keep referring to? Actual experts in the field, or voices in your head?

                                "...is that the fundamental stuff that copyright protects is not the medium where information is fixed, but instead the effort that produced it."

                                Well, then your position is fundamentally opposed to both the actual stated intent of copyright and
                                basic logic. By your standard, if I take 10 years to create a broken, badly designed bit of software, it's automatically worth more than a better version of the same idea that someone else managed to knock out in a month.

                                I can see why you would prefer a market where you get paid hourly rather than for the commercial viability of your end product, but that's not what copyright is for.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • icon
                                  tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 5:51am

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  By your standard, if I take 10 years to create a broken, badly designed bit of software, it's automatically worth more than a better version of the same idea that someone else managed to knock out in a month.

                                  blender wasn't "knocked out in a month".

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                  • icon
                                    PaulT (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 6:11am

                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                    "blender wasn't "knocked out in a month"."

                                    Hmmm... I didn't mentioned Blender in this thread. Are you bitter about them being credited for making Oscar-nominated work possible, perhaps.

                                    Anyway, the titles that come to mind are irrelevant. The point is, nobody owes you money just because you made something, no matter how long you worked on it. Some of the greatest works ever made in any field were rushed out in days or weeks. Some of the biggest flops took years and massive amounts of money. That's the marketplace. If you want guaranteed income based on how long you spent doing it, find an employer willing to sign that contract with you.

                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                    • icon
                                      tp (profile), 28 Jan 2020 @ 7:55am

                                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                      Some of the biggest flops took years and massive amounts of money.

                                      That kind of failure isn't possible in my project because there's only one person doing it, so making it eat massive amounts of money isn't actually possible. I simply cannot eat that many luxury steaks during the development time.

                                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                                      • identicon
                                        Anonymous Coward, 30 Jan 2020 @ 9:52pm

                                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                        Imma stop here and let you shoot yourself in the foot, again, with your own quote here:

                                        "I have nothing good to say about small teams."

                                        Thanks for confirming that there's only one person "doing it" in your project, and that there's nothing good to say about your own project, in your own words.

                                        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Samuel Abram (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 4:40pm

          Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

          I think the bigger issue is: if the cloned maps become popular, who should get the money?
          1) the subway company who spent millions marketing their subways[…]

          Hi, Life-long new-yorker here. Unless you're talking about the restaurant franchise, you don't need "marketing" for the subway. In fact, the very fact that the subway gets you around the city at a rapid pace means people want to ride it. I like being on the subway and playing with my Nintendo Switch or using my smartphone.

          Besides, the subway is a public service, not a private company. As with the public domain, it's owned by the us, the people, or rather, the citizens of New York State. It's not a private commercial train.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          bhull242 (profile), 21 Jan 2020 @ 1:46pm

          Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issues

          A rip-off of something isn’t necessarily infringing on copyright.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            PaulT (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:40am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property issue

            Remember, our friend here lives in a fantasy world where things like fair use and public domain don't exist. He struggles with some of the fundamental concepts that make life bearable for ordinary people.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              Toom1275 (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 10:51am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property i

              Like 102(b) and merger.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 11:12am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual property i

              fundamental concepts that make life bearable for ordinary people.

              why would following copyright make life unbearable? both authors and legal eagles need to follow alot stricter rules and still they're not complaining like spoiled children....

              link to this | view in chronology ]

              • identicon
                Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 11:28am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual proper

                why would following copyright make life unbearable?

                Human culture is built on, and depends on humans copying and sharing stories and knowledge. your version of copyright in particular stops the sharing, and require everyone to start from scratch again.

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • icon
                  tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 11:33am

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual pr

                  your version of copyright in particular stops the sharing,

                  Your version of copyright has no sections for "promote the progress and useful arts", so it's no better.

                  I expect humans to do actual work to give society some progress.

                  Your version somehow stops the progress and let lazy people to just use whatever was invented in 1970s...

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • identicon
                    Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 11:49am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    Promote the progress, as the giants of human progress have always said, relies on being able to use and build on the work of others.

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:03pm

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      relies on being able to use and build on the work of others.

                      This isn't true.

                      It's significantly more complicated.

                      Basically it's in two parts:
                      1) legal framework which gives stuff companies can rely on
                      2) and progress bits, where new ideas are being explored and tested
                      Progress in general is unstable, in such way that the ideas being tried are not
                      proven to work correctly. Thus copyright needs a stable base from where to expand to new areas, and then unstable area where to explore new ideas.

                      It does not require sharing. Instead the solution space has stable areas and unstable areas.

                      For example, when I'm writing software, I try to build stable area from something that is inherently unstable. That happens by writing software source code that has no bugs or errors, i.e. perfect implementation code.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • identicon
                        Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:18pm

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        How can a so called programmer not identify the huge debt they owe the pioneers and leaders of software development.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                        • icon
                          tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:27pm

                          Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear

                          programmer not identify the huge debt they owe the pioneers

                          copyright never prevents this stuff for the following reasons:
                          1) stable base never needs to be distributed to users, i.e. no copying is required, because it is already available in the operating systems etc
                          2) unstable progress stuff you anyway need to write yourself, because it needs to be (by definition) different from all existing solutions

                          i.e. this stuff has no copyright problems.

                          link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • identicon
                            Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:52pm

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            1) stable base never needs to be distributed to users, i.e. no copying is required, because it is already available in the operating systems etc

                            Does not apply to all libraries, and while with Linux you can mainly get them from the distributions repos, some are distributed with programs. With flatpacks and snaps most required libraries are distributed with the program. With Windows, if a library (or DLL or driver), is not included in windows, it should be distributed with the programs that use it.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              tp (profile), 22 Jan 2020 @ 12:56pm

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              Does not apply to all libraries, and while with Linux you can mainly get them from the distributions repos, some are distributed with programs.

                              middleware components are obviously the biggest problem, because your program has tight dependencies to them. But for those, you just need to get licenses to the dependencies. There is never situation where you need to use middleware without first obtaining valid licenses.

                              The whole problem that "copyright is evil" is fixed by obtaining licenses to the middleware components that you use.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • identicon
                                Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2020 @ 5:02pm

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                Your definition of "middleware components" include things like "open brackets", "close brackets". Hell, you'd copyright the whole English language given the chance because you butcher it so much.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                          • icon
                            Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:32am

                            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has c

                            "1) stable base never needs to be distributed to users, i.e. no copying is required, because it is already available in the operating systems etc"

                            So you aren't a programmer at all. Got it. Or you'd know better.

                            You are making a copy every time you turn on your computer, of libraries and codes which have been invented and held by thousands of copyright "holders". If your argument held up at all then you couldn't switch on a computer without infringing copyright in thousands of ways.

                            "2) unstable progress stuff you anyway need to write yourself, because it needs to be (by definition) different from all existing solutions"

                            So what you are saying is that you need to reinvent math - in a different way - before you sit down to code.
                            In other words, even a machine as complex as an abacus means you need to pay a dozen people and estates off.

                            This is why we all accept that you live in a fantasy land. Your arguments are so nonsensical even copyright law can't fit them in.

                            link to this | view in chronology ]

                            • icon
                              tp (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 11:46am

                              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map h

                              So what you are saying is that you need to reinvent math - in a different way - before you sit down to code.

                              this is why people need to sit down in school half of their life before they can actually do the useful operation of writing the code. Whole that time is spent trying to build their own version/reinvention of math. Everyone who can use math, have spent the time to actually learn their own version of math, and usually they still only have small number of useful math rules that they follow to get the calculation tasks done. Reinvention is the core/root activity that allows humans to do calculation. No two persons have exactly the same math available, even if they read the same books.

                              Reinventing the technology is what humans need to do to be able to actually build and maintain new technology.

                              link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • identicon
                                Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2020 @ 11:57am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                Reinventing the technology is what humans need to do to be able to actually build and maintain new technology.

                                So where are the languages, operating systems, and other software written by you to underpin Meshpages.

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                                • icon
                                  tp (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 7:42pm

                                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subw

                                  so where are the languages, operating systems, and other software written by you

                                  This script file that forms the basis of meshpage is-a language:
                                  MT I115=ev.materials_api.def(ev);
                                  MT I116=ev.materials_api.phong(ev,I115,-0.3,0.3,-1.0,ffff8800,ff666666,5.0);
                                  ML I117=ev.materials_api.bind_inst_matrix(I2,I114,I116);
                                  MN I118=ev.move_api.empty();
                                  MN I119=ev.move_api.scale2(I118,0.5,0.5,0.5);
                                  MN I120=ev.move_api.rotate(I119,0,10000,0,0,0,0,1,0,200);
                                  MN I121=ev.move_api.rotate(I120,0,10000,0,0,0,1,0,0,-120);
                                  ML I122=ev.move_api.move_ml(ev,I117,I121,1,10.0);
                                  RUN I123=ev.blocker_api.game_window2(ev,I122,false,false,0.0,100000.0);

                                  Now the operating system is obviously the code behind these function calls.

                                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                                  • icon
                                    PaulT (profile), 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:40am

                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                    "Now the operating system is obviously the code behind these function calls."

                                    No, the operating system is Windows, since you require that for your crapware to run.

                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                                  • identicon
                                    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:44am

                                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

                                    In other words you have built you program on the works of others, and with your desire that money flow towards the copyright holders, if you had any income most of it should flow towards those others.

                                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                              • icon
                                PaulT (profile), 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:34am

                                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway m

                                "Everyone who can use math, have spent the time to actually learn their own version of math"

                                My only takeaway from this is that it's actually a miracle that you managed to write code that's in any way compatible with the real world maths that the processors use. That god you use compiled languages like C++ rather than trying to write assembly, I guess?

                                link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • icon
                    PaulT (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 12:57am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    "Your version of copyright has no sections for "promote the progress and useful arts""

                    Apart from the text of the document it's based on?

                    "Your version somehow stops the progress and let lazy people to just use whatever was invented in 1970s"

                    Like the mouse driven GUI, TCP/IP, ethernet, UNIX, the TFT LCD display, C++, SDL, and all the other stuff your shitshow of a website and app depends on, among many other inventions?

                    When are you going to pay Tim Berners-Lee for allowing your site to exist?

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:38am

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      "When are you going to pay Tim Berners-Lee for allowing your site to exist?"

                      He won't, because in Tero "Broken Logic" Pulkkinnens little fantasy land the "computer" and the "backbone network" are magical tubes where unicorn-mounted gnomes carry the enchanted orbs called "data packets" so he doesn't have to face the fact that according to his own logic, the real world would have him living in a cave because not even electricity or common housing would be possible without him paying ten thousand people for the use of their work.

                      Let alone a computer, a hundred types of hardware/firmware drivers, the libraries turning his typing into recognizable words, and the protocols which allow his words to be uploaded to a website or forum.

                      It takes a very special kind of derangement for a person to be able to sit and tell people that, according to his own logic, he needs to pay a thousand people every time he uses the medium he keeps posting that "logic" on in his replies.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        PaulT (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 2:05am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        "He won't"

                        Well, obviously. I just like poking to find the knots he'll tie himself into trying to explain why his code doesn't require those payments but everybody else's should.

                        He hates to admit it, but for us to even have this conversation he needs to freeload off the work of thousands of people who came before him, and his own work depends on the work of many more than that.

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

                    • icon
                      tp (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 1:06pm

                      Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intelle

                      When are you going to pay Tim Berners-Lee

                      the whole system depends on the act that every layer pays the people who are in the next layer. Tim seems to be on a layer of his own, too far away that we expect that none of our money reaches his mansion. But we let jimmy wales to handle that part for us. Jimmy keeps sending nice letters to us, every time he is begging for more money.

                      link to this | view in chronology ]

                      • icon
                        PaulT (profile), 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:44am

                        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear int

                        This is what I love about you. The layers to your delusions are never ending.

                        So, just to recap - you think that because a single non-profit organisation regularly requests donations, in order for the site you access for free to keep running, you are absolved of any responsibility to pay the people who create the underlying technology - tech that you happily reuse without payment yourself. But, people owe you money because the shit you built on top of that tech simply exists?

                        link to this | view in chronology ]

              • icon
                PaulT (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 12:51am

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual proper

                "why would following copyright make life unbearable?"

                Because the version of copyright you're obsessed with does not allow normal human behaviour.

                link to this | view in chronology ]

                • icon
                  tp (profile), 23 Jan 2020 @ 3:10pm

                  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectual pr

                  Because the version of copyright you're obsessed with does not allow normal human behaviour.

                  My version of copyright takes humans out of the equation completely. Basically it works in such way that computers are the defining unit, and (other) humans should not exist at all. Social media companies made huge mistake when they inserted these (other) humans inside our computers. Our version of copyright assumes that humans are working alone in an universe that is against them,

                  Copyright's role in this system is to control the money flow coming from technology users towards the bank account of the technology developers. Basically it tries to enforce one-to-one mapping between user of a technology and small amount of money travelling towards developer's bank account. Copyright infringements obviously break this one-to-one mapping and make it many-to-one mapping which breaks the compensation part of the developers.

                  link to this | view in chronology ]

                  • icon
                    PaulT (profile), 24 Jan 2020 @ 12:49am

                    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: subway map has clear intellectua

                    "My version of copyright takes humans out of the equation completely"

                    No, it really doesn't. Unless you're removing human being from both the consumption and creation of the original works, you're doing no such thing.

                    "Our version of copyright assumes that humans are working alone in an universe that is against them"

                    ...and again, we're all glad that the existential horror of the world you've created for yourself does not apply to sane people.

                    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2020 @ 5:57pm

    Remember when Hamilton used to be able to pretend he was important, pontificating about emailand defamation rights? Fuck me, but how the mighty have fallen. He's reduced to bitching about a subway map.

    Because the universe needed another reminder of how pointless this sumbitch is...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2020 @ 11:29am

      Re:

      I've studied his comments for several years. Even a hostile argument with everyone at techdirt is better than sitting back in that musty fat comfy chair in his mother's basement playing space invaders alone.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 20 Jan 2020 @ 2:53am

        Re: Re:

        "I've studied his comments for several years. Even a hostile argument with everyone at techdirt is better than sitting back in that musty fat comfy chair in his mother's basement playing space invaders alone."

        Well, he needed something to do after Torrentfreak banned the anonymous from posting which put paid to all his sock puppets there.

        You can tell from his tone today that he's still processing his outrage over that.

        link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.