Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the virtual-gathering dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side comes from That One Guy in response to FOSTA supporters making an unsurprising pivot to killing off pornography:

Fetch me my fainting couch!

You know what would make finding actual exploitation a hell of a lot easier, as shown post-FOSTA? Not lumping any and all sexual content into the same bucket and making it so platforms have a very strong incentive to not see anything lest they be hit with massive fines, driving sexual content off of sites that are willing and eager to help law enforcement find actual victims and instead having that sort of content on sites that don't give a damn and/or are incentivized to look the other way.

There's some dark hypocrisy to be found in the fact that those decrying the victimization of a group of people are themselves using those victims as nothing more than props for their own ends, all because some people just can't stand the idea that naked bodies and sex exists.

In second place, it's Jeremy Lyman with thoughts on why the pandemic has led to a huge uptick in cord cutting:

You Only Need One Channel™

Nothing like being home 24/7 to make you realize that having 300 channels just means that you're paying for 300 things you don't want to watch.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a pair of comments about the Copyright Office. First up, it's MathFox pushing back on one commenter's suggestion that its staffers are being bribed, since the truth is likely far simpler:

I don't think the grunt-workers are bribed. They self-select (why else apply to the copyright office) and are keep hearing all that stories why copyright is good and their work protecting and expanding it is important. An institutional echo-chamber. And if you provide a report-writing team with data that supports a specific message it's easy to get the message in the report; especially when the writing team beliefs in the message too.

It could be that some in management pulled some strings when selecting the team and selecting the data infuenced by "external incentives" like personal friendships, previous or future employers or other lobbying.

Next, it's Anonymous Anonymous Coward talking about the office's attack on libraries:

Pay me, pay me, pay me

Yet another example of the Copyright Office being co-opted by the 'everything must be owned, and by owned we mean controlled and monetized on a per use basis' crowd (read one chapter tonight, another payment is due tomorrow for the next chapter).

This push for control is just another step on their way to a one way Internet where they 'control' all the content and want payment for even 'thinking' about their IP. You cannot create because we are the creators (by which we mean we control the creators ability to get their works out there) and we control all original thought. Culture, ha! It ain't culture unless we say it is and have proper income even if you are just singing to yourself in the shower.

The open Internet scares the hell out of them. Give them an inch and they will take ten miles. Now, how do we get the also co-opted congresscritters to see things from our side, rather than theirs.

Over on the funny side, both of the winners come in response to the aforementioned uptick in cord cutting, and anonymous first place comment comes in response to Jeremy Lyman's winning insightful comment:

Or, if you're lucky, 299.

In second place, it's justok questioning our post title that described it as "the worst quarter ever" for cord-cutting:

Error in title

Should be: Covid-19 Just Triggered The Best Quarter Ever For Cable TV 'Cord Cutting'

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with Bloof and a reaction to the spate of op-eds claiming the internet only works because of the death of net neutrality:

I for one refuse to believe that Sam C. Cot of the WSJ is merely a PR shill for big telecom conglomerates! He's as trustworthy and neutral as NYT opinion writer Adam T. Telegraphson!

Finally, we've got Crafty Coyote deploying the perennial, practically obligatory, but still very apt response to copyright overreach (although that was tangential to this particular story):

But without the financial motivation that copyright provides, how will grandmas all over the world be properly motivated to post pictures of their little angels online? It's a 95-year monopoly for 95-year old people

That's all for this week, folks!

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