Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the conversing dept

This week, our first place comment on the insightful side comes from aerinai in response to our post about John Oliver's show about defunding the police:

I was a skeptic...

I won't lie, the first time I heard the phrase I thought "defunding police" was a 'bridge too far' until I actually educated myself on it and learned what the proposals were. I personally don't like the name, I think it is needlessly divisive title, but honestly, the policies behind the name do make sense:

Quit sending a police officer to a person who is suicidal... send a counselor.

Don't send a police officer to take care of a stray dog... send Animal Control.

Dedicate a division to traffic enforcement that is not apart of the police department (remember, not just pulling people over, but wrecks, traffic light outages, blocked intersections, etc)

The list can go on and on and on and on. This would be better for literally everyone... except the police unions which will spin this any which way they can as an 'attack on the police', even if the police would benefit from being pulled in 30 different directions, being overworked, and understaffed.

The police have become polite society's handy man... they do everything and don't do all of it well. Defund the police for their sake as well as ours.

In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone responding to the conversation around police donning Punisher symbols:

Does anyone else see the dark humor in people sincerely asking Disney, of all companies, to file lawsuits and manipulate IP law in its own favor?

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Philosopherott about protests that turn destructive:

shooting into crowds

While the first choice of oppressors, violence is a last resort of the desperate and oppressed.

I believe we all learned what happened when shots were fired into a crowd of protestors in Boston. I believe we called it a massacre and it started this country. Riots; Boston tea party. Change occurs when the oppressed stomach no more and organize.

I applaud those who call for peace, but I commend those willing to fight for it.

Next, it's Samuel Abram with a response to Don Henley's whining about copyright law:

Henley doesn't speak for me

Some background:

I make Chiptunes, or Chipmusic. Before the internet, I took piano lessons and guitar lessons. When I started to make music with LSDJ on the Nintendo Game Boy, I used the lessons I learned in reading music and playing with scales from the aforementioned piano and guitar lessons to create my own music, which you can buy on bandcamp here. I also have my music's performance rights managed by Songtrust, and my collections agency is BMI (I decided not to use ASCAP because they went after Creative Commons which is pro-artist, if anything, so I didn't see ASCAP as representing the actual interests of songwriters). I licensed all my original music with an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons License. I even have a 20% songwriting credit in the Mega Ran song "O.P." (because I created the game-boy-produced outro to that song). My royalty statements from BMI and Songtrust are usually over $2. While I'm not making a profit off of my music, I am making revenue, and I am having fun. I am also dedicating all my original music to the public domain when I die. I have played the Music And Gaming Festival, or MAGFest in 2017. I have also played Pulsewave, which was a monthly chiptune show in NYC. I am friends with all four members of Anamanaguchi, who are currently signed to artist-friendly label Polyvinyl. I am also friends with Jonathan Coulton, who actually lives near where I live, and I answer questions in my career, er, hobby with "WWJD?", or "What Would Joco Do?"

So basically, the internet made me earning money from my own music possible.

Now that that's out of the way, in no way does Don Henley represent me. It reminds me of those times when Krist Novoselic or Bono were claiming to speak for people like me when in fact they are–or were–the top 1% of musicians. I work for a living and make music for fun. While I would like to earn more money on my music, I do not–I repeat, I do NOT want to do so at the expense of ordinary kids and people expressing themselves. That's the part Don Henley misses: he thinks he's going after Google and TikTok and Facebook, but he's really saying "Fuck You!" to the users of the web sites more so than the employees or even the bosses thereof.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Toom1275 quoting one of the all-time greatest famous responses to a legal threat, as a response to Trump's attempt to claim a CNN poll is defamatory:

Dear Ms. Ellis,

Attached is a letter that we received on June 9, 2020. I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.

Very Truly Yours,

D.C. Vigilante"

In second place, it's dfed responding to a different Trump claim — that protests are being hijacked by extremists:

HOLY SHIT! LOOK AT ALL THE HORRIFYING ACTS PERPETUATED BY ANTIFA IN MINNEAPOLIS!!!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of additional responses to Don Henley's comments in the Senate. First, it's an anonymous proposal:

How about we perform a test and make it a federal offence to play ANYTHING AT ALL by Don henley on anything but a 1960s gramophone?

50 years in prison per song.

Also we ban his DVDs, CDs, cassette tapes (they're KILLING music!), posters, adverts etc.

we try this from now upto 70years after Don kicks the bucket and see if it has an effect.

Theoretically his sales should ROCKET!

And finally, it's Code Monkey employing the power of remix:

I think Don's just trying to get down to the heart of the matter. Even if, even if, we don't love him anymore....

(I may owe him like, 3 cents, for that. Who knows....)

That's all for this week, folks!

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