He sues media companies of all sizes—including Condé Nast, Hearst, Time Inc., Univision, Forbes, Barstool Sports, Breitbart News, Business Insider, Inside Edition, Zagat, Rolling Stone, the Daily Beast, the Daily Caller, the Daily Dot, the Daily Voice, the Village Voice, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News
Well, that's not as juicy as Disney being sued for copyright violations, but it doesn't sound too bad. The problem is when innocent individuals, non-profits, universities and the like get targeted, which is plainly stupid.
Oh really, everything changed in NSA land since 2012? So the companies fired all the thousands of employees with links to the federal government, while NSA canceled multi-billion dollar contracts and dismissed tens of thousands of embedded employees? I missed the notices for mass layoffs, I'm happy you were paying attention.
DMCA notices are one thing, but if you're going to launch a lawsuit you might as well sue the actual infringer. It can't be that hard to get their names with a subpoena. The only inconvenience is that you might find you are not suing in the best jurisdiction (particularly if they're outside USA).
As Krugman recently noted, when every single day under the sun people cry "socialist!" at any proposal which would benefit most people, people start thinking that socialism is good for them.
Ideas from the pre-1914 socialist toolbox are then going to be reconsidered even on the NYT editorials.
Lessig proposed to create a property right to privacy, to sort of counterbalance the power of the "intellectual property" concept, in its 1999 book "Code". In the second edition "Code 2.0", chapter 11, p. 228 or so, he offers a summary of the counterarguments which I think has aged rather well.
Screenscraping and reproducing lyrics from Genius might be a violation of sui generis database right in EU but it's hard to see how Genius can claim any copyright for themselves on such a collection. (I hope they're not claiming that punctuation and other minimal editing generates a new copyright.)
More importantly, however, Genius itself is a serial copyright violator: their pages are full of descriptions copied verbatim from English Wikipedia articles without mentioning the source nor the CC-BY-SA license, let alone the authors, and no link whatsoever.
Can't wait for the copyfraud industries, publishing con artists and tenure protection money racketeers, Elsevier and friends, to be condemned next. Courts seem still too clueless though: https://propertyintangible.com/2019/05/template-5.html
Helpfully, one of them is "to meet a legal obligation under EU or national legislation". As far as the GDPR is concerned. it's always fine to help the state spy its citizens.
The French state is paying for the development of Matrix applications and server-side software, plus the installation and running costs of dozens of Matrix servers, to be connected with various external messaging services. https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/
This is unquestionably a good thing. For once, France is paying for something which goes into the commons and will benefit everyone else (if they want to use it). They forked the existing software (Riot.im etc.) and improved it in ways which can be useful for others too.
Someone inspected the software, reported a bug and got it fixed within hours: I say that was the point entirely! Sure, they could have put out some bug bounties before opening it up for "everyone".
But of course building your own chat servers is not a way to have ultra-secure messaging for the secret service; it's just a harm reduction exercise for the millions of public employees who currently feel "forced" to use WhatsApp or whatever to communicate with citizens, with the result that they are subjected to infinite and unchecked surveillance by private companies.
That's a bad example: there are constant calls for automakers to install such speed limiters. The logic is that if the law already places an upper speed limit of, say, 130 km/h, there is nearly no valid purpose for one to be able to go significantly faster than that.
You could extend the same reasoning to other machines which are allowed in general but which can produce a measurable harm if overused, and for which said overuse is already prohibited. Maybe water pumps for agricultural purposes able to pump much more water than allowed in a basin? But it's very hard to find any internet-related functionality where you could draw a hard ine somewhere.
Indeed, the European Parliament just considered mandating a speed limiter and they instead opted for automatic warnings when the local speed limit is violated:
The intelligent speed assistance (ISA) system could reduce fatalities on EU roads by 20%, according to estimates. “ISA will provide a driver with feedback, based on maps and road sign observation, always when the speed limit is exceeded. We do not introduce a speed limiter, but an intelligent system that will make drivers fully aware when they are speeding. This will not only make all of us safer, but also help drivers to avoid speeding tickets”, Ms Thun said.
Given the most harmful content for millions of citizens and their sanity is the Brexit debate, maybe this proposal hopes to shut down all broadcasting of Brexit news so that the people can finally stick their head under the sand and rest their tiny precious heads.
On the post: Elsevier Says It's Infringing To Link To Sci-Hub; Hypocrite Elsevier Links To Sci-Hub All The Time
Re: Elsevier vs. its authors
The first big wave of copyright notices from Elsevier to its own authors was in 2013
https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2013/12/elsevier-takedown-notices/
https://www.elsevier. com/connect/a-comment-on-takedown-notices
I don't know if someone filed counter-notices.
On the post: Yes, The DNC's Debate Format Sucks, And There's An Easy Fix
There is some impact
These debates are just a way to test which candidates work best on TV. The exposure does seem to have an impact:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/polls-since-the-second-debate-show-kamala-harris-slippi ng/
On the post: European Court Of Justice Rules On Three Big Copyright Cases
Sampling in USA
The status of sampling is bad enough in USA (http://boyle.yupnet.org/chapter-6-got-mashup/ ), but in EU there are no protection whatsoever against such abuse of copyright...
On the post: What Happens When The US Government Tries To Take On The Open Source Community?
Free Software Needs Free Tools
https://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html
QED
On the post: Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz May Have Cost His Client A Ton Of Money, And Set An Expensive Precedent For Copyright Trolls
Enemies of your enemies
From the Slate profile of Liebowitz:
Well, that's not as juicy as Disney being sued for copyright violations, but it doesn't sound too bad. The problem is when innocent individuals, non-profits, universities and the like get targeted, which is plainly stupid.
On the post: Latest Huawei 'Smoking Gun' Still Doesn't Prove Global Blackball Effort's Primary Justification
Re: Still Citing From 2012 Huh?
Oh really, everything changed in NSA land since 2012? So the companies fired all the thousands of employees with links to the federal government, while NSA canceled multi-billion dollar contracts and dismissed tens of thousands of embedded employees? I missed the notices for mass layoffs, I'm happy you were paying attention.
On the post: Very Confused Judge Allows Bizarre Copyright Lawsuit Against Cloudflare To Continue
Re: Cloudflare and Cloudfront DMCA
Do we know how often that works? For reference:
https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028158352-Reporting-abuse-to-Cloudfla re#h_e5d9022d-2b71-49b0-89ed-b92e5aeccb97
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/sub mit-dmca-notice/
DMCA notices are one thing, but if you're going to launch a lawsuit you might as well sue the actual infringer. It can't be that hard to get their names with a subpoena. The only inconvenience is that you might find you are not suing in the best jurisdiction (particularly if they're outside USA).
On the post: Drug Prices Are So Insane That The NY Times Is Recommending The US Gov't Just 'Seize The Patents'
Crying wolf
As Krugman recently noted, when every single day under the sun people cry "socialist!" at any proposal which would benefit most people, people start thinking that socialism is good for them.
Ideas from the pre-1914 socialist toolbox are then going to be reconsidered even on the NYT editorials.
On the post: Thinking Of Privacy As A Property Right Will End Badly
Lessig on privacy as property
Lessig proposed to create a property right to privacy, to sort of counterbalance the power of the "intellectual property" concept, in its 1999 book "Code". In the second edition "Code 2.0", chapter 11, p. 228 or so, he offers a summary of the counterarguments which I think has aged rather well.
On the post: Dumbest 'Gotcha' Story Of The Week: Google, Genius And The Copying Of Licensed Lyrics
Genius own copyright violations
Screenscraping and reproducing lyrics from Genius might be a violation of sui generis database right in EU but it's hard to see how Genius can claim any copyright for themselves on such a collection. (I hope they're not claiming that punctuation and other minimal editing generates a new copyright.)
More importantly, however, Genius itself is a serial copyright violator: their pages are full of descriptions copied verbatim from English Wikipedia articles without mentioning the source nor the CC-BY-SA license, let alone the authors, and no link whatsoever.
On the post: Prenda Mastermind Gets 14 Years In Prison, Told To Pay Back Just $1.5 Million
Next up Elsevier
Can't wait for the copyfraud industries, publishing con artists and tenure protection money racketeers, Elsevier and friends, to be condemned next. Courts seem still too clueless though:
https://propertyintangible.com/2019/05/template-5.html
On the post: Huawei Now Using Patent Claims To Demand $1 Billion From Verizon, As The US Tries To Chase Huawei Out Of The US Market
Copyright is only for Disney, don't you dare use it
Like the time Disney was defending copyright exceptions after being sued? I'm not sure it's over though.
On the post: Activision Shouts 'First Amendment' Over Humvee's Trademark Lawsuit For Call Of Duty Depictions
Re: IP in the view of the first amendment
As some other commenter has noted in the past, there's an entire book on the topic, "No Law" by David Lange. Recommended!
On the post: 1.28 Million US Residents Cut The TV Cord Last Quarter
Community broadband, municipal broadband, local loop unbundling
Do you mean like these? https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=municipal+broadband
On the post: EU Quietly Ramps Up Preparations To Re-introduce Blanket Data Retention After Top Court Threw It Out In 2014
GDPR requirements
Consent by the user is one of 6 legal grounds for legitimate processing of personal data.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisation s/legal-grounds-processing-data/grounds-processing/when-can-personal-data-be-processed_en
Helpfully, one of them is "to meet a legal obligation under EU or national legislation". As far as the GDPR is concerned. it's always fine to help the state spy its citizens.
On the post: The French Govt's Hand-Rolled Encrypted Messaging Service (Briefly) Allowed Anyone To Pretend They Were A Government Official
Free software is the point
The French state is paying for the development of Matrix applications and server-side software, plus the installation and running costs of dozens of Matrix servers, to be connected with various external messaging services.
https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/
This is unquestionably a good thing. For once, France is paying for something which goes into the commons and will benefit everyone else (if they want to use it). They forked the existing software (Riot.im etc.) and improved it in ways which can be useful for others too.
Someone inspected the software, reported a bug and got it fixed within hours: I say that was the point entirely! Sure, they could have put out some bug bounties before opening it up for "everyone".
But of course building your own chat servers is not a way to have ultra-secure messaging for the secret service; it's just a harm reduction exercise for the millions of public employees who currently feel "forced" to use WhatsApp or whatever to communicate with citizens, with the result that they are subjected to infinite and unchecked surveillance by private companies.
On the post: Don't Regulate The Internet Like Every Company Is The Same
Re: Built-in speed limits
That's a bad example: there are constant calls for automakers to install such speed limiters. The logic is that if the law already places an upper speed limit of, say, 130 km/h, there is nearly no valid purpose for one to be able to go significantly faster than that.
You could extend the same reasoning to other machines which are allowed in general but which can produce a measurable harm if overused, and for which said overuse is already prohibited. Maybe water pumps for agricultural purposes able to pump much more water than allowed in a basin? But it's very hard to find any internet-related functionality where you could draw a hard ine somewhere.
Indeed, the European Parliament just considered mandating a speed limiter and they instead opted for automatic warnings when the local speed limit is violated:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190410IPR37528/parliament-approves-eu-rule s-requiring-life-saving-technologies-in-vehicles
Volvo also just announced they'll limit speed to 180 km/h in new cars in the near future.
On the post: European Parliament Moves Forward With 'Terrorist Content' Regulation That Will Lead To Massive Internet Censorship
Re: The war on Terror - just a vehicle for a power grab? By who?
Cui bono
On the post: UK Now Proposes Ridiculous Plan To Fine Internet Companies For Vaguely Defined 'Harmful Content'
Harmful Brexit
"How Brexit is affecting our mental health"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/04/anger-and-frustration-how-brexit-is-af fecting-our-mental-health
Given the most harmful content for millions of citizens and their sanity is the Brexit debate, maybe this proposal hopes to shut down all broadcasting of Brexit news so that the people can finally stick their head under the sand and rest their tiny precious heads.
On the post: Devin Nunes Has Filed A Second Bullshit Defamation Lawsuit Telling You All About A News Article He Doesn't Want You To Read
Re: Terrorist activity in Republican eyes
Are you sure? «Georgia sues Carl Malamud, calls publishing state laws "terrorism"»
https://boingboing.net/2015/07/24/georgia-suing-carl-malamud-ca.html
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