Perhaps we should follow the example of those who promote such software, and start to refer to Computer Cop as follows:
This pedophile spyware app, which the San Diego District Attorney was duped into distributing to loving parents for installation on their children's computers, masquerades as a tool to protect children from predators. In actuality, it transmits keystrokes (including sensitive social media accounts and passwords) in the clear where they could be intercepted by a computer savvy predator and used to gather information or even to "groom" a potential victim.
Of course, such a statement would be blatant fear-mongering. It is absolutely true that a pedophile could intercept the communications, but why should that, of all possible threats, be the one emphasized? One might very well ask the San Diego District Attorney the same question.
Normally, TechDirt articles are fairly strong in science. This article bucks that trend. The key line is "some folks have actually made progress in using water (or saltwater) in an energy-generating system". This is supported by three articles:
(1) An article about using nuclear power to split water, capturing carbon from the air and producing jet fuel. This is in no way an energy-generating system.
(2) A link to a patent on an impossible (and non-functional) machine. Cute perhaps, but not science. Hundreds of patents have been granted for perpetual motion machines (before the patent office instituted a policy against it) and yet another one from 1935 isn't news and it certainly isn't science.
(3) Generating electricity from Graphine. This one is at least SLIGHTLY related, but the power, in this case, comes from pushing the water across the graphine. We already have a method for producing electric power from MOVING water, it's called a turbine and it is used (mostly in dams) to generate significant amounts of electric power throughout the world. This is an advance in materials science, not in energy generation.
Frankly, I am disappointed that the editors at TechDirt allowed this "article" through in this state. I normally expect better of them.
Paragraph 6: "violating the restaurant's "Internet/Blogging" which is an actual thing" should be "violating the restaurant's "Internet/Blogging policy" which is an actual thing"
Final Paragraph: "Triple Play's internet police" should be "Triple Play's internet policy".
Seriously, just record ALL audio and video for the entire time that the uniformed officer is on duty. The chips needed to store this weigh just a few grams. We could save the records for 1 week, with automatic holds on anything that the officer flags as important, as well as in response to any citizen complaint or request. Then there's no pesky button push to distract the officer ... or for the officer to forget.
If you really think it is necessary, a button press to SUPPRESS the recording might be acceptable, for when an officer is using the restroom, intimidating a witness, or engaging in any other action requiring privacy.
Re: Forrest Gump: My mama says that stupid is as stupid does.
> Take the moron, the moron lawyer and the biggest moron of all the drooler judge and deport them to saudi arabia.
You aren't being fair here. The judge doesn't have anything to do with this: lawsuits are filed with the clerk of the court, and it's quite possible a judge hasn't even been ASSIGNED yet; certainly the judge cannot dismiss the case until it comes into court.
I guess you are pointing out that they are doing two things.
(1) they are GIVING YOU PERMISSION to use a certain quote with attribution. Now, that's unlikely to be the particular quote you wanted, but hey, it's a (small) additional right.
People have been sued before for linking to someone. They are effectively promising not to do that (if you happen to use this particular wording in your citation).
(2) They are blocking your ABILITY to copy by intercepting the ctrl-c operation. That's obnoxious. It doesn't remove your rights, just makes it harder to do. I object to this part.
> Item: [...] He had and has the same rights [...] as any news provider does about reports from any other news provider.
Yes, he does. We agree here.
> Item: [...] The website which originally posted the report could arguably have turned around and sued any other party for posting the article in its entirety.
Um... I guess so? I mean, of course anyone can sue for anything, but I suppose they could have won such a case if the article was posted in its entirety without some valid exception such as fair use. But Geigner never intended to exceed the bounds of fair use, and the popup had no impact on his legal rights (except perhaps to expand them). So I don't get what you're saying here.
> Item: The same script could arguably be considered a criminal act under the CFAA - access to computers for unlawful purposes.
I think you mean that getting around the script could be considered a CFAA violation. Good point. I would furious at anyone who suggested such a thing, or who created a popup with the intent of creating a CFAA violation. None of which is a reason to criticize Food Navigator in this instance.
> Item: The same script does not discriminate as to the purpose for copying parts of the article. [...] Sloppy programming
You are totally right here. It would be better for them to have written a script that DID discriminate and only popped up if the copying was, in fact, a copyright violation. But I can't put that down to sloppy programming -- doing so would require the JavaScript programmer to implement a mind-reading subroutine, because part of what makes the copying a violation is Mr. Geigner's intent. Delivering the message on all attempts to copy seems like one reasonable compromise.
Now, I'd rather they just stuck their warning in a footnote. And I'd rather that their wording reminded users that they CAN copy if it's for fair use. Their UI is obnoxious; in fact, I wonder if you would consider a pop-up-on-copy that just told the time of day to ALSO be vomit-worthy. Because objecting to ALL pop-up-on-copy is actually something pretty reasonable in my book.
Seegras writes: > The point about copyright is, of course, it's not a "right to make copies" (or even "right to copy & paste", but a "right to publish".
Now, there are many exceptions when copying a work does not violate copyright. Fair use is once category of exceptions. Downloading from a website (which makes "copies" in the memory on your computer) has been deemed to be another exception (in other words, it doesn't count as a "copy"). But you CAN violate copyright law without publishing something. Making a photocopy of your friend's book so you won't have to go buy one for yourself would normally be a copyright violation.
You seem to quote the line "Have a reasonable right" but this line appears nowhere in my posting, nor in the original article, nor in any comment made other than yours (and now this one).
If you are bringing this up as a new straw-man to argue against, then... well... US copyright law (as well as that of essentially every other country on the globe) gives authors certain LIMITED rights to control how others can use their work. If you are arguing about whether current copyright law is reasonable then I'm just not going to get into that with you. I think current copyright law is reasonable in many ways (protecting against copying, providing exceptions for fair use) and unreasonable in others (like term of copyright and a complete disconnect between legal penalties and economic harm done). But all of that has NOTHING to do with Food Navigator posting a warning on their site.
And your John Stuart Mill quote is also a non sequitur. I said that Mr. Geigner went too far in criticizing Food Navigator. From that you somehow conclude that I have nothing I am willing to fight for? Perhaps I am a crusader for the right to free speech, specializing in the rights of people to post annoying popups on their web sites! As it happens, I actually care a good deal about intellectual property law misuse and abuse.
You know, I actually want to defend the owners of this site (with the pop-up) -- I think you (Timothy Geigner, the author of this Techdirt post) are projecting your feelings of frustration onto them and imagining it says something that it doesn't say.
Let me first acknowledge that they DID use an annoying "pop up window when you attempt to copy". That is annoying, and I wish they wouldn't do it. The charitable interpretation is that they wanted to reach a particular audience: those who were trying to copy something from the article. I still would have preferred that they put it someplace better, like a link on the footer or side of the page. That is where the copyright notice is found on your Techdirt article.
But if we move past the placement to the actual content of the message, I don't think it is as bad as you make it out to be. The actual text says "THIS CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use...". Now, once you finish vomiting, you say that "the message being sent is that such an attempt to copy the text is a violation of copyright on the article". Maybe that's how you perceived it, but the actual message just said that the content was protected by copyright. The message to the side of your Techdirt article says the same thing.
They go on to say "you may use [a certain excerpt and citation]". I actually think they worded this well. If they had said "you may only use [...]" or "you must use [...]" I would have complained just as hard as you did. But with this wording, they are granting you an ADDITIONAL right. You have been granted an indemnity to use that particular quotation regardless of whether a court considers it to be fair use -- that's rather kind of them. It does not dispute your right to quote other bits under fair use.
In short, I think they were annoying and I wish they wouldn't do this, but your characterization of this as extreme ("done vomiting yet?") is over-the-top and unnecessary because they haven't actually said anything to mislead the public.
Actually, it isn't even necessary to wait for the next PTA. I can state with a great deal of confidence that had the principal asked he would have discovered that some parents thought it was a good idea and others thought it was not.
Just taking a poll isn't the way you resolve questions like this -- you need principles. A principle principle for principals should be encouraging students to learn and think on their own.
Just wanted to say, "Thank you" for doing this. I just signed up for "Techdirt Crystal Ball" ($15/year subscription) as a direct result of this choice.
A question about showing links to private material
I have a question for the European court. Your ruling explains that Google must remove links to information under certain circumstances -- such as links to a newspaper article about a bankruptcy from many years ago. Is this a law only for Google, or does it apply to others as well? Does DuckDuckGo need to remove those links? What about the Internet Archive? How about the newspaper themselves... do they need to remove the links to their own articles from their archives? What if I have old paper printouts of the links (or even old newspapers sitting around with the original article)... do those need to be destroyed?
Provocative title, I know. And I am not suggesting that ANYONE take up SWAT'ing -- it is dangerous and can be deadly. But I think it has a perverse benefit for society.
Our police have been becoming highly militarized in recent years -- too much so in my opinion. The number of stories of police bursting in with overwhelming lethal force and applying that force indiscriminately is highly disturbing to me, and I am sure I am not alone. So long as it was only "drug dealers and other scum" who were being impacted, there was little pressure to pull back on such tactics.
But because of SWAT'ing, police now must consider the possibility that the residents of the home or building they are assaulting may, in fact, be completely innocent. That has to impact the way that they execute their raids. It has to reduce the likelihood that they choose to fire tens of shots at someone holding what turns out to be a wallet. And THAT change is good, even while each individual incident of SWAT'ing is terrible.
First Sale dead anyway... ALL movies to cost $16 million!
Oh yes, but this morning the Supreme Court allowed (failed to overturn) a loophole: as long at the movie (or at least the disk) is manufactured outside the USA the right of first sale doesn't apply (at least in the 9th circuit).
For what it's worth, I DID just view this particular presentation, looking for possible misuses. Although I do not know what particular piece of copyrighted material Warner Music may be objecting to, I noticed there was extensive use throughout the presentation of excerpts and snippets from material. One (or more likely several) of these are likely owned by Warner Music. In each and every case, the excerpts were brief (mostly VERY brief -- rapid presentation of supporting material was used as a rhetorical device). And all were used to illustrate a point; arguable as briefly as would be sufficient to illustrate the point he was making. Thus (considering the 4 factors that define free use):
(1) The entire presentation is offered freely on the internet; the purpose of the presentation is to educate people on Dr. Lessig's opinion on this subject (about which is an acknowledged expert). To me, that sounds non-commercial and/or educational.
(2) I don't know the nature of the copyrighted work in question. I expect it is a snippet of a music recording.
(3) The brief snippets are much shorter than the work as a whole.
(4) And few are likely to use this presentation as a way of listening to the music (or viewing the video, if that's what's being objected to) because it is an inconvenient form for that purpose and because only brief excerpts are used. I doubt the distribution of this video will harm sales of the music. For some of the pieces used (especially some of the mix videos) it might *aid* sales by pointing them out to people -- but those are probably not what Warner is talking about anyhow.
So I'd say it is clearly fair use. That's only a personal opinion -- I'm not licensed to practice law.
On the post: San Diego District Attorney Issues Warning About Dangerous Spyware She Purchased & Distributed; But Still Stands By It
How to spin this
Of course, such a statement would be blatant fear-mongering. It is absolutely true that a pedophile could intercept the communications, but why should that, of all possible threats, be the one emphasized? One might very well ask the San Diego District Attorney the same question.
On the post: DailyDirt: Water Doesn't Quite Contain Zero Calories...
Re: Re: I am disappointed
On the post: DailyDirt: Water Doesn't Quite Contain Zero Calories...
I am disappointed
(1) An article about using nuclear power to split water, capturing carbon from the air and producing jet fuel. This is in no way an energy-generating system.
(2) A link to a patent on an impossible (and non-functional) machine. Cute perhaps, but not science. Hundreds of patents have been granted for perpetual motion machines (before the patent office instituted a policy against it) and yet another one from 1935 isn't news and it certainly isn't science.
(3) Generating electricity from Graphine. This one is at least SLIGHTLY related, but the power, in this case, comes from pushing the water across the graphine. We already have a method for producing electric power from MOVING water, it's called a turbine and it is used (mostly in dams) to generate significant amounts of electric power throughout the world. This is an advance in materials science, not in energy generation.
Frankly, I am disappointed that the editors at TechDirt allowed this "article" through in this state. I normally expect better of them.
On the post: You Can't Be Fired For 'Liking' A Colleague Calling Your Bosses 'Assholes' On Facebook
Last Minute Edits:
Paragraph 6: "violating the restaurant's "Internet/Blogging" which is an actual thing" should be "violating the restaurant's "Internet/Blogging policy" which is an actual thing"
Final Paragraph: "Triple Play's internet police" should be "Triple Play's internet policy".
(Then kindly delete this comment!)
On the post: Putting Body Cameras On Cops Won't Fix Misconduct, But It's A Good Start
Button Press Too Hard? Try This One Easy Fix!
If you really think it is necessary, a button press to SUPPRESS the recording might be acceptable, for when an officer is using the restroom, intimidating a witness, or engaging in any other action requiring privacy.
On the post: Man Falls Asleep At MLB Game, Sues MLB For $10 Million For Noticing
Re: Forrest Gump: My mama says that stupid is as stupid does.
You aren't being fair here. The judge doesn't have anything to do with this: lawsuits are filed with the clerk of the court, and it's quite possible a judge hasn't even been ASSIGNED yet; certainly the judge cannot dismiss the case until it comes into court.
Also it's not fair to Saudi Arabia.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
Re: Re: I actually want to defend them
(1) they are GIVING YOU PERMISSION to use a certain quote with attribution. Now, that's unlikely to be the particular quote you wanted, but hey, it's a (small) additional right.
People have been sued before for linking to someone. They are effectively promising not to do that (if you happen to use this particular wording in your citation).
(2) They are blocking your ABILITY to copy by intercepting the ctrl-c operation. That's obnoxious. It doesn't remove your rights, just makes it harder to do. I object to this part.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
Re: Re: I actually want to defend them
> Item: [...] He had and has the same rights [...] as any news provider does about reports from any other news provider.
Yes, he does. We agree here.
> Item: [...] The website which originally posted the report could arguably have turned around and sued any other party for posting the article in its entirety.
Um... I guess so? I mean, of course anyone can sue for anything, but I suppose they could have won such a case if the article was posted in its entirety without some valid exception such as fair use. But Geigner never intended to exceed the bounds of fair use, and the popup had no impact on his legal rights (except perhaps to expand them). So I don't get what you're saying here.
> Item: The same script could arguably be considered a criminal act under the CFAA - access to computers for unlawful purposes.
I think you mean that getting around the script could be considered a CFAA violation. Good point. I would furious at anyone who suggested such a thing, or who created a popup with the intent of creating a CFAA violation. None of which is a reason to criticize Food Navigator in this instance.
> Item: The same script does not discriminate as to the purpose for copying parts of the article. [...] Sloppy programming
You are totally right here. It would be better for them to have written a script that DID discriminate and only popped up if the copying was, in fact, a copyright violation. But I can't put that down to sloppy programming -- doing so would require the JavaScript programmer to implement a mind-reading subroutine, because part of what makes the copying a violation is Mr. Geigner's intent. Delivering the message on all attempts to copy seems like one reasonable compromise.
Now, I'd rather they just stuck their warning in a footnote. And I'd rather that their wording reminded users that they CAN copy if it's for fair use. Their UI is obnoxious; in fact, I wonder if you would consider a pop-up-on-copy that just told the time of day to ALSO be vomit-worthy. Because objecting to ALL pop-up-on-copy is actually something pretty reasonable in my book.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
Re: Wrong ideas
> The point about copyright is, of course, it's not a "right to make copies" (or even "right to copy & paste", but a "right to publish".
Unfortunately, that simply isn't true. See for instance, ยง106 (1) of http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf.
Now, there are many exceptions when copying a work does not violate copyright. Fair use is once category of exceptions. Downloading from a website (which makes "copies" in the memory on your computer) has been deemed to be another exception (in other words, it doesn't count as a "copy"). But you CAN violate copyright law without publishing something. Making a photocopy of your friend's book so you won't have to go buy one for yourself would normally be a copyright violation.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
Re: Re: I actually want to defend them
You seem to quote the line "Have a reasonable right" but this line appears nowhere in my posting, nor in the original article, nor in any comment made other than yours (and now this one).
If you are bringing this up as a new straw-man to argue against, then... well... US copyright law (as well as that of essentially every other country on the globe) gives authors certain LIMITED rights to control how others can use their work. If you are arguing about whether current copyright law is reasonable then I'm just not going to get into that with you. I think current copyright law is reasonable in many ways (protecting against copying, providing exceptions for fair use) and unreasonable in others (like term of copyright and a complete disconnect between legal penalties and economic harm done). But all of that has NOTHING to do with Food Navigator posting a warning on their site.
And your John Stuart Mill quote is also a non sequitur. I said that Mr. Geigner went too far in criticizing Food Navigator. From that you somehow conclude that I have nothing I am willing to fight for? Perhaps I am a crusader for the right to free speech, specializing in the rights of people to post annoying popups on their web sites! As it happens, I actually care a good deal about intellectual property law misuse and abuse.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
I actually want to defend them
Let me first acknowledge that they DID use an annoying "pop up window when you attempt to copy". That is annoying, and I wish they wouldn't do it. The charitable interpretation is that they wanted to reach a particular audience: those who were trying to copy something from the article. I still would have preferred that they put it someplace better, like a link on the footer or side of the page. That is where the copyright notice is found on your Techdirt article.
But if we move past the placement to the actual content of the message, I don't think it is as bad as you make it out to be. The actual text says "THIS CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use...". Now, once you finish vomiting, you say that "the message being sent is that such an attempt to copy the text is a violation of copyright on the article". Maybe that's how you perceived it, but the actual message just said that the content was protected by copyright. The message to the side of your Techdirt article says the same thing.
They go on to say "you may use [a certain excerpt and citation]". I actually think they worded this well. If they had said "you may only use [...]" or "you must use [...]" I would have complained just as hard as you did. But with this wording, they are granting you an ADDITIONAL right. You have been granted an indemnity to use that particular quotation regardless of whether a court considers it to be fair use -- that's rather kind of them. It does not dispute your right to quote other bits under fair use.
In short, I think they were annoying and I wish they wouldn't do this, but your characterization of this as extreme ("done vomiting yet?") is over-the-top and unnecessary because they haven't actually said anything to mislead the public.
On the post: High School Principal Cancels Entire Reading Program To Stop Students From Reading Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother'
Re: Wait...
Just taking a poll isn't the way you resolve questions like this -- you need principles. A principle principle for principals should be encouraging students to learn and think on their own.
On the post: Techdirt Is Now 100% SSL
Thanks
On the post: Germany Considers Setting Up A Special Court To Determine Who Can Demand To Have Embarassing Histories Deleted From Google
A question about showing links to private material
On the post: Hey, Idiots, Stop Swatting People
SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Our police have been becoming highly militarized in recent years -- too much so in my opinion. The number of stories of police bursting in with overwhelming lethal force and applying that force indiscriminately is highly disturbing to me, and I am sure I am not alone. So long as it was only "drug dealers and other scum" who were being impacted, there was little pressure to pull back on such tactics.
But because of SWAT'ing, police now must consider the possibility that the residents of the home or building they are assaulting may, in fact, be completely innocent. That has to impact the way that they execute their raids. It has to reduce the likelihood that they choose to fire tens of shots at someone holding what turns out to be a wallet. And THAT change is good, even while each individual incident of SWAT'ing is terrible.
On the post: Anne Rice Battles Mean Anonymous Amazon Trolls, Ignores Fact Many Anonymous Users Add Great Value
Relevent XKCD
On the post: Netflix's Move From DVDs To Streaming Shows The Massive Value Of First Sale Doctrine
First Sale dead anyway... ALL movies to cost $16 million!
On the post: Not Smart: Warner Music Issues DMCA Takedown On Larry Lessig Presentation
My opinion after viewing the presentation.
(1) The entire presentation is offered freely on the internet; the purpose of the presentation is to educate people on Dr. Lessig's opinion on this subject (about which is an acknowledged expert). To me, that sounds non-commercial and/or educational.
(2) I don't know the nature of the copyrighted work in question. I expect it is a snippet of a music recording.
(3) The brief snippets are much shorter than the work as a whole.
(4) And few are likely to use this presentation as a way of listening to the music (or viewing the video, if that's what's being objected to) because it is an inconvenient form for that purpose and because only brief excerpts are used. I doubt the distribution of this video will harm sales of the music. For some of the pieces used (especially some of the mix videos) it might *aid* sales by pointing them out to people -- but those are probably not what Warner is talking about anyhow.
So I'd say it is clearly fair use. That's only a personal opinion -- I'm not licensed to practice law.
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