The real insidious part of this is that Apple has now established a precedent that it has a trademark on the shape of a leaf. Not even a particular leaf or a realistic looking leaf, but just any football shape used as a leaf in a logo.
And, of course, this entire piece is based on a flat out myth that conservative voices are somehow being silenced. Unless Hatch is saying that "conservative viewpoints" are the equivalent of Nazi viewpoints, then this argument makes no sense.
It really doesn't matter whether conservative viewpoints are equivalent to Nazi viewpoints, Twitter and Facebook would have the same right to silence or promote them as they please. Stormfront is a real website that hosts user submitted content (Wikipedia claims that they even host a dating service for bigots interested in finding other bigots I suppose). No one seems concerned about their ability to curate a stridently hateful discourse. Why should Twitter and Facebook be any different? If Twitter wanted to ban everyone who posted a message beginning with the letter R on a Thursday they'd be within their rights to do so.
The CRA was/is a bad law that created far more harm than it resolved. Perhaps if people won't understand that the right to be a jerk is essential then they'll understand that the right of jerks to let it be known to society that they are jerks so that others can avoid them must be absolute.
This is like saying a small number of guilty people end up winning at trial, so we need to outlaw lawyers for the good of everybody.
You say this like this isn't exactly what people want. There's no such thing as reductio ad absurdum in the clown dimension of 2021.
Am I the only one less concerned about the fact that recreating the experience of interacting with dead people will be a thing and more concerned with the idea that there now exists a PATENT, an ownable piece of intellectual property, that gives something (someone?) the right to act like a particular human being? I can't wait for the lawsuits Microsoft can file against anyone too accurately emulating a particular personality. Can you imagine the sheer insanity of OWNING a personality?
We've already seen the legal madness over sportsball players and having their tattoos emulated in video games. When John Madden dies and Madden NFL 2K25 comes out featuring his soundalike voice mark my words: it's happening and there will be lawsuits.
You'd think saving millions in lawsuits would be incentive enough but the sad truth is that cities don't pay for that, the citizens do. If cities sent everyone in town an invoice for their share of every million dollar settlement they paid out you'd see this problem flatline faster than a Prenda lawsuit.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Removing Nigerian Police Protest Content Due To Confusion With COVID Misinfo Rules (2020)
Stuff like this is hardly new. Try sending a wire transfer with the message "Cuba" sometime and see what happens.
On the post: Karma: Twitch Replaces Live Metallica Concert With 8-Bit Music To Avoid Copyright Madness
Re: Re: It's all fun and games until copyright maximalism goes t
Only in the same sense that Betty Crocker is taking away money from restaurants.
On the post: Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo
The real insidious part of this is that Apple has now established a precedent that it has a trademark on the shape of a leaf. Not even a particular leaf or a realistic looking leaf, but just any football shape used as a leaf in a logo.
On the post: Orrin Hatch, Who Once Wanted To Destroy The Computers Of Anyone Who Infringed On Copyrights, Now Lies About Section 230
It really doesn't matter whether conservative viewpoints are equivalent to Nazi viewpoints, Twitter and Facebook would have the same right to silence or promote them as they please. Stormfront is a real website that hosts user submitted content (Wikipedia claims that they even host a dating service for bigots interested in finding other bigots I suppose). No one seems concerned about their ability to curate a stridently hateful discourse. Why should Twitter and Facebook be any different? If Twitter wanted to ban everyone who posted a message beginning with the letter R on a Thursday they'd be within their rights to do so.
On the post: If We're Going To Talk About Discrimination In Online Ads, We Need To Talk About Roommates.com
Re: Re: Re:
The CRA was/is a bad law that created far more harm than it resolved. Perhaps if people won't understand that the right to be a jerk is essential then they'll understand that the right of jerks to let it be known to society that they are jerks so that others can avoid them must be absolute.
On the post: No, Getting Rid Of Anonymity Will Not Fix Social Media; It Will Cause More Problems
Re:
On the post: Microsoft Patent: Chatbots Made From The Online Habits Of Dead People
Am I the only one less concerned about the fact that recreating the experience of interacting with dead people will be a thing and more concerned with the idea that there now exists a PATENT, an ownable piece of intellectual property, that gives something (someone?) the right to act like a particular human being? I can't wait for the lawsuits Microsoft can file against anyone too accurately emulating a particular personality. Can you imagine the sheer insanity of OWNING a personality?
We've already seen the legal madness over sportsball players and having their tattoos emulated in video games. When John Madden dies and Madden NFL 2K25 comes out featuring his soundalike voice mark my words: it's happening and there will be lawsuits.
On the post: Reform Works: For The First Time EVER, Newark Cops Go An Entire Year Without Firing Their Guns, Being Sued
You'd think saving millions in lawsuits would be incentive enough but the sad truth is that cities don't pay for that, the citizens do. If cities sent everyone in town an invoice for their share of every million dollar settlement they paid out you'd see this problem flatline faster than a Prenda lawsuit.
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