The court did say that this was about commerce, not on the basis of opinion, which means that this case cannot be used as precedent to silence a critic.
It can't? Why not? It seems very clear to me that if you allow free speech to be stifled for commercial reasons that doesn't happen to relate to silencing a critic, the next logical step would be to do so when silencing a critic. In your scenario, a company could invoke this precent to remove copyrighted material that happens to critisize the company. Heck, why say "could"? TechDirt is full of stories where companies are doing this already. We've already fallen to the bottom of the slippery slope.
I know there's a political exception for the Do Not Call list, but I was still under the impression that it was illegal to make unsolicited calls to a cell phone. It's bad enough when you have to deal with unsolicited calls on your home line -- if you still have one, that is -- but it's even worse when the call uses your monthly cell phone minutes.
And as she said in the meeting to me (the one quote I'll use), "My job title is Intellectual Property Enforcement after all."
Well, she actually has a point. As galling as it is, the very fact that her title is U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator proves that they've already decided what the problem is and how to fix it, not actually promoting the progress. What you call a thing can have a big power to influence how people think of that thing. It can short circuit the thought process and lead a person to a certain opinion. (This is, in part, why people get so particular about the use of "theft" in reference to IP.)
I don't recall where I heard this, but aren't robocalls to cell phones illegal for any purpose? I think the logic is similar to spamming a fax machine, since the receiver of the call incurs an actual monetary cost -- as opposed to annoyance and the time cost to delete a spam e-mail, for example -- they shouldn't be allowed to call your cell phone.
I don't know if this is legally infringement, but in my opinion, copying an entire article, even with proper attribution and/or a link back to the original, is wrong. No, I don't think it makes sense to lock your content behind a wall, but that is the prerogative of the content creator, even it you could somehow prove that there was actually a net benefit to the creator. It'd be like the government making IRA and 401k contributions mandatory. "It's good for you, right? So what's the problem?"
Space is vast, and to big to explore by a hand full of people.
The world is vast, and too big for just a hand full of professional journalists to be able to cover themselves.
You read a lot on some farmer in B.F.E North Dakota who watched a super nova on his $100 telescope from wal-mart.
And how is this different from a blogger with a $100 netbook writing a post that draws more hits than a professional journalist with the vast resources of a major newpapers?
There is only so much news in the world.
I can't see how this statement could be any more wrong. Just because cable news channels obsess about a handful of stories and the rest of the mainstream media jumps on the bandwagon on the other few top stories, doesn't mean that there aren't more news out there. There are as many potential news stories as there are stars. What's wrong with bloggers finding and popularizing these stories in the same way that amateur astronomers search the skies?
So yeah if you worked in the news field making money on all the good stories, and a bunch of amateurs come in all the time with the good stuff you'd get pissed off too.
Discovering the story is only the first part of delivering the content around the story. An individual blogger may discover a story or many bloggers may raise awareness about a story, but there is room for a professional journalist, with their additional resources and contacts, to perform an in depth investigation and add to what's already been put out there.
I think one key difference is that many astronomers have had a life-long love of astronomy.
What you call a key difference, I see as a key similarity. If you write a popular blog, I think the chances are pretty good that you have a life-long love of writing.
If they lost their jobs, they would still study astronomy. So perhaps they see a certain kindred spirit with the amateurs.
How does this support the "key difference" from journalists? Many journalists who have lost their jobs become bloggers. Many amateur bloggers would jump at the chance to go pro.
In my opinion, the key difference is one of attitude. I think this is changing, but the sense I get is that many journalists see themselves as the arbiters of truth. For so long, anything that they wrote was taken unquestionably as truth. They don't like being second guessed or, worse, proven wrong by the rabble. I'm not an astronomer, but it seems like there is a much more healthy relationship between amateurs and professionals in astromony. Professional astromoners do whatever it is that they're good at, but still find room to take valuable input from the amateurs. They even properly attribute discoveries to the amateurs, something that professional journalists almost never do when they rip off a story from a blogger.
There is also the issue of "journalistic standards." Yes, I know that nobody believes that those exist (or perhaps ever existed) around here. I imagine that most professional journalists do believe that they both exist and existed.
You make it sound like there's no way that the pros and amateurs in journalism can work together to deliver an overall better product because the amateurs don't live up to a set of arbitrary standards. So, accepting that professional journalists do their best to live up to the standards of the profession, this doesn't mean that a journalist can't, for example, do an in depth investigation on a topic uncovered by a blogger and give the blogger proper credit. Or that they can't engage commenters on their forum which might lead to new information about a story. The topic isn't about amateurs replacing professionals; it's about coming up with a workable solution that involves both pros and amateurs.
In a perverse way, this is just an application of simple economics. If you have high demand and low supply, it means you can raise your price. It may sound like they've just added pricing tiers that include cheaper options, but unless they're planning on hiring more reviewers, in practice all they've done is jacked up the overall price.
Even though the judge has more or less handicapped the case significantly in the AP's favor
Wait, judges are allowed to announce their opinion on who will win the case before the verdict? How is this fair? Wouldn't that break some rule on impartiality or bias?
did they also look at the video or other still shots to determine the plate?
Yes, there was a video, but wouldn't you think that the police would select the best still image that clearly identifies the license plate rather than some random blurry image from the video? This is of course only my opinion, but if the police can't find a single still image from the video that identifies the licence number, then the ticket shouldn't be issued.
did they make a typo? saying it is a guess is, well, a guess.
While I agree in principle that you can't rule out the possibility that it was a typo, based on the quality of the still, I'm guessing that the reporter's guess was a good one.
Explain how it would be "disproportionate" for the ones actually INNOVATING to be making the most money?
I think you've misunderstood my answer. Mike professed to not understand why the top designers would want to implement a fashion copyright in spite of the fact that it would stifle the overall fashion market. Expanding on my reply, the top designers would want to implement a fashion copyright so that they would have an anticompetative advantage so they could rest on their laurels i.e. stop innovating as much, which would grant them a disporportionate share of the total market's profits. In short, a top designer doesn't care if the pie gets smaller as long as they get a larger slice.
Given all that, we could never understand why some top designers (though, certainly certainly not all) are so desperate to get a special copyright on fashion, despite the suggestions it would actually stifle the market quite a bit.
OK, I'll bite. Because the current top designers don't give a shit about stifling the market as long as they get a disproportionate share.
We should not have government or court agencies using private services like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter to push a message, period.
Who said anything about using Twitter? The point is that he didn't even know what Twitter was, not that he didn't use it himself. Technology isn't just for techies any more. Judges are often are called upon to make judgements that relate to technology. They should have a basic understanding of modern technology and you don't have to actually use some technology in order to have this understanding of it.
Aw fuck it, why be reasonable when you can have so much fun piling on. JUDGES ARE DUMB AND MOSTLY USELESS AMIRITE?
I think you've missed the point. It's not that someone didn't know a narrowly defined fact in some specialty field other than their own. It's that he didn't know what Twitter was in spite of the fact that it has been so overhyped it has been discussed in almost every form of media imaginable. You'd have to practically be living under a rock not to know what Twitter is by now.
You would expect that any judge, and especially a supreme court judge, would be a relatively well rounded person. Not living in some ivory tower secluded from the unwashed masses and their petty interests. No, they don't have to know every pop culture reference, but it just shows how out of touch someone is in general if they don't know what something is when that something is as ubiquitous as Twitter.
no, i mean mass ganging up, not even attempting to discuss the points, and rather stop it cold with misdirection and avoidance.
Speaking of not attempting to discuss the points and misdirection, you do realize that you didn't actual explain why you thought people were trying to shout you down or provide any supporting examples thereof. You just threw out an overgeneral accusation, assuming that everyone would just magically know why you felt the way you do. But perhaps for someone whose view of the world is so warped that they think anyone who disagrees with them must be a shill, it would make sense that you don't apply the same standards to yourself as you do to others.
So, you think it's more likely that Mike pays people to "shout you down" than it is that someone just disagrees with you or would make fun of your odd aversion to capital letters? You might want to google "Occam's razor".
The court found that ownership of file extension designations cannot be appropriated under the Lanham Act -- file extensions are inherently functional, and functional uses cannot be trade-marked.
So...that means I can publish an application that uses a .mickeymouse or a .monstercablesucks file extension? /s
On the post: Music In Real Time: Keep Up Or Get Left Behind
Re: Re: LOL ...
"Things ain't what they used to be and never were."
- Will Rogers
On the post: Judge Says Commerce Outweighs Free Speech Issues When It Comes To Reporting On High School Football
Re: That is not free speech
It can't? Why not? It seems very clear to me that if you allow free speech to be stifled for commercial reasons that doesn't happen to relate to silencing a critic, the next logical step would be to do so when silencing a critic. In your scenario, a company could invoke this precent to remove copyrighted material that happens to critisize the company. Heck, why say "could"? TechDirt is full of stories where companies are doing this already. We've already fallen to the bottom of the slippery slope.
On the post: California Judge In Charge Of Enforcing Laws Against Robocalls, Using Robocalls Herself
Re: Re: Re:
I know there's a political exception for the Do Not Call list, but I was still under the impression that it was illegal to make unsolicited calls to a cell phone. It's bad enough when you have to deal with unsolicited calls on your home line -- if you still have one, that is -- but it's even worse when the call uses your monthly cell phone minutes.
On the post: The Government And Silicon Valley: Lead, Follow Or Get Out Of The Way?
"Enforcement"
Well, she actually has a point. As galling as it is, the very fact that her title is U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator proves that they've already decided what the problem is and how to fix it, not actually promoting the progress. What you call a thing can have a big power to influence how people think of that thing. It can short circuit the thought process and lead a person to a certain opinion. (This is, in part, why people get so particular about the use of "theft" in reference to IP.)
On the post: California Judge In Charge Of Enforcing Laws Against Robocalls, Using Robocalls Herself
Re:
On the post: Newspaper Publisher Defends Filing 22 Copyright Lawsuits Against Sites Who Copied Text... With Links Back
Their prerogative
I don't know if this is legally infringement, but in my opinion, copying an entire article, even with proper attribution and/or a link back to the original, is wrong. No, I don't think it makes sense to lock your content behind a wall, but that is the prerogative of the content creator, even it you could somehow prove that there was actually a net benefit to the creator. It'd be like the government making IRA and 401k contributions mandatory. "It's good for you, right? So what's the problem?"
On the post: If Astronomers Can Happily Share The Business With Amateurs, Why Do Some Journalists Get So Upset?
Re: Bad analogy:
The world is vast, and too big for just a hand full of professional journalists to be able to cover themselves.
You read a lot on some farmer in B.F.E North Dakota who watched a super nova on his $100 telescope from wal-mart.
And how is this different from a blogger with a $100 netbook writing a post that draws more hits than a professional journalist with the vast resources of a major newpapers?
There is only so much news in the world.
I can't see how this statement could be any more wrong. Just because cable news channels obsess about a handful of stories and the rest of the mainstream media jumps on the bandwagon on the other few top stories, doesn't mean that there aren't more news out there. There are as many potential news stories as there are stars. What's wrong with bloggers finding and popularizing these stories in the same way that amateur astronomers search the skies?
So yeah if you worked in the news field making money on all the good stories, and a bunch of amateurs come in all the time with the good stuff you'd get pissed off too.
Discovering the story is only the first part of delivering the content around the story. An individual blogger may discover a story or many bloggers may raise awareness about a story, but there is room for a professional journalist, with their additional resources and contacts, to perform an in depth investigation and add to what's already been put out there.
On the post: If Astronomers Can Happily Share The Business With Amateurs, Why Do Some Journalists Get So Upset?
Re: They were once amateurs too
What you call a key difference, I see as a key similarity. If you write a popular blog, I think the chances are pretty good that you have a life-long love of writing.
If they lost their jobs, they would still study astronomy. So perhaps they see a certain kindred spirit with the amateurs.
How does this support the "key difference" from journalists? Many journalists who have lost their jobs become bloggers. Many amateur bloggers would jump at the chance to go pro.
In my opinion, the key difference is one of attitude. I think this is changing, but the sense I get is that many journalists see themselves as the arbiters of truth. For so long, anything that they wrote was taken unquestionably as truth. They don't like being second guessed or, worse, proven wrong by the rabble. I'm not an astronomer, but it seems like there is a much more healthy relationship between amateurs and professionals in astromony. Professional astromoners do whatever it is that they're good at, but still find room to take valuable input from the amateurs. They even properly attribute discoveries to the amateurs, something that professional journalists almost never do when they rip off a story from a blogger.
On the post: If Astronomers Can Happily Share The Business With Amateurs, Why Do Some Journalists Get So Upset?
Re:
You make it sound like there's no way that the pros and amateurs in journalism can work together to deliver an overall better product because the amateurs don't live up to a set of arbitrary standards. So, accepting that professional journalists do their best to live up to the standards of the profession, this doesn't mean that a journalist can't, for example, do an in depth investigation on a topic uncovered by a blogger and give the blogger proper credit. Or that they can't engage commenters on their forum which might lead to new information about a story. The topic isn't about amateurs replacing professionals; it's about coming up with a workable solution that involves both pros and amateurs.
On the post: Patent Office Proposes Speed Lane (And Slow Lane) For Patents; Treating The Symptom, Not The Disease
Supply and Demand
On the post: Chipping Away At Fair Use: Judge Suggests AP Would Win Obama Hope Poster Case
Unfair
Wait, judges are allowed to announce their opinion on who will win the case before the verdict? How is this fair? Wouldn't that break some rule on impartiality or bias?
On the post: Police Just Guessing When They Can't Clearly Read License Plate In Red Light Camera Photos
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, there was a video, but wouldn't you think that the police would select the best still image that clearly identifies the license plate rather than some random blurry image from the video? This is of course only my opinion, but if the police can't find a single still image from the video that identifies the licence number, then the ticket shouldn't be issued.
did they make a typo? saying it is a guess is, well, a guess.
While I agree in principle that you can't rule out the possibility that it was a typo, based on the quality of the still, I'm guessing that the reporter's guess was a good one.
On the post: A Look At How The Fashion Industry Thrives Without Copyright
Re:
I think you've misunderstood my answer. Mike professed to not understand why the top designers would want to implement a fashion copyright in spite of the fact that it would stifle the overall fashion market. Expanding on my reply, the top designers would want to implement a fashion copyright so that they would have an anticompetative advantage so they could rest on their laurels i.e. stop innovating as much, which would grant them a disporportionate share of the total market's profits. In short, a top designer doesn't care if the pie gets smaller as long as they get a larger slice.
On the post: A Look At How The Fashion Industry Thrives Without Copyright
Comment bait
OK, I'll bite. Because the current top designers don't give a shit about stifling the market as long as they get a disproportionate share.
On the post: Supreme Court Justices Discuss Twitter
Re:
Who said anything about using Twitter? The point is that he didn't even know what Twitter was, not that he didn't use it himself. Technology isn't just for techies any more. Judges are often are called upon to make judgements that relate to technology. They should have a basic understanding of modern technology and you don't have to actually use some technology in order to have this understanding of it.
On the post: Supreme Court Justices Discuss Twitter
Re:
I think you've missed the point. It's not that someone didn't know a narrowly defined fact in some specialty field other than their own. It's that he didn't know what Twitter was in spite of the fact that it has been so overhyped it has been discussed in almost every form of media imaginable. You'd have to practically be living under a rock not to know what Twitter is by now.
You would expect that any judge, and especially a supreme court judge, would be a relatively well rounded person. Not living in some ivory tower secluded from the unwashed masses and their petty interests. No, they don't have to know every pop culture reference, but it just shows how out of touch someone is in general if they don't know what something is when that something is as ubiquitous as Twitter.
On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Launched Against Google, Because Some Woman Didn't Secure Her Own WiFi
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Speaking of not attempting to discuss the points and misdirection, you do realize that you didn't actual explain why you thought people were trying to shout you down or provide any supporting examples thereof. You just threw out an overgeneral accusation, assuming that everyone would just magically know why you felt the way you do. But perhaps for someone whose view of the world is so warped that they think anyone who disagrees with them must be a shill, it would make sense that you don't apply the same standards to yourself as you do to others.
On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Launched Against Google, Because Some Woman Didn't Secure Her Own WiFi
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Court Says File Extensions Not Eligible For Trademarks... Sorta
8.3
So...that means I can publish an application that uses a .mickeymouse or a .monstercablesucks file extension? /s
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
In this case, unlawful copying is a form of theft, regardless of popular internet opinion.
Non sequiter much?
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