Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform

from the big-changes-behind-the-scenes dept

Almost since its inception, Techdirt has been run on a custom content management system that we've built, expanded, and maintained ourselves. Once upon a time this had its advantages, but lately it's been an obstacle to developing the new features and improvements we'd like to add for our readers. So for the past two years we've been working on a huge project: migrating the entire site, and its history of over 75,000 posts and millions of comments, to WordPress — and now we're ready to make the switch. We've worked hard to ensure the transition is as seamless as possible, but there will be a few changes, and those of you with accounts will need to reset your passwords. This post outlines what's going to happen during the transition this weekend, and what you can expect to see when the site changes some time this Sunday evening.

First of all, a note about what this is not: it's not a Techdirt redesign. For the time being, the changes are primarily on the back-end and the site will look and work just the way it does now with only a few exceptions, the biggest of which is a significant overhaul and upgrade to the comments section. That's the one part of the site that will look quite different, and work much better: it can now handle deeply-nested threads without becoming unreadable, and there's a handy new tool for navigating lengthy comment sections. All the features you're used to, like Funny/Insightful voting, reporting, and First Word/Last Word will continue to work just as they do now.

Another important note is that all posts and comments are being retained, and all old post URLs will continue to work. It was extremely important to us that we not lose any content, or break any links — even though the URL structure for posts is changing, old links will continue to work just fine and be redirected to the appropriate page.

And, of course, all user accounts and membership subscriptions are being retained as well. However, as noted, all users will have to reset their passwords before logging in to the new system. It's also possible that you might have to reset your display name, profile picture, and account preferences, though we've tried to ensure that these things are all properly copied as well. We'll make sure there's a prominent notice on Techdirt reminding you once the switch is complete.

Amidst all this, there will likely be some unforeseen hiccups. We'll have prominent links to our contact form, and a special feedback category for issues with the website migration, for you to report any problems with your own account or the site in general. This is a massive migration and we're hopeful that problems will be minimal, but please bear with us as we work to fix anything that does go wrong!

As for the migration itself, shortly after this post we'll be locking down Techdirt for a few days — you'll still be able to read and navigate the site, but you won't be able to submit comments or create new accounts, and any comment votes or changes to user preferences will not be saved. We also won't be publishing the normal weekend posts. New membership subscription purchases will still be accepted and recorded, but won't be activated until Monday when the new site is live.

We're extremely excited to be finally making this change — it makes Techdirt much more manageable and maintainable for our small team, and lays the foundation for the site to improve and grow in the future. Stay tuned for another announcement when the new site is live, and thanks in advance to all our readers for your patience and support as we complete this migration.

Techdirt Podcast Episode 312: Regulating The Internet

from the possibilities-and-pitfalls dept

We've got another cross-post this week: Mike was recently a guest on the new Internet of Humans podcast by Jillian York and Konstantinos Komaitis, for a wide-ranging discussion about internet regulation issues today and where they might be headed. You can listen to the entire conversation on this week's episode.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

2 Comments

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the conversationalism dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about what happens when medical companies implode, leaving people who rely on their products in the lurch:

One partial solution for medical devices is to requires that the software source code and hardware design are held in escrow and released if the manufacturer goes out of business or refused to continue to support the device.

In second place, it's That One Guy with a comment about Josh Hawley's mug:

'I don't support insurrections, just those doing them!'

He says its a "perfect way to enjoy Coffee, Tea, or Liberal Tears!" and is "not a pro-riot mug."

... He says of the picture of him showing support for a bunch of deranged insurrectionists storming the capitol, but I suppose if you want to split hairs there is a difference between 'riot' and 'insurrection' so technically he's correct, just not in a way that leaves him looking better.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from TheDumberHalf about sex offender registries:

Outlawing someone's existence

Sex offender registries are not the only harm. Some cities outright prohibit you living in the city at all - a result of cumulative boundaries around sensitive areas. We can all agree, parole should help you integrate and keep you on the straight and narrow. However, people need an actual chance. Then there's instances where peeing in public or even hugging is a sex offense. Scope creep is a bitch.

Next, it's PartTimeZombie sharing a reaction to our post about Alabama cops:

MRAP?

I'm not American, so I had to look up the term "MRAP".
Imagine my amazement when my search returned a bunch of pictures of armoured military vehicles.
Police don't need those, armies do.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner comes from our post about Amy Klobuchar's next unconstitutional speech control bill, "the NUDGE Act". One commenter wondered if these acronym games would lead us to the "WINK, WINK, NUDGE, NUDGE" Act — and Strawb had the perfect rejoinder:

Amy Klobuchar: "Say no more."

In second place, it's another comment about cops and military equipment — this time from an anonymous commenter on our post about Senators who are freaking out about the White House's minor police reforms (and one response in particular):

"Police officers will face a grim reality if this EO is enacted and their lifesaving equipment is restricted from them."

Huh. I didn't know that the 1033 program offered N95 masks, and training in epidemiology.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of puns. First, it's David with a response to YouTube's ContentID demonetizing a video of a cat purring:

Dude, it's obvious.

Clearly it was a copycat.

Finally, it's an anonymous comment about cops seizing cash generated by the legal marijuana business:

They're taking marijuana proceeds, from a transport.

They're High waymen.

That's all for this week, folks!

11 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: February 13th - 19th

from the back-then dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, Oracle filed its opening brief in its renewed attempt to overturn Google's fair use win on Java APIs. The UK rolled out a "piracy alert system" that was mostly but not entirely benign, while politicians there were looking to follow up on the Snooper's Charter with an even worse anti-whistleblowing law. In the US, things weren't looking good for net neutrality between the opinions of FCC commissioners and the shifty activities of telco. Meanwhile, prosecutors and anti-sex-trafficking advocates were speaking out about the government's treatment of Backpage, while a new report on encryption showed that its proliferation was not much of a problem for law enforcement.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, there were mass protests against ACTA all across Europe. The European Parliament President criticized the agreement, and the EU official who resigned over it was detailing its many problems — but the EU Commission was trying to claim the widespread concerns were all based on 'myths', and lobby groups like the IFPI were claiming that the protests were anti-democratic. Meanwhile, US Senators were ramping up the fearmongering to push for a cybersecurity bill that they insisted was nothing like SOPA — but which also didn't seem necessary.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, we examined Universal Music's ridiculous 'settlement' with small video sharing site Bolt, while Hollywood was expressing its ongoing displeasure with Google (as were some very confused Belgian newspapers). Broadcasters were making yet another attempt at anti-satellite radio legislation, sample troll Bridgeport Music won an unfortunate victory, and the RIAA was trying to get ISPs to help it hound customers into settling its lawsuits.

1 Comments

Techdirt Podcast Episode 311: EARN IT Is Still Bad

from the they-didn't-learn-anything dept

More than a year and a half ago we were joined on the podcast by Riana Pfefferkorn, then the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and now a research fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss the disastrous EARN IT Act. As you probably know, EARN IT is back, and this week, Riana joins us once again to discuss why it hasn't gotten any better — and might in fact have gotten worse.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

5 Comments

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the dialogues dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That Anonymous Coward on our post about the ruling that a college can't order a student to stop talking about an instructor, responding to another commenter who decided to go on a bizarre rant questioning the student's disability:

They are called sunglasses, perhaps one you get your head out of your ass you might learn about them.

Oooh and you get to decide if her disability is or is not real.
Are you one of those assholes who demand people parked in handicapped spots prove their disability to you?
You know they faked it to get the permit hanging from the rearview & now they have to answer to you...

On the upside your entire rant really highlights why many people with disabilities often just suck it up because they really don't feel like explaining to petty able bodied tyrants the exact nature of their disability and having to perform like a circus animal to meet your mental requirements for being disabled enough.

Did you read a different letter?
No where was there a request or demand to give bad reviews, merely honest reviews.

I offer you a big hearty fuck off from someone who sometimes is light sensitive, sometimes doesn't need his cane, sometimes needs to park closer to the entrance who is fed up with assholes like you who think unless your missing limbs you aren't disabled & are required to prove it on demand by every fucking Karen who is just pissed that there are a couple spaces they can't use.

In second place, it's That One Guy with a comment about the Minneapolis cops who demanded a no-knock warrant then killed an innocent gun owner nine seconds after entering a residence:

Criminals lying? Perish the thought

No no, gunning someone down on the spot after you broke into their house in the middle of the night and they're disoriented from being woken up is totally reasonable so long as you say 'police' and 'warrant', I mean can you imagine criminals ever doing something like that or police ever shooting an innocent person?

Clearly not, which means that if someone armed breaks into your house yelling about how they're cops they have a right to be there, and so long as you're innocent you have absolutely no reason to be worried or feel the need to defend yourself or even protest in the slightest.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with another comment from That One Guy, this time in response to the opposition from companies to good new regulators:

'You can't nominate them, they might do the job!'

As with Sohn, now with Bedoya: The greatest sign that a person is qualified for the job is when the corrupt come pouring out of the woodworks to try to keep them from it.

Next, it's a comment from someone who we haven't seen in these lists before, under the name... That Other Guy. The comment comes in response to a German court fining a site owner for "sharing user data with Google" by using web fonts:

One of the many terrible things about this decision is that the website owner didn't send the user's IP address to Google; the user's browser did.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Bobvious, with a comment about the Boston police department's bullshit gang database:

Are you saying

that the Boston Police Department has been frequenting areas notorious for MS13 gang activity?

In second place, it's Toom1275 on our post about Penguin Random House and Maus in the wake of its controversial removal from Tennessee schools. One commenter complained about calling this a "ban", Mike pointed out that the post discussed the fact that it's a bit more complicated and wondered if the complainer had read it, and Toom had a reply:

It seems unlikely anyone supporting the book ban would be a fan of reading.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with David and one more similar crack about the gang database:

Are you rooting for the criminals?

After all, Ortiz has a record of associating with people who have a record of associating with people.

Finally, it's one more comment from That One Guy, this time in response to Apple opposing the trademark on an indie film, Apple Man:

Apple: Our customers are INCREDIBLY stupid

No, that makes perfect sense, why just last week I went to the grocery store because I heard they were selling apples and to my great surprise I was pointed towards a pile of fruit. How dare the store and it's staff deceive people by telling their customers that they are selling apples when they clearly are not, don't they understand that when someone hears 'apple' the only thing that comes to mind is electronics of various types?

That's all for this week, folks!

14 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: February 6th - 12th

from the what-went-down dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, in the wake of Trump's racist executive order banning people from seven countries from entering the US, pretty much the entire tech industry stood up in opposition. Meanwhile, Ajit Pai was getting quickly to work saying one thing and doing another (not unlike the broadband providers themselves. The FBI was revealed to have even more surveillance powers than we thought, and was also changing its FOIA policies to be even more hostile.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, more dominoes were falling on ACTA: the Romanian Prime Minister admitted he had no idea why Romania signed it, the Czech government suspended ratification, then Latvia did the same, and even Germany got cold feet — and soon the mainstream financial press was writing off ACTA as dead. Meanwhile, we took a look at who was still supporting SOPA and why, while Lamar Smith was defending another terrible internet bill, and the RIAA was just lashing out at everyone.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, we looked at the collateral damage from Viacom's wave of YouTube takedowns and a top NBC executive's hatred of the site, while one guy was claiming to own the Electric Slide and issuing DMCA notices on wedding videos. We also got a closer look at how little it takes for the RIAA to fire off a flimsy DMCA notice, while the RIAA was spending its time trying to tell people they should be paying more for CDs. Meanwhile, we took a look at just how completely bogus the MPAA's claims of a Canadian camcording epidemic were.

1 Comments

Techdirt Podcast Episode 310: A Global History Of Free Speech

from the oral-history dept

We talk a lot about free speech in different countries, and about the history of free speech in the US — but what about the global history of this fundamental concept? A new book released today, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama, tackles exactly this subject in great and insightful detail. This week, Jacob joins us on the podcast to discuss the sweeping story of free speech throughout the ages and around the world.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the says-you dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous response to FCC-boss-turned-cable-lobbyist Mike Powell and his comments about how Gigi Sohn should be recused because of her consumer protection work:

Wouldn't Powell's logic also require that anyone who has ever worked in the telecom industry would need to recuse themselves from any telecom decisions made by the FCC? After all, if you can't be objective if you've worked against telecom companies, then you can't be objective if you've worked for them either.

In second place, it's another anonymous comment, this time in response to the Tenth Circuit ruling that ordering a student to stop talking about an instructor violates the First Amendment:

Accreditation boards take the ability for students to provide feedback about instructors and course design into account when reviewing educational institutions. If the students can't provide feedback, positive or negative, then courses can be adjusted in response to the student experience.

The other angle at play here is that it seems like the student didn't request an ADA accommodation, but even then, that doesn't make the instructor's response to her sitting on the floor valid. The admin should have told the student how to file for an accomodation to prevent that issue in the future. Could have saved the college a lawsuit.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from TFG in a conversation that emerged on our post about Washington Sate Governor Inslee wanting to jail politicians who lie, about the alternative notion of requiring IQ tests for politicians:

Found what looks to be a pretty good article on the subject:

https://theconversation.com/the-iq-test-wars-why-screening-for-intelligence-is-still-so-con troversial-81428

In addition to what Stephen said, it's worth noting that the inventor of the tests, considered them inadequate:

The first of these tests was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet, who was commissioned by the French government to identify students who would face the most difficulty in school. The resulting 1905 Binet-Simon Scale became the basis for modern IQ testing. Ironically, Binet actually thought that IQ tests were inadequate measures for intelligence, pointing to the test’s inability to properly measure creativity or emotional intelligence.

That bolded section is hugely important. What's termed "emotional intelligence" here includes, I believe, emotional maturity and empathy, which is definitely something that leaders should have.

Also note that IQ tests were designed around testing large populations, finding a median, and identifying those that are in need of assistance in a school setting. The original purpose of them was a way to find and come alongside individuals who were being left to fall through the cracks of an educational system.

Applying that willy nilly to a bunch of other things, and especially using it as a gatekeeping mechanism, seems flawed to me.

(One of the good things to come out of IQ tests was their use in an economic impact study to drive home how leaded gasoline was a horrible idea in demonstrating the effect of lead poisoning on the learning abilities of children - which is arguably in keeping with the original intent of the tests.)

Next, it's That One Guy with a comment about the NYPD's ongoing failure to change or improve in any way:

'You refuse to comply? Your budget just shrank by 10 million.'

So long as the city keeps asking the NYPD to change while continuing to pay them the organization has no reason to change or give a damn what the city might bluster about. Either start cutting funding until they comply or drop the pretense that the city has any interest in keeping the NYPD in check.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous response to a commenter who wove a little fiction about Trump being "killed by a booby-trapped copy of the Constitution":

That's got to be something you simply dreamed up. Like Trump would touch a copy of the constitution...

In second place, it's Jojo, with a comment about Governor Inslee's proposal:

Inslee: “I’m going to arrest every politician that lies. [Proceeds to throw himself into jail.]

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Designerfx about our mention of the way politicians "hang all sorts of gifts" on bills:

I think you missed the r in grifts

Finally, it's Pixelation with a comment about how John Deere must be feeling about the agricultural right to repair bill:

I wonder if they received a Deere John letter?

That's all for this week, folks!

1 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: January 30th - February 5th

from the that-was-that dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, the six-strike copyright "voluntary agreement" officially died. Another prominent death was Denuvo DRM for Reisdent Evil 7, which was cracked in five days, which the company hoped was better than nothing. In a more worrying DRM development, the eventually-successful push to codify EME DRM in the HTML5 standard lurched forward. Meanwhile, Congress appeared to be preparing to gut net neutrality and AT&T was downright giddy about Ajit Pai, while we took a moment for a deeper look at the horrors of a Trump presidency.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, in the aftermath of the SOPA protests, it was time for reflection on what happened and attempts to channel the energy into other issues — unless of course you were a SOPA supporter, in which case it was time for misleading op-eds and general whining. Protests against ACTA were spreading and starting to get big results, while Hollywood was partying with TPP negotiators. Megaupload users were planning to sue over the shutdown of the site, while ICE seized 300 more sites, mostly to protect the Super Bowl.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, Sony BMG admitted that its rootkit violated federal law and agreed to pay to fix damaged computers, Google issued a non-apology over its decision to censor results in China, and YouTube started talking about revenue sharing plans (while Viacom was pulling over 100,000 clips from the site). We looked at the deeper implications of Google's book scanning fight, and the emerging norm of judges citing Wikipedia. Also, this was the week of the (in)famous Adult Swim marketing stunt that shut down the city of Boston due to massive paranoid overreaction.

1 Comments

That's A Wrap On The Public Domain Game Jam! Check Out All This Year's Great Entries

from the gaming-like-it's-1926 dept

Last night at midnight, we reached the end of Gaming Like It's 1926, our fourth annual public domain game jam celebrating the new works that entered the public domain this year. At final count, we got 31 entries representing a huge variety of different kinds of digital and analog games!

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be digging into all the games and selecting the winners in our six categories — but there's no need to wait before playing! You can check out all the entries on itch.io:

At first glance (and having poked around in a couple of the early entries) I can already tell it's going to be tough to narrow these down to just six winners — there are lots of games here that do fun and interesting things with public domain works. As in past years, once we've selected and announced the winners we'll discuss each one in detail in a podcast and a series of posts.

Until then, a huge thanks to everyone who participated this year, and also to everyone who takes some time to play the games and give these designers the attention they deserve!

Techdirt Podcast Episode 309: Remembering The SOPA Fight, With Rep. Zoe Lofgren

from the as-it-happened dept

As many of you know, last week we hosted an online event for the latest Techdirt Greenhouse edition, all about looking back on the lessons learned from the 2012 protests against SOPA and PIPA. Our special guest was Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one of the strongest voices in congress speaking out against the disastrous bills, who provided all kinds of excellent insight into what happened then and what's happening now. In case you missed it, for this week's episode of the podcast (yes, we're finally back with new episodes!) we've got the full conversation and Q&A from the event.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

5 Comments

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the what-say-you? dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about the police and their hysterical messaging about the supposed on-the-job dangers of coming anywhere near fentanyl:

'Down with peanuts!' 'Sir, this is a peanut factory.'

Cops claim being in the same room as a substance is dangerous to their health.

Actual medical professionals say that that's not likely to say the least.

Assuming the cops aren't just making shit up(something I'm sure they'd never do) it sounds like they're dealing with yet another medical miracle that only affects people in their profession, and just like you don't take a job working a peanut factory if you have an allergy to them it sounds like police work is a threat to their lives and they need to be let go or quit for their own sake.

In second place, we've got a double-winning comment that also takes first place on the funny side. It's Dan Neely with a comment about the assertion that Trump's social network, with its plans to heavily moderate content, isn't any different from the social networks its proponents complain about:

It is. Instead of trying to ban lies being spread by the Leopards Eating Peoples Faces party, this one prohibits complaining that your face got eaten by a leopard.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment about traffic tickets:

Curious

Like asset forfeiture, I wonder how 'necessary for public safety' traffic tickets would be if the issuing agencies never saw a dime of that money?

Next, it's another anonymous comment about the encryption wars:

The anti-encryption arguments just boil down to "Everyone needs to leave a key under the doormat so cops can always get into your home to protect you"

Over on the funny side, we've already had our first place winner above, so it's on to second place with LACanuck and a comment about OAN's plea for fans to call AT&T and complain about the network being dumped from DirecTV:

In related news, AT&T announced that there were three additional calls in yesterday's log. That made up 0.000001% of AT&T's daily complaints.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from David about the silliness of Georgia's new "Common Carrier Non-Discrimination Act":

Car analogy (now don't start that again!)

Roads are no longer common carriers but parades are.

Finally, it's another comment about the cops and fentanyl — and the impossibility of accidentally overdosing by skin exposure — from another anonymous commenter:

But did you take in to account how thin the skin is of an 'average' police officer"?.. It's like they don't even have skin, so touching something is as good as injecting it directly.

That's all for this week, folks!

12 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: January 23rd - 29th

from the those-were-the-days dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, outgoing FCC boss Tom Wheeler had a message for Trump supporters about the benefits of net neutrality, while cable's congressional allies were lining up to urge Ajit Pai to kill the cable box competition plan. Trump was muzzling federal employees and seeking to trademark "Make America Great Again". Virginia was pushing a protectionist law preventing better broadband, garnering opposition from internet companies. Meanwhile, a judge allowed the lawsuit over PACER fees to continue as a class action, Perfect 10 suffered another loss in court that set more good copyright precedent, and in unfortunate news, a state appeals court said unlocking a phone with a fingerprint doesn't violate the Fifth Amendment.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, many on the internet were celebrating the victory over SOPA, getting bolder in calling out the MPAA for lying and opposing Chris Dodd — while SOPA supporters were busy whining, offering fake olive branches, and making up threats. But much attention was also already turning to new issues: the Megaupload shutdown which was causing other companies to turn off useful services (and leading one astroturf group to embarrass itself with a late press release claiming SOPA was necessary to shut Megaupload down), and the ACTA agreement, which was getting the SOPA treatment in Poland with huge crowds on the street and politicians donning Guy Fawkes masks.

Fifteen Years Ago

In 2007, the most controversial thing about the MPAA in the eyes of the average person was their movie rating system — and this week they finally agreed to make some small changes to it. The RIAA was telling the CEA to do the impossible and stop making them look evil, while record labels were talking up the idea of getting paid for giving consumers rights they already have. Blu-ray's DRM was cracked (even the creators admitted it) while Apple's DRM was facing legal issues in Norway. And Fox's "piracy czar" was subpoenaing YouTube to find out who was uploading episodes of 24 and The Simpsons.

Also, we got an extremely important Section 230 ruling in a case against Yahoo.

3 Comments

It's Not Too Late To Submit Something To The Public Domain Game Jam!

from the gaming-like-it's-1926 dept

Gaming Like It's 1926: The Public Domain Game Jam

By now, you've probably heard about Gaming Like It's 1926, our fourth annual public domain game jam celebrating the new works that entered the public domain this year. The clock is ticking on the jam, but there's still time — entries are due by January 31st, which means you've got the weekend to put something together if you sign up now and get started!

(If you need some ideas on how to make a game quickly, check out Story Synth, created by our partner in running these game jams, Randy Lubin.)

The jam is open to both digital and analog games (be sure to read over the full requirements on the jam page). There are lots of interesting works entering the public domain this year, including:

• Novels, short stories, and poems by Agatha Christie, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, T. E. Lawrence, A. A. Milne, and Dorothy Parker
• Art by Alexander Calder, Hannah Höch, Frieda Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, René Magritte, and Norman Rockwell
• Films including silents Beau Jest and The General plus the first feature length Vitaphone films with Don Juan and The Better 'Ole
• Music by Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Jelly Roll Morton, Victoria Spivey, and Sophie Tucker

There are also some great resources out there for digging through the many works you could draw on. We recommend Duke University's overview and the Public Domain Review's countdown.

At the end, we'll be choosing winners in six categories:

• Best Analog Game
• Best Digital Game
• Best adaptation of a 1926 work
• Best remixing of multiple sources (at least one has to be from 1926)
• Best "Deep Cut" (use of a work not listed on any of the roundup articles)
• Best Visuals

And those winners will each get to choose one of our great prizes:

• The Working Futures anthology of speculative fiction
• A deck of Working Futures Cards which you can use in scenario planning
• Our board game CIA: Collect It All (a remake of the public domain CIA training game)
• A Techdirt t-shirt (e.g. Copymouse)
• Digital copies of Behind the Magic and Premise

Many a great game has started with an individual or a small group of people working hard for a single weekend to make a playable prototype, so don't let the ticking clock scare you — sign up now on itch.io and get to work!

1 Comments

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the as-was-said dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Stephen T. Stone with a comment about our latest example of brazen DMCA abuse:

To everyone who thinks AT&T dropping OANN is “censorship”: No, this is censorship.

In second place, it's Samuel Abram, with a comment about the cops who were fired for playing Pokémon Go:

I said this before…

It's really sad (really more outrageous and infuriating) that playing Pokémon GO! would cause cops to get fired as opposed to killing blacks and Latinxs in cold blood.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a pair of comments from our post about the annoying DRM on Diablo 2: Resurrected. First, it's That One Guy with the perennial bottom line:

And the ultimate punchline to this and all DRM:

Actual copyright infringers are, as always, completely unaffected.

Next, it's PaulT with a response to some comments in the blog post that started the conversation about the issue:

"While I understand that this is a way to combat piracy"

But, of course, as already mentioned it's really not. People wanting to pirate will still do so, and when they do they will still have a better product than the one bought legally. I fact, as often seen, the presence of this DRM is actually a driver for "piracy", since some people who recognise this fact will download a cracked copy after they buy the legit version, safe in the knowledge that they're not "stealing" since they paid for a copy, they just want access to the version that doesn't try to stop them playing the game they bought.

"Or better yet, wasn’t there a better way of implementing it without restricting players who bought it legitimately?"

No, there isn't. DRM is software whose entire purpose is to try the stop people from running the software it's attached to. Like all software, it may have bugs or design issues that make it work imperfectly. It can never operate as well as it not being present in the first place for legal owners of the software it's infected.

Over on the funny side, both our winners come in response to the post about the Pokémon-playing cops. David took first place:

You think firing those officers is a smart move?

Let's see whether you still think that when Snorlax holds up a bank.

In second place, it's an anonymous comment:

They're even wrong about the pokemon

but they insisted they did so... to “chase this mythical creature.”

Your honor, I can assure you that despite claims to the contrary, Snorlax is not a mythical pokemon.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out on our post about the legal fight over calling cheese Gruyere, where one commenter wondered if they could get away with making a "Champagne Gruyere cheese drink", and Rocky had the answer:

No, but if you had called it Champagne Gruyere Monster cheese drink on the other hand...

And finally, we loop all the way back around to the beginning, where Toom1275 had a response to the Most Insightful winner:

Thst's a bit of an awkward statement, seeing as how "AT$T dropping OANN is censorship!" and "thinks" are mutually exclusive.

That's all for this week, folks!

33 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: January 16th - 22nd

from the it-went-down dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, outgoing FCC boss Tom Wheeler warned about the perils of killing net neutrality, while leaked details of Trump's FCC transition plan revealed his plans to gut all the agency's consumer protection powers — then, on Friday, it was confirmed that Ajit Pai would become the new FCC boss. Meanwhile, we marked the five year anniversary of the SOPA protests (and be sure to check out our much bigger celebration for the ten year anniversary) by reminding lawmakers of what happened and discussing what it could teach them about tech.

Also, in surprising but welcome news, this was the week that President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence.

Ten Years Ago

This is it: the week of the 2012 SOPA/PIPA blackout protest. First, it was announced that Wikipedia was officially on board. Then Google promised to do something big, and the Internet Archive announced plans, as did Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The day before the protest, Lamar Smith and the MPAA brushed it all off as a publicity stunt and Smith announced that markup on SOPA would resume in February.

Then, on Wednesday, it began. Many sites went dark, Google blacked out their logo, and here at Techdirt we focused on covering the events as they unfolded. Although the MPAA was in denial, and being condescending (and one-upped by the RIAA the next day), the effects were clear: Rep. Lee Terry was the first co-sponsor to remove his name from SOPA, then Senator Marco Rubio ditched PIPA followed by several other senators — and when the dust settled, we couldn't help but notice that most of them were Republicans, since Democrats seemed to be dropping the ball. Ultimately, the internet won, and the bills were officially, indefinitely delayed.

But, of course, the week couldn't be all good news. At the very same time as this was all going down, the DOJ unilaterally shut down Megaupload and arrested many of the principles with the help of New Zealand law enforcement. The details of the case raised massive concerns, and the internet was quick to strike back: Anonymous managed to take down the DOJ, RIAA and MPAA websites. The war for internet freedom was far from over...

Fifteen Years Ago

That was a lot of detail on 2012, and this week in 2007 was nowhere near as exciting — but there were two developments that were small and interesting at the time, but in hindsight were pretty big deals. First, DVD rental company Netflix started rolling out a new feature allowing some users to stream a limited selection of movies. Second, we covered the announcement of a curious experiment that aimed to support dissident government employees in oppressive regimes: "a new site called Wikileaks".

1 Comments

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the so-you-say dept

This week, our first place comment on the insightful side comes from our post about Elizabeth Warren cosponsoring a bill to repeal Section 230 — before it was revealed that her name was included in error, and the post was updated. One commenter defended the apparent move as a reasonable way to fight "big tech", and an anonymous commenter responded:

Except 230 reform isn't an effort against Big Tech in a practical sense despite how they see it. It will ultimately weaken the freedoms of individuals. "Big Tech" will be just fine regardless of how the laws get shaped. They can afford to adapt. But the individual doesn't have the budget or the voice at the table to make sure their interests are represented.

In second place, it's Norahc with a comment on our post about National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day:

I'll celebrate Law Enforcement Appreciation Day as soon as cops start treating citizens with respect the other 364 days of the year.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the financialization of music and the evolution of antipiracy messaging:

Remember the early 2000s when you could somehow still make the argument that downloading music hurt the artists, despite how label policies by and large were the ones responsible for how much moneys the artists actually got?

These days the antipiracy campaigns aren't even about the artists anymore; the most publicly extravagant ones already squandered considerable public sympathy. Instead you've got companies playing up the scare factor of malware infections and financially supporting human traffickers... somehow.

Financialization and screwing the actual content creators over has always been the objective since Day 1.

Next, we've got James Burkhardt on our post about Wordle clones, responding to someone with some erroneous ideas about game copyright:

Mechanics are literally one fo the few things you explicitly can't get copyright protection for. its in the law. look it up. 17 USC § 102 There is the text for you. its not long. Look at provision (b).

(b)In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

The script is copyrightable, the characters are copyrightable, the visuals are copyrightable, the music is copyrightable, voice dialog is copyrightable (all subject to other restrictions on copyrightability). The mechanics are not.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Norahc again, this time with a comment about Criss Angel's ridiculous legal threat over a parody:

Not even Criss Angel can make the Streisand Effect disappear.

In second place, it's Richard M with another comment on our National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day post:

WTF?

Reads headline
WTF What site am I on?

Starts to read article
Well that makes more sense

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with wshuff and another comment about Criss Angel:

Maybe he could hire David Blaine to maybe bury the website in a block of ice or something.

Finally, it's Bobvious with an excellent joke on our post about Meta suing a data scraping firm:

It's OK everyone.

They're only scraping Metadata.

That's all for this week, folks!

39 Comments

This Week In Techdirt History: January 9th - 15th

from the what-was dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, ISPs were getting straight to work pushing for elimination of new FCC broadband privacy rules, an FCC report clearly said that AT&T and Verizon were violating net neutrality. At the same time, AT&T was planning to dodge a review of the Time Warner merger, and Verizon was claiming nobody wants unlimited data. We took a look at the effects of Oracle v. Google on copyright litigation, and Backpage officially killed its adult ads section under widespread pressure.

Also, and most notably, this was the week we announced that we had been sued for $15 million by Shiva Ayyadurai.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, the SOPA fight continued. There was some Reddit drama that led to Paul Ryan coming out strongly against the bill, concerned tech experts finally got a chance to talk to congress (but not the Judiciary Committee), the co-chair of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus said SOPA would interfere with online security, and a study showed that news networks owned by SOPA supporters were largely ignoring the subject. Wordpress became the latest big tech company to oppose the bill, then Reddit announced its plan to black out the site for a day — an idea that gained steam with the Cheezburger Network announcing its sites would do the same, and Jimmy Wales saying he favored Wikipedia joining too but wanted the community to decide. As the bill became toxic, Congress started talking about dropping the DNS blocking provisions, which led to some uninspiring promises to "delay" them, and then it started to look like the entire bill would be delayed.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, cable companies were twisting themselves in knots trying to explain how price increases were actually price decreases, the fight over the broadcast flag continued, and the PERFORM Act was back from the dead. A judge in Brazil freaked out about YouTube and ordered ISPs to block it until Google followed a previous order to shut it down, but that judge apparently learned a few things about the internet and rescinded that previous order the next day.

Also, this was the week that the rumor mill was replaced by reality and Steve Jobs officially announced the iPhone in his Macworld keynote address.

1 Comments

There's Still Plenty Of Time To Join The Public Domain Game Jam!

from the gaming-like-it's-1926 dept

Gaming Like It's 1926: The Public Domain Game Jam

This year, for the fourth year in a row, we're celebrating the entry of new works into the public domain with our public domain game jam: Gaming Like It's 1926. We're calling for submissions of games inspired by or making use of material that entered the public domain this year.

We're approaching the halfway point of the jam, so there's still plenty of time to sign up on itch.io and start working on an entry! You don't need to be an experienced game designer to get involved — entries can be as simple as a page of instructions for a roleplaying game or rules that require a normal deck of playing cards. If you want to try your hand at making a digital game, there are easy-to-use tools out there like Story Synth, created by our partner in running these jams, Randy Lubin.

Whatever approach you choose, be sure to read over the full rules on the jam page. And if you want to explore some newly public domain works to find inspiration, check out Duke University's overview and the Public Domain Review's countdown. On that note, while the jam is mostly to encourage the reuse of public domain works from 1926, this year we're also open to earlier sound recordings (stuff from 1922 and earlier) that also just went into the public domain due to the Music Modernization Act. The Internet Archive has made a bunch of those sound recordings available as well.

At the end, we'll be choosing winners in six categories:

• Best Analog Game
• Best Digital Game
• Best adaptation of a 1926 work
• Best remixing of multiple sources (at least one has to be from 1926)
• Best "Deep Cut" (use of a work not listed on any of the roundup articles)
• Best Visuals

And those winners will each get to choose one of our great prizes:

• The Working Futures anthology of speculative fiction
• A deck of Working Futures Cards which you can use in scenario planning
• Our board game CIA: Collect It All (a remake of the public domain CIA training game)
• A Techdirt t-shirt (e.g. Copymouse)
• Digital copies of Behind the Magic and Premise

You can also check out the winners of past jams focusing on works from 1923, 1924 and 1925 for inspiration. When it strikes, join the jam and start working on your game!

1 Comments