Really? In an age when most state lawmakers serve no more than 8 years in office thanks to term limits and/or the desire/vanity to rise to higher office, most lawmakers don't know dick...they just have a source of considerable funds to keep getting themselves elected. The days when the lawmakers themselves were knowledgeable about subjects has come to a close, largely because those lawmakers were either failed attorneys, prosecutors, or campaign aides/lobbyists/staff members before being elected...which means they (and their staff, which they re-hire each time they are elected) now rely on paid spin masters in the form of lobbyists to provide the institutional knowledge that once existed in state houses.
"but apparently their fragile egos can't take people making fun of them online."
It's my experience in dealing with a large number of politicians over the years I've been alive is that the only group of people with more fragile egos than politicians are teen actors...and some of those teen actors are less spoiled and more mature than many politicians I've met.
"What's amazing is that the lawmakers behind this seem oblivious to the concerns about the bill, insisting that anonymous posting can only be used for negative reasons."
I don't find this that amazing at all...it's just an extension of the attitude that tells teachers to teach about the 1st Amendment to the Constitution while a school's administration is allowed to censor the school's newspaper and suspend students for exercising their rights to free speech. Far too many politicians believe that the rules apply to everybody but them.
Perhaps we should start a grassroots campaign to change state election requirements (much easier to do it state by state than to change the US Constitution) to require that in order to be eligible to run for any office above dogcatcher, one must pass a simple test that demonstrates at least some knowledge of the laws which apply to everyone...but who am I kidding in suggesting that? The same idiots who introduce bills like the one in this article would just game the system so they'd be eligible anyway.
"There are days that the actions of the MPAA just make you shake your head and wonder just what goes through the minds of the lawyers running that insane asylum"...
Is it just me, or do these people behave more like mobsters than businessmen? Between the insane price demands they make for sites/businesses/individuals that want to do business with them, which are so outrageous that they make the "negotiations" over contracts look like nothing more than a protection shakedown, to their willingness to sue every individual they can point to for far more money than they should be entitled to (kind of like "cross me and I'll destroy your life"). to the lengthy record of stealing and cheating the very artists they supposedly represent out of the money they've collected on their behalf, they are nothing more than gangsters...what more do they have to do to prove it? Walk around in pinstriped suits carrying submachine guns in violin cases?
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that these sort of content trolls are more dangerous to society than any "unauthorized" use of images? Especially when they do business without (apparently) being able to write coherent sentences in the English language.
I*'ll ask again...how is the behavior displayed by the executives at Universal Music Group any different from a protection shakedown by members of the Mafia? Bob Dylan's lyric that read "steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you the king" has never rung truer.
I was one of the folks who sent this story in to Techdirt last week after noticing a short announcement in the business section of the McClatchy Company's flagship newspaper, the Sacramento Bee. Now, since McClatchy incurred massive debt a few years ago in buying out what remained of the old Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, they've been bleeding money and slashing costs-mostly by cutting content and employees. At the Bee, they've gone from nearly 50 local writers to less than a dozen full-timers, the paper has literally shrunk in both length, width, and number of pages, and there's only 5 or 6 local stories a day (the rest coming from newswire sources). All of these changes have been excused away to their customers as "improvements", although no one is fooled by that. The Bee has independent sales reps inside the doorway of local supermarkets trying to flack their rag, and the things people say to them are pretty right on..."Why would I pay to see a story that I watched last night on TV?", "What happened to your paper...it used to be good?", etc.
My biggest question-how many writers, and how much enhancement, could the Bee alone have benefitted from with the $300,000 that McClatchy is already committed to spending on this fiasco in the making?
I asked the same thing in the comments section of the Bee. In fact, I did so two days in a row, since for some reason the operators of the Bee's website saw fit to delete the long list of negative comments on this story for at least 3 days in a row...
The people in the executive suite at the corner of 21st and P Streets in downtown Sacramento need to go back to the business school they supposedly graduated from and either ask for their money back or re-take a few economics classes.
This would be the same company that not only sold me a phone on a pre-paid wireless plan that had a phone number recycled from someone who had stopped using the number less than a month earlier, but says it's not their fault when the bill collectors, mislead one-night stands, co-workers and relatives of the former number user continue to call my phone and send text messages to him. And no surprise-they refuse to refund the cost of those calls as well, despite the fact that the bill collectors, in particular, call three to four times a month from different locations around the US.
Not only that, but every so often, when I make a payment through my bank account, I'll notice on my next statement from the bank that there's a second $1 charge from Verizon at the same time as my payment, but not only does Verizon not know what the payment was for, they deny that the transaction even took place, even though the account name, routing number and other info is the exact match, according to the bank.
Now while a $1 charge may not seem like much, it strikes me that if they do this on as wide a scale as Verizon is capable of, it generates several millions of dollars every time they do it...all illegal profits.
So this latest announcement doesn't surprise me-but I am wondering when the Justice Department is going to open a RICO investigation against the executives in charge of Verizon, but I forgot-they're too busy denying dying people the right to use medical marijuana.
This kind of behavior is why people think they pay too much in taxes. Between these prosecutors, the NYPD targeting witnesses, the joke that is TSA flight security theater and the everyday threats and harassment that much of the public goes through at the hands of our government wronglers, I've come to the humble opinion that no one should be allowed to work for the government, in either an elected,appointed. or hired job, until they've demonstrated some competence in the modern workplace. Most of these people are simply gang thugs in suits, and wouldn't last a day in a job where they actually had to provide customer service to someone.
Really?
Really? In an age when most state lawmakers serve no more than 8 years in office thanks to term limits and/or the desire/vanity to rise to higher office, most lawmakers don't know dick...they just have a source of considerable funds to keep getting themselves elected. The days when the lawmakers themselves were knowledgeable about subjects has come to a close, largely because those lawmakers were either failed attorneys, prosecutors, or campaign aides/lobbyists/staff members before being elected...which means they (and their staff, which they re-hire each time they are elected) now rely on paid spin masters in the form of lobbyists to provide the institutional knowledge that once existed in state houses.
"but apparently their fragile egos can't take people making fun of them online."
It's my experience in dealing with a large number of politicians over the years I've been alive is that the only group of people with more fragile egos than politicians are teen actors...and some of those teen actors are less spoiled and more mature than many politicians I've met.
"What's amazing is that the lawmakers behind this seem oblivious to the concerns about the bill, insisting that anonymous posting can only be used for negative reasons."
I don't find this that amazing at all...it's just an extension of the attitude that tells teachers to teach about the 1st Amendment to the Constitution while a school's administration is allowed to censor the school's newspaper and suspend students for exercising their rights to free speech. Far too many politicians believe that the rules apply to everybody but them.
Perhaps we should start a grassroots campaign to change state election requirements (much easier to do it state by state than to change the US Constitution) to require that in order to be eligible to run for any office above dogcatcher, one must pass a simple test that demonstrates at least some knowledge of the laws which apply to everyone...but who am I kidding in suggesting that? The same idiots who introduce bills like the one in this article would just game the system so they'd be eligible anyway.
Running the Insane Asylum
Is it just me, or do these people behave more like mobsters than businessmen? Between the insane price demands they make for sites/businesses/individuals that want to do business with them, which are so outrageous that they make the "negotiations" over contracts look like nothing more than a protection shakedown, to their willingness to sue every individual they can point to for far more money than they should be entitled to (kind of like "cross me and I'll destroy your life"). to the lengthy record of stealing and cheating the very artists they supposedly represent out of the money they've collected on their behalf, they are nothing more than gangsters...what more do they have to do to prove it? Walk around in pinstriped suits carrying submachine guns in violin cases?
Re:
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it".
Content Trolls
Universal's Behavior
They're completely clueless (as Mr. Bad Example)
My biggest question-how many writers, and how much enhancement, could the Bee alone have benefitted from with the $300,000 that McClatchy is already committed to spending on this fiasco in the making?
I asked the same thing in the comments section of the Bee. In fact, I did so two days in a row, since for some reason the operators of the Bee's website saw fit to delete the long list of negative comments on this story for at least 3 days in a row...
The people in the executive suite at the corner of 21st and P Streets in downtown Sacramento need to go back to the business school they supposedly graduated from and either ask for their money back or re-take a few economics classes.
Shysters
Not only that, but every so often, when I make a payment through my bank account, I'll notice on my next statement from the bank that there's a second $1 charge from Verizon at the same time as my payment, but not only does Verizon not know what the payment was for, they deny that the transaction even took place, even though the account name, routing number and other info is the exact match, according to the bank.
Now while a $1 charge may not seem like much, it strikes me that if they do this on as wide a scale as Verizon is capable of, it generates several millions of dollars every time they do it...all illegal profits.
So this latest announcement doesn't surprise me-but I am wondering when the Justice Department is going to open a RICO investigation against the executives in charge of Verizon, but I forgot-they're too busy denying dying people the right to use medical marijuana.
The Fascistas (as Mr Bad Example)
Re: So how heavily armed was the suspect? (as Mr. Bad Example)
Actually, it probably had something to do with childhood trauma on their part...
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