Capitalist Lion Tamer's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

Techdirt

from the don't-mess-with-the-lion-tamer dept

The Capitalist Lion Tamer has only been commenting on Techdirt for a short while, but he’s quickly jumped to the top of many people’s “favorites” lists, and regularly has his own comments score highly on both the insightful and funny scales. We figured why not set him loose on doing his own favorites of the week post, and it appears he delivered the goods.

Gather round, my kool-aid drinking, freetard brethren. It was quite the week at Techdirt. Posts flew nearly as fast as the comments, but nothing could ever keep up with the hectic pace set by a piece detailing (yet) another governmental overreach, via ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. An actual lawyer broke down the unconstituitonality of the domain name seizures which, like any Masnick-supported statement, was soon overrun by ACs, drawn like trolls to a flame.

This would not be the first time the trolls had defended an indefensible position, however. (See also: Techdirt posts “Water is Wet” and “Hitler is Evil,” the latter of which resulted in the internet’s first ever “Preemptive Godwin.” There was considerably more discussion on Mike’s post “Pain Don’t Hurt,” which many felt was more of an opinion rather than an actual fact.)

Otherwise, it was business as usual. Close-minded businesses, as usual, held their race to the top of the “Least Popular” charts. Internet hero Twitter led the charge, having apparently decided now that it was big (Charlie Sheen big!), it was no longer “Jenny from the block,” and began stomping all over the little third-party people who had helped it on its way up. On the plus side, they’ve been given free rein to start cranking out 140-character lies in 2031.

AT&T got in on the action as well, having decided that not enough people thought of them as evil and greedy, announcing that their brand of unlimited internet would become surprisingly limited. Exhibit A in their defense was the rhetorical 2% of users who might actually hit the 150GB cap. When the other 98% see their bills escalating, we’ll hear more about this.

These words are barely out of AT&T’s mouth when BT stepped up and stated: “It’s the infrastructure, stupid,” doffing their broadband caps and stating everything’s cool because of their earlier network investment.

Elsewhere, one of our favorite industries, the one in charge of all music ever, is still reeling from the aftershocks of 8-track duplication. Their Rasputin-like ability to shrug of industry killer after industry killer is impressive, considering this dates all the way back to the day when blank sheet music first hit the market. There is some speculation that killing the music industry may actually have to involve real killing. (Note: I am absolutely not advocating the killing of music industry figures, but start with Bon Jovi.)

The same thing appears to be true of the movie industry, whose new champion, Chris Dodd, has promised to usher in a “new era of ignorance” (not an actual quote, trolls). His opening statement seems to set the agenda, equating infringement with looting. Phew! Now I can finally go back to jacking television sets without fear of reprisal. Worst case scenario: they shut down my hosting, in which case I’ll have to go live in the storage shed with all my infringed-upon stereos, TVs and DVD players.

But Dodd won’t be able to rest on his $1.5 million worth of laurels quite yet as his industry’s love of staggered release windows (and hatred of their potential customers) has just been dealt an extremely low-tech blow from a startup called Zediva. Their plan? Harness the power of hundreds of single DVD players, each remotely controlled by a user on the other end of the internet. Take that, gatekeepers! And technology in general! And say goodbye to rental staggering, region restrictions and PPV limitations. (For now. Oh, and they’re already full up.)

The New York Times finally finishes its threatened paywall. Fortunately, they’re way ahead of the game, having spent $40 million for the opportunity to lose even more money. The grand experiment in WTF-ness ups the WTF-ness by debuting in Canada.

Our government, not wanting to seem more popular than the industries they were protecting, made plenty of godawful moves of their own. First and foremost was yet another depressing development in the Bradley Manning case. State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley agreed with 99% of everyone not currently in the White House, calling Manning’s confinement and treatment “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” Shortly thereafter, he was asked to clean out his office, starting with that pesky conscience of his.

With conscience safely removed, the military found itself ready to move about the social networks, swelling its ranks with trollish sock puppets. But don’t worry, they only want to target “foreigners.” A quick scan of Youtube comment threads shows the operation is well underway.

At long last, Techdirt gets its first topless shot, thanks to some more TSA “business as usual.” Careful with that link, though. I know you’re saying, “I want to get there before there’s a line!” but it may not be what you’re expecting. Plus, someone wrote all over it.

IP Czar Victoria Espinel expressed concern that the overreaching laws don’t overreach enough, expanding their coverage area to include such easily abused vagaries as “organized criminal enterprises/gangs,” “wiretap authority for copyright/trademark offenses” and the ever popular “infringement by streaming,” the last of which is sure to finally kill off the “IP Freely” joke.

Of course, private citizens hate leaving all of the vindictively ignorant action to big businesses and big government. Case in point: a mother sues her daughter’s preschool for failing to make her child into Harvard material. Harvard admissions responded by stating, “She’s four years old. Good lord. Have a little perspective. Try Brown.”

Speaking of private citizens, here’s what your fellow citizens think of your public cell phone usage. From the “It’s All in the Way You Ask the Question” department, a recent study found that 9 out 10 cell phone users think other cell phone users are inconsiderate clods. Unrelated: 9 out 10 people who actually still go to the theater all silently hated on the guy who took a call during a pivotal second act scene. The tenth person was unavailable for comment as he was still in mid-phone call.

Well, I apologize in arrears for the length of this post. Now that I’ve made the front page, I should probably open up my wallet and spring for one of those popular “Redskins Insider” badges people keep talking/suing about.