Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the for-the-long-weekened dept

Close race this week, but coming out on top for “most insightful” was a comment from The Buzz Saw in response to Disney’s Anthony Accardo whining that the tech industry hasn’t propped up legacy businesses that are slow to adapt to a changing market. TBS points out that since Accardo is only focused on “protecting” rather than innovation, you would get results that simply piss people off (something the entertainment industry does all too often):

Innovation to enforce copyright, eh?

I’m curious. As a software engineer myself, exactly how is the tech community to come up with an algorithmic (excuse me… “innovative”) mechanism to detect a license/copyright? For one thing, the “tech community” has been trying that for years. DRM anyone?

I make it a point to sell my talent, not my output. My output can be copied and reused eternally, and that is a desirable trait! My ability to create such useful output is obviously a scarce good, and I find myself able to sell it accordingly. 🙂

The reason the “tech community” (such a ridiculous generalization of a term) refuses to support Big Content in its endeavor to lock down content is that the end result would be a ridiculous sense of entitlement.

If Big Content had its way…

A TV would refuse to function, because it detects too many viewers.

A camera would not shoot, because it would sense a “no cameras” signal in the area.

An application would fail to launch, because the keyboard detected fingerprints other than those of the original licensee.

A Blu-ray would not start, because it senses you exceeded its viewing quota, and you need to go buy the movie again.

A song would not play, because the attached speakers are too awesome, and you are not licensed to hear so much bass.

A book would erase its words, because its GPS would detect that it is being read in a country where the book is not released yet.

Yeah, I am very comfortable over here NOT on your side, Big Content

Coming in a close second is this excellent rant by Jeni in response to someone who tried to make the latest domain seizures an issue of “conservatives” vs. “liberals”:

Oh for the love of pete here we go … With all due respect considered, I can’t keep my lips zipped this time ’round but before I unload just please do note that I respect your right to feel that way and state as such; however, I will now take my right to express a resounding “BUT”.

Every discussion has someone who just HAS to start in on this crap i.e., “Conservative vs. Liberal”, “Bush vs. Obummer” – when the heck are we going to LET IT GO and understand this is no longer about party politics?

All you accomplish when you start that rant is more division amongst what would otherwise be people who by and large agree on something far, FAR bigger than party politics – OUR COLLECTIVE FREEDOM.

Can we ever let go of all that petty nonsense and pull together to focus on the larger picture? The fact is, the current administration and the previous – one on each side of the “fence” – continue to trample on our freedoms. That should be the main concern. Personally, it’s my opinion the current uber liberal/progressive admin is far, FAR worse but both are at fault.

IMHO, it has now come down to We, the People vs. Tyrannical Government, period. And tyranny is just another form of terrorism.

Off soapbox…

Very happy this one got voted insightful. It’s not about party politics, and anyone who tries to make it about party politics is selling something you don’t want to buy.

Moving on to editor’s choice, I’m going with just one this week, from someone using the name Security Theater, in response to the claim from the Justice Department that all flights out of Texas might have to be cancelled if the TSA can’t grope people, because “…. Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.” As ST points out, this is an impossible standard:

Wait … wouldn’t that imply that they have to cancel all flights immediately? They already cannot ensure the safety of passengers and crew, because all the TSA currently does is pretend they make flights more secure, while consuming lots of tax dollars.

While the “insightful” side may have been a tight race, the winner for “funny” was no contest. In response to the post about how the ACLU and EFF are seeking to find out what companies rolled over and just handed info over to the government without alerting users in its investigation of Wikileaks, ts posited… and then disqualified one candidate:

Was it Sony?

Oh wait, Sony doesn’t give out customer info.. they just let people come in and take what they want.

That probably does rule them out. Coming in second was PrometheeFeu, responding to the news that Adele’s ex-boyfriend was demanding royalties for being the inspiration for all her songs about having a terrible boyfriend and their ensuing breakup. It’s all about incentives, you see:

But if the boyfriend isn’t given his fair share, what incentive will he have to be a jerk to his girlfriends in the future? Do you really want women to be happy Mike? That’s despicable of you.

For editor’s choice, I’ll go with three funny ones (to make up for the only one extra insightful post — it’s a long weekend, might as well go out on more funny). First up, is Raphael’s response to the Senate Judiciary Committee approving PROTECT IP:

This comment does not exist.

I think this bill is [content filtered for national security reasons]. I also think that [content filtered for trademark reasons] is [content filtered for possible defamation reasons] and [content filtered for possible defamation reasons].

Basically, what I mean is that if we don’t [content filtered for national security reasons] we’ll end up [content filtered for national security reasons] unless we immediately start [content filtered for national security reasons] with the services provided by [content filtered for copyright reasons]

Next up is an Anonymous Coward trying to answer my question about why Congress had to literally (physically) fly the PATRIOT Act extension to Europe for Obama to sign, rather than sending it digitally.

But if they make a digital version than pirates can get it.

And, finally, we’ve got Gwiz‘s response to the news that Roger Ebert’s projectionist, whose name is James Bond, is annoyed by the requirements from Sony to get passwords to change lenses on new digital projectors. Gwiz thought that if you’re going to go by the name James Bond, you should live up to the expectations set by your name:

Well, one would think that a projectionist named James Bond would already have the security clearance to open the projector. Or at least the skills to bypass them with a laser disguised as a pen and a watch with a super powerful magnet.

But, then again, who wants to watch a movie that is shaken, not stirred?

Tomorrow’s a holiday for those of us in the US, so things will be quiet around here… so go enjoy the (hopefully) nice weather outside for a bit.