Well this is bizarre. Despite doing these "funniest/most insightful" posts for a while, just a month ago we had the first time ever in which the top two vote getters in both "funny" and "insightful" were the same two posts. Then, two weeks ago... it happened again. And here we are and it's happened again. With one slight twist. Those last two times the first place comment was first in both categories, and the second place comment was second in both categories. This week... the two comments flip flopped. So first up, we've got Mesonoxian Eve, whose comment about the DMCA, took first place in most insightful and second place in funniest:

DMCA: Don't Mess with Corporate America.

Then, coming in first place for funniest, but second place for most insightful, was an Anonymous Coward who noticed a typo in my comment that "other countries don't always view freedom of speech as being as central or as important as the US does":

Typo alert:

"other countries don't always view freedom of speech as being as central or as important as the US does"

That should be "Ecuador" and not "the US"

Moving on to editor's choice. We had John Fenderson respond concerning the US betraying its values in the pursuit of Assange. I had noted that some might claim that the US was never really a beacon of human rights, and there were plenty of examples where the US had failed to live up to its stated standards. John, however, pointed out that there was a difference:

This is true. There is a difference in kind, however.

In the past, when the US has failed to live up to its own standards, it was a mistake, a failure. Now, the US has altered the standards we hold ourselves to. We are not living up to the standards of the past, true, but we are living up to our current standards.

This is what is making us lose legitimacy around the world, not mistakes. People understand that mistakes happen, and that when nations fail to uphold their own standards, that doesn't make them bad nations. Having unacceptable standards, however, does.

Good point. Next up, we've got Duke who provided some interesting details concerning the sentencing of Anton Vickerman of SurfTheChannel to four years in jail:

Interestingly, if they had managed to convict him for online copyright infringement (under s107(2A) CDPA), the most he could have got would have been 2 years in prison. So 'facilitating' online copyright infringement = 4 years in prison, whereas online copyright infringement itself = < 2 years.

Conspiracy to defraud is a ridiculous law. The Law Commission attempt to repeal it a few years ago, when English Fraud laws were updated for the 21st (or 20th) century. The Government accepted that the law was bad, but refused to repeal it just in case they wanted to use it later...

And now it is being used by the Hollywood types to ruin people's lives through private prosecutions, where, I guess, they feel that locking someone away for 2 years just isn't enough.

Ok, enough of the serious stuff. What else is funny? How about an Anonymous Coward responding to my explanation for why Google's move to downrank sites that get a lot of DMCA notices won't help and will likely have significant negative costs for Google. The AC did such a good troll satire that someone even "reported" that comment.

Please Masnick, you make it sound like trying to do nothing is better than trying to do something expensive and ineffectual!

I think that may be the RIAA/MPAA motto.

And, finally, we've got another Anonymous Coward responding to Nathan Myhrvold's ridiculous claim that because he's trying to zap mosquitoes to stop Malaria, no other tech company can criticize his patent trolling. Specifically, he called out other companies by saying, "Is Zynga doing God's work? Is Facebook doing God's work?" To which this AC responded:

Some might say the mosquitoes are God's work.

I think the AC won that round... Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow with lots of new posts, but in the meantime, don't forget to check out the new Techdirt Insider Shop!