Danny 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (265) comment rss

  • On the post: Organization That Plagiarized Guide On Making Science Posters Has Pricey Lawyer Threaten Original Creator With Copyright Claim

    Danny ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2013 @ 12:16pm

    Re: Re: Anti-copying verbiage

    Colin, I suggest clearly differentiating the violation of copyright from the violation of plagiarism. As I am sure you know, they are not the same thing; and you also know that an academic is much more worried about being caught plagiarizing than violating copyright.

    Regarding copyright: of course you have registered your copyright by now; if not, do so. As you already do, encourage people to link back to your site. As you probably know, there is no single clear cut test for fair use. What you might do (though it would have zero ti limited validity if ever tested in court) is lay out what you consider fair use to be for your document in the context of a website. Perhaps then, most would follow your guidelines and for those who do not, you would have a clear fallback position to guide them to make things right. A position that is less than your current absolutist position. You might also consider offering to license use of the document for a reasonable fee. Doing so, while it will never raise you significant revenue, will help establish a value should your copyright be violated--though asking price does not automatically constitute real market value. And it will make the free linking to option appear more desirable to many sites.

    Regarding plagiarism: I think, in as friendly a way possible, you should make clear that you find non-attributioned borrowing of your work, subsets of your work, and closely paraphrased versions of your work unacceptable. And you should clearly state you will pursue plagiarism cases against individuals and institutions who plagiarize this work.

    I think that will provoke much more notice among your academic audience than either the current or a revised copyright notice will.

    ASIDE: After I saw your story on Facebook last week, I recommended to a conference I am close to that we link to your site as I think your poster advice is great--and we have many grad student first time presenters who are not at all clear on how to organize or present a poster. Email me if you care to track who this is.

  • On the post: Organization That Plagiarized Guide On Making Science Posters Has Pricey Lawyer Threaten Original Creator With Copyright Claim

    Danny ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2013 @ 12:00pm

    Re: Re: You keep mistaking what sue-crazy lawyers do with copyright.

    At this point those lawyers are not going to sue. They are probably having a talk with their clients about that clear WayBack Machine proof that the article existed long before 2005 on Colin's site and the risks they take on for themselves by suing.

    All they got for their dollars to the law firm was a nasty legalgram that apparently both pissed off and scared Colin. They have got to be playing defense now.

    And the Purdue University General Counsel's Office can't be very pleased either.

    If Colin's lawyer sends a nastygram to both the Center AND to Purdue, I bet the Center backs down (without admitting guilt most likely), and says, in effect, no harm, no foul. At that point Colin needs to ask to be made whole for the expenses he has taken on in return for not going after them (assuming he previous,y registered his copyright and has good chance of collecting statutory damages, as the real financial damage is minimal.)

    IMHO (i am not a lawyer.)

  • On the post: Latest Congressional Attempt To 'Fix' Mobile Phone Unlocking Just Punts The Issue Until Later

    Danny ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2013 @ 08:20am

    Tim Tebow is available

    Where I come from, if your team is always punting, it is time to get a new quarterback.

  • On the post: One Of The Funniest S#*$r B$@l Ads You'll See This Year Makes Fun Of NFL Trademarks

    Danny ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2013 @ 09:11am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Griffith movie was "A Face in the Crowd" (1957) in which he played a disillusioned drifter (according to Wikipedia). I might have used the word grifter.

    In not this in a follow on comment as multi-tasking sucks on my iPad. I'd have lost my comment draft had I tried. Which, I guess is indirectly a testimonial for the Galaxy Pad--the object behind this whole [redacted by editor] commercial post.

    /not that Mike ever really redacts anything.

  • On the post: One Of The Funniest S#*$r B$@l Ads You'll See This Year Makes Fun Of NFL Trademarks

    Danny ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2013 @ 09:03am

    Re: Re:

    Very true.

    If you ever wondered what a young Andy Griffith did to merit having a TV show named for him, this is one of two things that made him famous (the other was a dark movie role of a smooth southern con man in the big city).

    The routine is every bit as good as George Carlin's comparison of football to baseball.

  • On the post: One Of The Funniest S#*$r B$@l Ads You'll See This Year Makes Fun Of NFL Trademarks

    Danny ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2013 @ 09:03am

    Re: Re:

    Very true.

    If you ever wondered what a young Andy Griffith did to merit having a TV show named for him, this is one of two things that made him famous (the other was a dark movie role of a smooth southern con man in the big city).

    The routine is every bit as good as George Carlin's comparison of football to baseball.

  • On the post: iNanny: Apple Takes Down Popular Photo Apps Because They Made Searching For Nude Photos 'Too Easy'

    Danny ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2013 @ 08:01am

    "I know it when I see it"

    Specific legal meaning:

    "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description "hard-core pornography"; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.""
    ?Justice Potter Stewart,?concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers.
    [cut and pasted from Wikipedia, emphasis added]

    So, if the definition of pornography is "I know it when I see it", then Apple's App Store decisions are always tautologically consistent. Q.E.D.

  • On the post: Electronic Versions Of Textbooks Spy On Students As They Read Them

    Danny ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2012 @ 11:54am

    As someone who actually teaches with this technology

    I teach all levels of college. We don't have smart ebooks as described here, but we do have capabilities in our learning management system (Desire2Learn) to do much of what is suggested by Glyn's post. It contains a plagiarism detection system, and--if I am careful in how I embed reading assignments directly into D2L content, I can get a report of how long the student was engaged with the content (though I don't know how focused they were during that engagements period--a student who knows this meter is there and wants to game the system can do so.)

    The issue is not whether or not to build these tools; rather the issue is how we use these tools to enhance education. Most of us agree that tools should not be prohibited simply because they can be misused--as almost any tool can be misused. Rather, policy, ethics, and teacher education should suggest constructive use of tools to enhance education.

  • On the post: Obama's Tech Team Was Firing On All Cylinders While Romney's Was Still In Beta

    Danny ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2012 @ 01:44pm

    Isnt it ironic, dontcha think?

    I find it ironic that one of Romney's principal selling points was that he was a world class business manager, while Obama had been only a /sneer/ community organizer.

  • On the post: Old Regulations Strike Again: Minnesota Says It's Against The Law To Offer Open Courseware Class Without Approval

    Danny ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 09:14pm

    Re: Re: Did Coursera really have to comply?

    Cant see how the commerce clause is relevant. If they aren't charging money, then this is clearly a first mend meant issue. The state cannot make law that would limit academic speech. Academic speech is not only protected speech, it is very speech that merits extra consideration for protection (as does political speech). IMHO.

    Lack of protection of academic speech creates a slippery slope toward the government declaring which knowledge is legitimate, and which is forbidden to teach. It would be like living in Galileo's Rome, or in Rick Perry's Texas. And I don't think we want anything like either in today's America.

  • On the post: Come Celebrate 15 Years Of Techdirt (And 50,000 Posts)!

    Danny ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2012 @ 06:29am

    Re: Re: Re: I've got to ask

    My comment as well: it has got to be in the one million range.

  • On the post: NYPD Spent Years Spying On Muslims, Generated Exactly Zero Leads

    Danny ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2012 @ 06:09pm

    I have a dream

    Someday, if you will allow me to dream, we will have a black president or a black attorney general and this pointless race profiling will stop.

  • On the post: It's An Olympics Tradition: How Difficult Can NBC Universal Make It To Enjoy The Olympics?

    Danny ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2012 @ 09:51pm

    Thank you NBC

    i suggested to my wife over lunch today that we turn on the opening ceremonies. Found they weren't there and not scheduled until 6:30pm in Chicago. We had 7pm dinner plans at home (a guest came over), so we recorded them and watched at 10 when our guest left.

    It was great. Since it isn't live anyway, it really doesn't matter if we watch it when it airs, or a little bi later. We were able to kip all th commercials and see about two hours of show in 90 minutes (I wish we'd skipped the rap too).

    My wife is still watching; I had my fill. Anyway, this slight personal delay worked so well we I'll do it for je rest of the games. So thanks NBC for showing us that not watching live means not watching commercials.

  • On the post: It's An Olympics Tradition: How Difficult Can NBC Universal Make It To Enjoy The Olympics?

    Danny ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2012 @ 09:48pm

    Thank you NBC

    i suggested to my wife over lunch today that we turn on the opening ceremonies. Found they weren't there and not scheduled until 6:30pm in Chicago. We had 7pm dinner plans at home (a guest came over), so we recorded them and watched at 10 when our guest left.

    It was great. Since it isn't live anyway, it really doesn't matter if we watch it when it airs, or a little bi later. We were able to kip all th commercials and see about two hours of show in 90 minutes (I wish we'd skipped the rap too).

    My wife is still watching; I had my fill. Anyway, this slight personal delay worked so well we I'll do it for je rest of the games. So thanks NBC for showing us that not watching live means not watching commercials.

  • On the post: Funnyjunk Lawyer Being Mocked Mercilessly, Makes Things Worse By Trying To Shut Down The Oatmeal's Fundraiser

    Danny ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2012 @ 10:08am

    Vultures, all of 'em

    Anyone notice how funny it is that a lawyer is named Carreon?

  • On the post: How Toy Story 2 Almost Got Deleted… Except That One Person Made A Home Backup

    Danny ( profile ), 18 May, 2012 @ 10:49am

    I've gotta story like this too

    Ive posted in athe past on Techdirt that I used to work for Ticketmaster. The is an interesting TM story that I don't think ever made it into the public, so I will do it now.

    Back in the 1980s each TM city was on an independent computer system (PDP unibus systems with RM05 or CDC9766 disk drives. The drives were fixed removable boxes about the size of a washing machine, the removable disk platters about the size of the proverbial breadbox. Each platter held 256mb formatted.

    Each city had itts own operations policies, but generally, the systems ran with mirrored drives, the database was backed up every night, archival copies were made monthly. In Chicago, where I worked, we did not have offsite backup in the 1980s. The Bay Area had the most interesting system for offsite backup.

    The Bay Area BASS operation, bought by TM in the mid 1980s, had a deal with a taxi driver. They would make their nightly backup copies in house, and make an extra copy on a spare disk platter. Tis cabbie would come by the office about 2am each morning, and they'd put the spare disk platter in his trunk, swapping it for the previous day's copy that had been his truck for 24 hours. So, for the cost of about two platters ($700 at the time) and whatever cash they'd pay the cabbie, they had a mobile offsite copy of their database circulating the Bay Area at all times.

    When the World Series earthquake hit in October 1988, the TM office in downtown Oakland was badly damaged. The only copy of the database that survived was the copy in the taxi cab.

    That incident led TM corporate to establish much more sophisticated and redundant data redundancy policies.

  • On the post: Citizen Video Evidence Helps Two Arrested Photographers Have Their Cases Dropped

    Danny ( profile ), 18 May, 2012 @ 10:27am

    Re: exactly = where are the countersuits?

    At some point in the future when one of these officers is testifying at an unrelated case, the defense attorney will show this to the jury to demonstrate that the officer is willing to lie under oath, and therefore should not be believed in the case at hand.

    Someone else will get off, but if it happens often enough perhaps the police departments will self police a bit better.

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Danny ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 12:16pm

    What should happen

    Google's lobbyists should meet with the MPAA and say, "you can make whatever deal you want with us, but that will do squat to stop the teaming masses from mounting their own movement.". They should repeat that mantra over and over and over, and then make the best deal they can.

    It'll be fun.

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Danny ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 12:16pm

    What should happen

    Google's lobbyists should meet with the MPAA and say, "you can make whatever deal you want with us, but that will do squat to stop the teaming masses from mounting their own movement.". They should repeat that mantra over and over and over, and then make the best deal they can.

    It'll be fun.

  • On the post: File Sharing Drones Proof Of Concept Already Built

    Danny ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 07:33am

    Two thoughts

    1. Prior art. So unless that patent application is already filed, no one should be able to wn this idea.

    2. I'd trademark the name Misquito for this project.

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