RonKaminsky 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: FBI And United Airlines Shoot The Messenger After Security Researcher Discovers Vulnerabilities In Airplane Computer System

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2015 @ 12:10pm

    Why not?

    You don't make those kinds of jokes in that kind of situation

    One wonders what the justification for repressing this type of joke actually is. The widespread belief is that the situation is similar to the classic "yelling 'Fire' in a crowded theater", i.e., the danger which is averted by suppressing these jokes is the danger of having the passengers panic.

    Do you actually believe that there was any likelihood whatsoever of this esoteric tweet, in and of itself, causing panic on a flight? Anyone knowledgeable enough to understand the tweet is unlikely to panic. And the particular "threat" in the tweet would seem to be "I can cause the oxygen masks to deploy", which doesn't seen to be very dangerous by itself.

  • On the post: FBI And United Airlines Shoot The Messenger After Security Researcher Discovers Vulnerabilities In Airplane Computer System

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2015 @ 11:15am

    Re:

    Oh, I see it now, it's just like the aliens who are among us to study us being discrete so we all don't panic...

    Yeah, sure...

  • On the post: YouTuber Angry Joe Swears Off Nintendo Videos After The Company Claimed His Mario Party 10 Take

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2015 @ 09:42am

    Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...

    Was that a stealth "Ninjas vs. Pirates" joke?

  • On the post: Elsevier Appears To Be Slurping Up Open Access Research, And Charging People To Access It

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2015 @ 12:31pm

    Who will step up to be the next Aaron Swartz?

    so someone needs to mirror all of the CC content and make sure a free repository for it continues to exist
    Actually, your previous sarcastic post is very on-topic, here. It should be perfectly legal for someone at an academic institution which pays Elsevier's blackmail money for this journal to run an automated process which downloads the articles of the journal (which were published by Wiley under a CC license) and puts them up for free on a competing website.

    This whole thing smells of complicity between academic publishers to try to undermine the open access trend via "journal swapping". Or maybe... "journal evergreening"?

  • On the post: Reminder: Fair Use Is A Right — And Not 'An Exception' Or 'A Defense'

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2015 @ 12:08pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Probably not a "right" in the US (but should be!)

    Similarly, you have the right to the fair use of copyrighted materials. You can fairly use copyrighted materials all you like. That's the point of your fair use rights.
    How does this jive with the legality of DRM and the DMCA? Seems to me that either DRM would be illegal as violating my fair use "rights", or fair use isn't really a right.

    Or is my fair use right the right to use the copyrighted material even if for all practical purposes it is impossible for me to do so --- kind of like Eldred where indefinite extension, even if it for all practical purposes contradicts "for a limited time", since it doesn't literally then it's OK?

    Personally I like actual rights, not fictions thereof.

  • On the post: FedEx Refuses To Ship Perfectly Legal Milling Machine (Which Can Also Craft Gun Parts), Can't Provide A Coherent Reason Why

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2015 @ 11:56am

    Re: Re: FedEx has a point.

    doesn't change the nature of that very thing's molecules, or the law.

    My reading of the post you are replying to is that FedEx is not refusing to ship it because it is illegal. This is merely a business decision: FedEx is refusing to ship it in order to reduce its chance it will be sued (or be hurt by negative PR) over a subsequent shooting incident.

    If the other AC is correct, however, that FedEx has no problem with shipping actual firearms and ammunition, then this looks like a really strange business decision...

  • On the post: Reminder: Fair Use Is A Right — And Not 'An Exception' Or 'A Defense'

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2015 @ 01:39pm

    Re: Re: Probably not a "right" in the US (but should be!)

    I admit that I'm not intelligent enough to understand your comment without additional explanation.

    But I am curious.

  • On the post: Reminder: Fair Use Is A Right — And Not 'An Exception' Or 'A Defense'

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2015 @ 01:30pm

    Re: Re: Probably not a "right" in the US (but should be!)

    The duty associated with the fair use right would, like the duty to not trespass, be the duty to not sue, seek injunctions, or demand payment or takedown of any work that falls under fair use.
    The sticker in this is "that falls under fair use". Since copyright law did not deign to explictly define what uses are "fair use", only a court can decide that, in which case either the copyright holder is being denied "due process" since he is effectively denied the possibility of taking the actions you have listed, or the "right" of fair use has been effectively castrated.

  • On the post: Apparently The Best Way To Decrease Movie Piracy Is To Get Rid Of The Oscars

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2015 @ 12:26pm

    Re: Re:

    Changing copyright law such that all downloading was authorized would also accomplish this...

  • On the post: Reminder: Fair Use Is A Right — And Not 'An Exception' Or 'A Defense'

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2015 @ 01:03pm

    Probably not a "right" in the US (but should be!)

    It stinks that I have to agree with antidirt on this one, but according to the most widely used definition of "right", fair use probably doesn't qualify as a right in the US.

    The only countries I know of where courts have ruled that some aspects of fair use are rights are Canada and Israel.

  • On the post: Is Arduino Heading Towards The First Open Hardware Fork?

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2015 @ 12:29pm

    Re:

    Right... from Intel, Bosch, and Panasonic... we certainly can trust them to both not actively cooperate with national intelligence agencies, and be competent to defend themselves against active attack by said agencies (like Sony!)...

    Did that 16 kg. of meth somehow make its way to you?

  • On the post: Russia Reaches The Censorship Endgame: Banning VPNs, Tor And Web Proxies

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2015 @ 12:37pm

    Re: Re: Net community reaches censorship endgame

    Found it: https://telex.cc/

  • On the post: Russia Reaches The Censorship Endgame: Banning VPNs, Tor And Web Proxies

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2015 @ 10:13am

    Re: Net community reaches censorship endgame

    Last time I checked, the Freenet protocol wasn't disguised. I see no reason it couldn't be blocked just as easily as VPNs. To get around this kind of censorship, you need something like a proxy which accepts HTTPS which is just disguised VPN traffic. I remember reading sometime in the last few years about a different protocol which used the HTTPS headers somehow to enable a kind of transparent redirection, but I cannot find it now.

    Eventually if that falls through, there's always steganography. But the data rate for that sucks.

  • On the post: Blurred Lines Copyright Lawsuit Gets Funky As Judge Delves Into The Blurred Lines Of What's Really Copyrighted

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2015 @ 11:13am

    To paraphrase a troll

    Copyright maximimalists hate it when non-maximialist copyright law is enforced.

  • On the post: YouTubers Got To Interview The President Because They're More Legitimate Than Traditional News

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2015 @ 01:27pm

    Re: One missing point

    I'll have to add myself in as old and distrusting, but I have to also add that in this new day and age, I have the constant fear that as my own information source curator, I will eventually get stuck in a self-made bubble world.

    I suppose that's better than being stuck in an externally imposed bubble world, though.

  • On the post: The MPAA Isn't About Helping Hollywood. It's About Preserving Its Own Need To Exist.

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2015 @ 05:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The product that is being stolen, the movies that are produced by Hollywood, is the exact same one that is in theaters.
    Well, you've just shown that business savvy isn't exactly your strong point. Time and time again, I've witnessed arguments on the net concerning the "cinema experience" vs. the "personal viewing experience".

    IHBT&IAFFT

  • On the post: European Space Scientists Unwilling To Release High-Quality Images From Publicly-Funded Rosetta Mission

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2015 @ 05:39am

    Re:

    I also have to jump on the "disappointed by Techdirt using exaggerated headline" bandwagon.

    OTOH, if the headline had been true, one could only conjecture that the reason was that European privacy laws were to blame, which of course would mean those photos were chock full of ETs. /sarc

  • On the post: Free Our Paywalled Court Documents: The Aaron Swartz Memorial PACER Cup Contest Announced

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2015 @ 12:25pm

    Re: Re: Has anyone tried this?

    longish queue

    I uploaded http://ia601404.us.archive.org/17/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.273913/gov.uscourts.nysd.273913.1035.1.pdf

    and the other exhibits ...[1-8].pdf

    many months ago, but RECAP doesn't show them...

    Somehow I don't believe you meant that long a queue.

  • On the post: New Zealand Supreme Court Says Raid On Dotcom's Home Legal Enough To Get A Pass

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 25 Dec, 2014 @ 09:18am

    Re: Re: Um, what?

    The Ghost of Injustice Past, I rather think...

  • On the post: EU Parliament Wants To Break Up Google… Because It's Big & American Or Something

    RonKaminsky ( profile ), 22 Nov, 2014 @ 12:21pm

    Not obvious

    Google's power of delisting is strong only against someone with competition/replacements which haven't also been delisted. In any other case, delisting only drives users to other alternatives.

    So no, delisting all EU sites probably wouldn't exactly do what you think it would do. Besides, what is an "EU site"? A site from a company based in the EU? A site hosted on a server in the EU?

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