Brian Schroth 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 12:36pm

    Re: Re:

    That seems like a fairly insignificant distinction. These sites seem like clear copyright infringement. You can't expect them to agree to take the offer, and thus legitimize the services. If I offer you money for something and you refuse, that doesn't mean I can just take that thing anyway, and it's now your fault because you refused my offer. Obviously the music is not a tangible item, but the point still holds. The actual artists, or the leeches that represent them, are not paid by these websites, so it's not going to matter if this action causes some people to switch from a source of music where they pay someone else to a source of music where they don't pay anyone. In both cases, the artists/leeches who represent them are not getting paid.

  • On the post: UK Publishers: Fair Use Would Put A 'Chokehold On Innovation'

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 11:21am

    Guys named Bob across the whole sector emphasize the importance of taxing everyone not named Bob and giving the proceeds to guys named Bob in driving innovation and delivering growth.

  • On the post: IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 10:02am

    Re: Re:

    So it shows something that is true for every product that exists. Is that supposed to be useful information? If you lower the price on a product, more people will be willing to buy it. This does nothing to show that lowering the price would actually be more profitable, as the seller must consider profit-per-item as well as volume.

  • On the post: IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 10:00am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I haven't seen a single person here say that it is OK, so you appear to be tilting at windmills here.

  • On the post: IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 09:59am

    Re: Re:

    Apparently only you have the poor reading comprehension necessary to mistake this article for "standing up for companies that pirate".

  • On the post: IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 09:00am

    Isn't it true that these sites are not paying anything to the actual copyright holders? From the copyright holder's perspective, these sites are actually worse than customers using a "free" alternative. In both cases, their revenue is 0, but if a free alternative is used, at least the customer won't be using up their entertainment budget sending their money to AllOfmp3.com.

  • On the post: New Bill In Connecticut Would Make It Illegal For Police To Stop You From Recording Them

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 05:30am

    Re: Re:

    Given that even if Rodney King had just finished cloning Hitler and raping all the cops' children, the beating shown on the tape would still not have been justified, I'm not sure I understand how that's a "prime example" unless your goal was to show how valuable it is to film cops committing crimes.

  • On the post: Guy Passing Out Pamphlets In Front Of Court Indicted For 'Jury Tampering'

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2011 @ 09:36am

    Re: Re: Crackpot comment

    "Can you imagine jury nullification on traffic tickets?"

    That would be terrific. It would do wonders to cut down on the ridiculous police state we have, where people are robbed by the government for doing things that should be legal.

  • On the post: Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not?

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2011 @ 08:26am

    I hate NASCAR and like NPR/PBS, but this article is ridiculous. The Army isn't "funding" NASCAR. It is buying a product (advertising) from NASCAR.

  • On the post: Photographer Who Took Family Portrait Of Girl Shot In Tucson Suing Media For Using The Photo

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2011 @ 12:50pm

    Re: Normally, I'd support the photographer

    No, from reading his statement, it's clear that now that he has been near-universally criticized for trying to profit from it, he would like everyone to think he was not trying to profit from it.

  • On the post: Police Chief Tells Parents To Hack Kids' Facebook Accounts

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2011 @ 08:42am

    Re: Prove it? Does this count?

    OK, you found one story from March 31, 2008. Can you find 6 more stories, one each from March 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, and 25, 2008? Because that would be good proof for the guy's claim that you could find such a story "any day of the week".

  • On the post: TSA Agents Caught Stealing From Passengers & Helping Subordinates Steal As Well

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2011 @ 06:55am

    Re:

    Yeah, and to prove it to us, he expanded the government even further!

  • On the post: If You're Going To Use Someone's Credit Card Fraudulently, Perhaps Don't Ring Up $800,000 Worth Of Charges

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2011 @ 06:54am

    Remind me not to get a card from American Express. If their anti-fraud department is so incompetent that it takes them several months to notice $800K in fraudulent charges, they are failures.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Add Jeopardy! To The List Of Games That AI Is Better At Than You….

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2011 @ 06:35am

    Re: Add Jeopardy! To The List Of Games That AI Is Better At Than You....

    "Just as the succcess of Deep Blue at Chess didn't transfer well to Go - and Go has been solved (if you can call it that)"

    You can't, if you want to be accurate.

  • On the post: Judge Says Parts Of Washington's Publicity Rights Law Are Unconstitutional

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2011 @ 07:02am

    Without publicity rights, nobody would have any incentive to get publicity, and everyone who depends on publicity would no longer be able to feed their families. But that's something Masnick's crowd of sycophants never even consider. What a bunch of jackwagons.

  • On the post: Evidence Suggests Major Film Studios Uploading Movie Clips To YouTube… Pretending To Be Pirated

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2011 @ 06:52am

    Re: Re: Confused

    When did Donald Rumsfeld get a job working for the MPAA?

  • On the post: Public Citizen & EFF File For Sanctions Against Anti-P2P Lawyer Evan Stone

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2011 @ 06:40am

    Mike, you just liked this article because the motion used the word "blatant".

  • On the post: If Artists Don't Value Copyright On Their Works, Why Do We Force It On Them?

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2011 @ 09:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyrights

    Invoking the Lemon and Miranda is clearly inapposit. The Lemon test is based on the Establishment Clause, which has clearly operative language limiting Congress's power: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Miranda was based on the Self-Incrimination Clause of the 5th Amendment, which also has clear operative language limiting the power of government: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." No such language exists in Art. I, Section 8, Clause 8.

    Furthermore, I studied both Lemon and Miranda in school, and I can tell you that both cases exist on very shaky ground as far as the Constitution is concerned. Therefore, I would not recommend using them analogously to bolster your point.

    Boy, the point just soared over your head on this one. I mentioned Lemon and Miranda strictly to point out that "legal tests" are rarely specified in the Constitution- instead they are determined by judges. So asking what legal test the Constitution specified seemed like a question only someone horribly uneducated on the law would ask.


    Feel free to find other similar clauses in the Constitution that are read this way.

    That's what's so telling about the copyright clause. It's the only clause in the list of legislative powers that includes the reason. In fact, the way the list is written, the plain interpretation is that the first half of the clause is not the "reason" for the power, but the power itself. Meaning Congress has specifically has the power to "Promote the progress of science and useful arts", and then that power is restricted further by specifying that the only way Congress is allowed to use that power of Progress Promotion is to secure exclusive rights for authors/inventors for a limited time.

    No clause has the same exact formulation, but this interpretation goes along similar lines as others: 8.1 gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises..." but then separately restricts that power to require any exercising of that power to be uniform across the country. 8.12 gives Congress the power to "raise and support armies" but then separately restricts that power to only allow money appropriation in terms less than 2 years.

    Interpreting the copyright clause as granting the power to promote progress, with the additional restriction that the only way they are allowed to promote progress is via securing rights for inventors/authors, is a plain reading of the text. If it were not intended as a restriction, it would have been phrased as "to secure for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; in order to promote the progress of science and useful arts."

    As much as I respect J. Breyer, his focus should have been on the "limited Times" language, not the "progress" language.

    Could it not be on both?

    I just thought it might make you drop your haughty "you're just a layman, not a lawyer, so what you're saying is silly" ad hominem if I showed you a Supreme Court Justice who felt the same way.

    Mike was proposing using the Constitution to discriminatatively invalidate the copyrights of certain works based on some flimsy judgment as to whether the copyrights of those particular works promote progress.

    I can't speak for Mike, but I didn't get that impression at all. It sounds to me like he is saying the courts should invalidate certain laws if those laws do not promote progress, as "Promote Progress" is the specific power that congress has, so if a law does not promote progress it is not something Congress is allowed to pass. Not that Congress has ever seemed to care what it's allowed to pass...

  • On the post: Belgian Collection Society SABAM Caught Taking Cash For Made Up Bands It Didn't Represent

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2011 @ 08:48am

    Well, this is much worse than that time they were caught taking cash for made up bands that it did represent.

  • On the post: Recording Industry Persecution Complex: Claiming EMI's Plight Is Due To File Sharing

    Brian Schroth ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2011 @ 12:11pm

    Re:

    It's only confusing to idiots who confuse "recorded music sales" with "the business".

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