Chris O'Donnell's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Hi there. I’m Chris O’Donnell and I’ve been reading Techdirt since the very early days, maybe even as far back as the last millennium. My favorite posts this week all share a theme, they are examples of people being dumb, people thinking we are dumb, and companies making dumb decisions that are counter to their financial interests.
Since companies are now people, we can start with this example of Swedish rights holders shutting down a fan run translation site. Instead of recognizing that fans are adding value to their products, for free, the rights holders made their work less accessible to non-native speakers by shutting down the fan site. Then they doubled down on the bad will by getting the police to react with necessary force.
No post about dumb would be complete without the RIAA. However, in this case the dumb actually falls more on Pandora, who are still struggling to get out from under their dumb decision in 2009 to accept ridiculously high royalty rates that only applied to them. The post also features a conservative think tank and an analyst claiming that a market where prices are set by a 3 judge panel is a free market. Combine all that with the the RIAA being involved and its almost too much dumb in one place.
How could a copyright claim involving a large gorilla statue that sort of looks like Freddie Mercury (deceased lead singer of Queen) be anything but dumb?
Another guaranteed entrant into any post rounding up examples of dumb behavior is the state government of Florida. They accidentally banned all computers and smart phones in the state with a piece of sloppily written legislation.
Dumb criminals are a common subject on Techdirt, and this week’s example may be one of the dumbest. Fugitive Wanda Podgurski tweeted “Catch me if you can,” while on the run. Since you are reading this here, you probably don’t even have to click through to know how this story ends.
Congress is another guaranteed entrant into any carnival of dumb. This week’s poster child for idiocy is RIAA lapdog Marsha Blackburn. She is dumb enough to believe the propaganda fed to her by the RIAA and others, dumb enough to publish an op-ed repeating the propaganda, and apparently dumb enough to think it will convince anybody to side with the RIAA.
In another example of a company acting dumb, Putt-Putt decided to remind us all that they are still in business (who knew?) by suing Mojang over user generated content in Minecraft.
Game developer Eidos doubled down on dumb by using DRM to lock out paying users of the newest version of Deus Ex if they download the game to a jailbroken iOS device. Of course, there is no warning before purchase that the $6.99 you are spending will be wasted if your device is jailbroken.
Finally, we have the not surprising news that Microsoft was a willing participant in helping the NSA spy on Hotmail, Skydrive, and Skype users. The dumb here is anybody that believed Microsoft’s ridiculous commercials claiming they were more trustworthy than Google.
Nice letter
Nice letter Mike. Hopefully, somebody reads it.
I have never trusted Amazon, or any online retailer, for stuff I really needed in a day or two. If I need cold medication, I'll go to the local drug store and buy it, thereby insuring I have it when I need it. I don't know if it's a temporary promo or what, but our last 2 or 3 online orders with Walgreens have been delivered by Doordash within a couple of hours of placing the order, without paying for any upcharge in shipping. Walmart also frequently dispatches the delivery from the local store and delivers same day under the normal free shipping option. Prime's advantage on delivery times evaporated a while ago.
The sportswriter Craig Calceterra is also leaving Substack, and his Substack newsletter is his entire income.
If no “reasonable person” would believe this post to be incitement or a true threat, then it naturally follows no reasonable officer would believe the same thing. Obvious defense for the police here - just claim they aren't people.
Learned?
States all across the country, red and blue, are trying to pass laws that attack internet freedoms. And all they seem to be doing is wasting taxpayer dollars to learn how the 1st Amendment actually works. There is no evidence that any public official in these states has actually learned anything from all their failed attempts at unconstitutional regulation.
Health Insurance Pricing
Maybe it's going to be like blood work when you have insurance in the US. Cost: $2876.9 Discount: 99% Your cost: $28.76
It would kind of funny if hundreds of people took screenshots of the tracking data every day from Mastodon and posted them to their personal accounts on Twitter. Not that suggesting anybody do that.
Maybe he didn't want the competition.
Opportunity for Techdirt
Coming soon, Techdirt TV, but it's really just Comcast :) Seriously these grifts are so simple and obvious I feel like I should get in on the game and make some money while fleecing the Republican rubes.
Govt just two weeks ago used Facebook private messages to arrest a teenage girl and her mother for an abortion. It's already happening. Tracking conversations, tracking purchases. It's all the same. Also, Target got caught marketing to potentially pregnant women based on their purchases maybe 10 years ago? At this point I'm not even sure paying cash protects you. GPS can put you at the register when a specific transaction took place.
How has this bill gotten this far without Google and Facebook squashing it? What good is it having the tech giants in the state if they aren't going to throw their weight around when needed? Although, I have to think Facebook's DPIA's will be a hoot.
During the initial COVID lock down I set up a soccer style relegation universe in the desktop game and worked a team up from the lowest level to the top. Don't think I've played since.
In 2001ish I did a blog post about PureSim - a baseball game. Mike, baseball nerd that he is, commented on the post and pointed me to OOTP baseball, which I have spent way too hours playing in the subsequent two decades. Anyway, as you did back in 2001ish, he left a link to his blog in his comment, and I've been a reader ever since, eventually a friend, and for a year an employee. Looking forward to the supporters only retirement party in another 25 years :)
I'm feeling pretty good about moving my email to a paid Canadian provider a few years ago. My inbox should be safe from the fallout of this. Democrats should probably avoid being too smug here though, as me giving money to my Congressional Representative resulted in me getting spammed from Democrats in dozens of states I don't live in.
He can't go to Mars either. It's 100% populated by 'bots.
Since when has "looking like fools" stopped anybody on the right?
The offramp is already here
https://mastodon.social/web/getting-started
The Marlins have been proving for years that an MLB team can make money without fans actually coming to games. Also, MLB doesn't owe any refunds on their TV contracts until after 25 games are missed. So if you factor in lower attendance in April from weather, kids still in school, etc. they likely can juice profits significantly just by skipping out on all their variable April expenses while still cashing the TV check.
Memberships?
Hey Leigh, I checked my Gmail and domain account and don't see a recent activation email. No big deal - whenever you get it fixed is fine.
Memberships?
Under memberships my account says no insider memberships found, although I should be an Insider.