GMacGuffin's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the keep-calm-and-carreon dept
Could there have been a better week to get to write about my favorite Techdirt posts? (Still thinking ... er, No.) What with last week’s public meltdown of well-known attorney Charles Carreon spilling over into Lunes (Loony Monday), Techdirt opened this week with a blurb that Carreon had indeed filed a Fresh & Loony lawsuit -- currently serving as a poster child for Wrath of the Spurned.
If you didn’t know, we have Carreon suing cartoonist Inman/The Oatmeal because Inman didn’t dig Carreon demanding $20k from him for alleged defamation of Funnyjunk. (This started off because Inman didn't appreciate Funnyjunk users posting Inman's comics there without attribution or linkback, and being rather in-your-face about it, Inman wrote an open letter of complaint, containing previously mentioned alleged defamation.) So rather than pay Funnyjunk, Inman instead starts a charity fundraiser -- including some pretty crude Funnyjunk mom-bashing -- which goes gangbusters, and then Carreon takes it all super personally (including the mom bashing [?]). Carreon tries to shut down the fundraiser, and goes kinda gonzo in the press; and so Papa Internet (and Mama Internet and all the little nets) go kinda gonzo on Carreon, and he blames Inman, and sues him ... and the charities ... kind of. It's a spectacular mess.
So later Monday morning we get: Carreon's Full Filing Reveals He Donated To Oatmeal Campaign Himself, Plus Other Assorted Nuttiness; and what a read!. Quick procedural problems include: Carreon donated to Inman's charity in an attempt to create standing for himself to bring the case re the charities (Red Flag!); he names the two charities in the header, but doesn't direct any of the claims toward them (Danger Will Robinson!); and he otherwise clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding of all things Internet. Well, you're stuck here now. (Open the pod bay door, Hal. / I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.)
There's a whole lotta other crazy in there as well that's totally worth reading. I will add that the charities' likely 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim will be the first that I've ever seen where the failure to state a claim involves actual failure to make a claim against a party, at all.
Then we have Inman getting a (much less vitriolic than before) word in with an open letter addressed to Carreon, where he urges Carreon to calm down, and stop saying crazy shit to journalists. I gotta say, “Don't say crazy shit to journalists” is pretty much all-around good advice; this week's mantra.
But Wait ... There's More! Now it's off to subpoena the identity of the Twitter user who set up the Carreon parody account then stopped trying to parody when he couldn't top the real thing. And there's the amazing Tara Carreon, about which I have to defer to an AC comment from last Friday to describe: If it's a troll, it's like no trolling I've ever tasted.”
The whole situation is freaking mind boggling, and so puerile it's irresistible. And while wildly entertaining, it's also terribly ugly and it's sad, and I truly wish Carreon had not taken this path. If he hasn't already, he's going to wind up jackin' it in San Diego, metaphorically speaking.
Let's Talk About Disruption (and the like): I'm an urban guy. Lived smack dab in the city for decades. When we can, we buy local. These are our merchants, our neighbors. If we support them, it benefits my urban community, and therefore me. More broadly, we try to buy direct when possible, and generally trying to ensure that the people who are actually doing the work (creating, cooking, whatever) get the highest percent of our cash as possible. So even at just-about-middle-age, when I should be averse to change, that philosophy leaves me absolutely loving watching the destruction of the old world for the new, from Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general, to all those other new, disruptive businesses that wreak so much havoc.
So along these themes we have a nice discussion of the chaos of disruptive innovation, and how the old guard just can't deal, man.
I'm currently funding, like, four Kickstarter projects, meaning, I'm giving somebody money to make something cool stuff for the world -- specifically, me. (Seriously: A baseball horror graphic novel. Monsters and baseball!) So this week I'll point to some more Kickstarter changeup stories -- showing how a platform can be harnessed in ways likely its own creators didn't imagine. First, there's the Fat Kid Rules The World film project, another film project... except you or I could set up a showing and keep some of the dough. Groovy. And there's this so-obvious-it's-brilliant idea of using crowdfunding for Empirical Market Research. Author Seth Godin and a publisher ran a campaign to gauge the interest in an upcoming book. Answer: If you write it, they will come.
[Happy Camper Joke Here] On a personal note, I want to mention David Lowery, of Camper Van Beethoven, who appears in these pages periodically saying ... well, I'm never sure. I think it has to do with the old days being better -- back in happy GatekeeperLand, or something. I'm pretty sure it's a bitch about how hard it is to make money now. Anyway, Mr. Lowery, I recently bought several Camper albums (on CD even!) to replace the cassettes wanting for tape deck. Which albums did I buy? The first three. The independent label albums, because the major label albums sucked in comparison. Have a nice day.
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Finally, my wife loves your comments, folks. Have a good weekend. I'm watching baseball.
Re:
Mike thinks people should have free speech and not be subject to the whims of an outdated, desparate industry trying to hang on to a legacy business model!
Wow. Notwithstanding the spelling, an actual statement of generally true fact.
Chewbacca Defense
Pure and simple.
NYT Legal Dept. MO / Perverse Incentives
I have dealt with the NYT over claimed copyright issues regarding its content. What I surmise as a result is:
The NYT Legal Dept. is focused on 1) Protecting the NYT brand and content, without any thought whatsoever to the big picture; and 2) justifying the legal department's own existence, which includes sending at-times meritless threat letters.
They also have shown a penchant for black/white thinking; refusal to negotiate or consider circumstances; and for making absolute threats of suit, but rarely actually pulling the trigger and suing.
Pure Half-Assed CYA ...
"I'm not sure how anyone could claim that the mere use of Wget constitutes a form of hacking ..."
Because if the telcos did not claim the reporters hacked the information, then they are tacitly admitting they posted the personal info of 100+k people openly online. And that's a pretty big oops.
Minecraft as empirical evidence of validity ...
1. Minecraft is a violent video game. You must kill mobs to survive.
2. My best friend likes a high-res Minecraft texture pack and is hell bent on killing mobs. I stick with a 64x res pack and hide from mobs in a hole at night.
3. He sometimes gets drunk and wants to start a fight. I do not.
Therefore, using hi-res texture packs on the violent game of Minecraft has been shown to make people more violent than those who use lower res, video-card-heat-friendly texture packs.
Proven.
Thank you Mr. Toeppen
I thought I recognized the name at the outset ... Yup, he's the guy who registered stetson.com and an parked a picture of his dog "Stetson" there. Impetus for the cybersquatting act.
He was a big deal in law school 1999. We owe him a debt of gratitude in sort of the same way we owe the rapist Mr. Miranda.
(untitled comment)
IANALP but I understand that if the sole question is who owns the copyright in a work (rather than infringement issues), then that does not confer Federal jurisdiction. Pretty much everything else related to copyright is exclusively fed.
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The actual message is pellucid to any patent litigator, so that IP Nav's use of apophasis is disingenuous and unavailing.
Judge's law clerk must have needed to break in a new thesaurus .
Must Create...
For many, many people, the incentive to create is not because of money, but because they can't not create.
This is the part that I think needs to be stressed to death. Most people who create do so because they have to; getting paid for it is a great perc when you can get it.
The idea of copyright as incentive to create is bullshit, and the people who say that are clearly not persons who feel the compulsion that creators do.
I'm so thrilled to have lived long enough that high quality video, animation, and recording studios can be had by us commoners with little overhead, and generate pro product. (When I started, a 2-oscillator 5-voice analog synth was $5k, in 70s bucks. Yikes!)
The future rocks! (MPAA, not so much.)
Re: Re:
You and I can make ICS Flash work on Jelly Bean ... but the world at large? ... not so much.
I agree the doors aren't shuttered at AdobeFlash, but its future? Moribund it seems.
(untitled comment)
"If we don't put the hooks for the use of DRM in, people will just go back to using Flash," he claimed.
Except for the fact that fewer platforms will support Flash, e.g., iOS, Android Jelly Bean + ...
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"Because right now it seems a little too civil."
It ain't 1:30 yet...
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Ken @popehat is live tweeting from the Court
Re: Re: Makes sense ...
...objecting makes good legal sense, all the more so when you know the only way you'll get the client out of this is through a technicality, not the facts.
Dang that's a good point. Hahahaha too.
Makes sense ...
I can see the thinking of Gibbs' counsel here.
1) If we don't object, then the objection is waived
2) Objections belong to counsel, not the party/subject of motion, so it shouldn't reflect badly on Gibbs [!] (sure, the Court has to rule on every objection, but...)
3) We're doing our job (true... but which includes discretion)
4) Dude, Gibbs is already in the doghouse here. What's the worst that could happen?
On the other hand...
This does have potential for abuse, but it also requires some hoop-jumping before one can serve via social media. And...
There's a hierarchy of service. 1) personal service -- usually you have to try three times before attempting 2) substituted service, in which you serve someone of apparent authority at the defendants' abode, etc. If that doesn't work, then we get to things like 3) service by publication. That's where you post notice in a paper nobody has ever heard of, including the defendant. So the defendant likely doesn't know he's been served.
Being served by publication, then defaulted for not knowing about it, is bad. So in that light, if the defendant is truly unaware that the papers are coming (which does happen), service by social media would seem a better option. Plaintiffs generally want the defendants to know they are being sued. Too many ways for a defendant to get out of it otherwise.
One would hope that the Courts would first ensure that the process server has exhausted a few sub-service attempts before jumping straight to the social media world. That's judicial latitude stuff, though, unless written into the statue.
So I get it -- both sides. Again, one of those things that could be a good thing, if it's done right; a nightmare if not.
Re: Re: Um, guys... really...
Yo, G: It's true that if it were a wordpress.org driven, then WordPress wouldn't be hosting at all, but would be for wordpress.com.
Re the Excel issue: The subpoenaing party can specify the desired format for the production, but the producing party does not necessarily have to create documents in that format. They just have to produce in the format as kept in the ordinary course of business. (I hope that's tractor-feed printouts, but that's wishful thinking.)
My reaction to that was (again), um, guys... really?... Excel?
Aliens
I believe the entire Prenda thing was set up by malevolent Whovian alien beings who must feed on IP addresses to survive.
The lawsuits are all a red herring.
Um, guys... really...
If this case was removed to Fed Court prior to the subpoena, then the Superior Court has no jurisdiction, and it was issued with that knowledge, and that's a big problem. If it was issued prior to removal, then it should have been withdrawn, as now there's no jurisdiction, and that's a big problem.
And ... it demands production 10 days from the date the subpoena issued, seven after service, although by statute,they need to give 20 days ...
"It shall command compliance . . . on a date that is no earlier than 20 days after the issuance, or 15 days after the service, of the deposition subpoena, whichever date is later." CA CCP §2020.410(c)
And why is the Complaint attached? Just to make a point? And what is the sudden urgency that the rules don't matter? Urg! Makes you wanna tear your hair out.
What request?
I like how he said "Gentlemen, I only requested you do the right thing," but does not appear to have requested anything at all.