Rikuo's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the holiday-season-edition dept
Hey, fellow Techdirtians or whatever adjective you want to call yourselves. Longtime reader Rikuo here. I’ve been following Techdirt for the better part of two years now, and was sure surprised to have been asked to write the Favorites list for Xmas week. Once I stopped jumping and shrieking in pure fanboy excitement (and after the court injunction ordering me to never do that sort of stuff again), I sat myself down and decided to get serious.
Monday was a serious day for some, and a jawdropper for others. Daniel Castro from the ITIF (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation) just three weeks ago responded to SOPA/Protect IP critics by saying that DNS filtering works because some other countries do it. Well, thanks to the good folks at Public Knowledge, you learn that it’s alright for the United States of America to adopt practices from some of the worst authoritarian regimes on the planet. And here I thought "land of the free" actually meant something.
Two other Monday articles caught my eye: the first was about how ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was adopted by the EU Council, however, it was really by a collection of ministers in a meeting discussing agriculture and fisheries? Wait, what? What do fish have to do with a treaty about copyright?
The last Monday article was by our own Julian Sanchez, about how SOPA will be abused. This prediction was arrived at by looking at what the entertainment industry has done in the past and what they continue to do today. A very good read, as it really drives home the point that these companies are already abusing the DMCA. And having tried to block technological innovation in the past, they will certainly continue to do so in the future.
Tuesday had three articles that interested me. The first is about UK singer, Dan Bull, releasing his latest music video on YouTube. Even though he's in the UK, he'd still be affected by SOPA. Dan Bull relies on user-content-generated-sites to release his media but the entertainment industry would like to shut them all down (or at least limit them), given half a chance. Once that’s done, this artist, unless he got picked up by a label, would have no easy way of distributing his music.
The second article for Tuesday was about successful photographer Trey Ratcliff. He’s another member of the growing example of artists who succeed in the digital age despite the copyrights on his work regularly being infringed. In fact, he's worked it into his business model. What I found most amusing about the article were the responses from some people, who continue to state that these examples don't matter. We here at Techdirt are offering proof but these people willfully stay blind.
The last Tuesday article was about the death of Veoh, a video sharing website that, despite being perfectly legal, was killed financially in a bogus copyright lawsuit from Universal Music Group. Under the original version of SOPA, you wouldn't need a lawsuit. Just a stern letter to the payment processors and you get the same result. If you can already kill a legal website dead by overburdening it with lawsuits, why bother pushing for all this extra legislation?
Come, Wednesday and I hear about Gilberto Sanchez who has been sentenced to a year in prison for uploading the unfinished workprint of X-men Origins: Wolverine. Despite the fact no harm has been proven and despite the fact that uploading a workprint does NOT equal uploading a full finished movie, Fox still pushed for his imprisonment. All this will do is drive further resentment against copyright law, as people ask themselves why such a harsh punishment?
Again with the superhero movies, as the Dark Knight Rises movie trailer has gone viral. Now, people in the marketing division of Warner Bros want this video to be seen by as many people as possible, so as to entice more people to see the actual movie. However, the lawyers are a different breed and have sent Rob Sheridan a notice for daring to embed the video. So what... are we NOT allowed talk about the movie?
My last favorite Wednesday article would have made me chuckle if it didn't piss me off so much. The YouHaveDownloaded tool has been used to find out that IP addresses belonging to the RIAA have been used to infringe copyright. The RIAA has been too quick to say that it could have been a third party at fault, a defense that it never allowed anyone else to use during its infamous P2P lawsuits.
I came home from work Thursday and saw that Julian Sanchez had been hard at work, showing us how SOPA will enable censorship beyond that of copyright infringement. What truly amused and dumbfounded me were the commentators who still insisted that dajaz1.com was rogue and illegal, when clearly the government couldn't make such a case. Talk about a complete disconnect from reality.
Reddit General Manager released a statement showing how SOPA still impacts domestic sites. Even if it were true that SOPA would only ever be used against foreign sites, the logistical nightmares of censoring them (and the penalties for failing to do so) would fall on US companies.
I came home from work on Friday, booted up my browser and first place I went was Techdirt, where I learned that pretty much everybody who was listed as supporting SOPA have demanded to be taken off the list. Turns out, they were never asked whether or not they supported SOPA, or in GoDaddy's case, were facing a massive boycott from their customers. So SOPA supporters...where is this massive support you've been crowing about? Are SOPA critics still limited to pirates and thieves?
I'd like to thank Mike for giving me the opportunity to write this article and the Techdirt community for just being that awesome. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Re:
Yes go on giving Mike those clicks he loves by clicking into his articles and...commenting...thus hoping to generate a response...what was your plan again? What were you complaining about?
Re: Re: Re: Re: firehose of Information
So a guy correctly points out how the US military can't have a painting of a Christian Crusader (ya know, the whole separation of Church and State) in the dining hall for US soldiers to look at...and that's proof of discrimination against Christians?
Ya know what would be proof? If in applying to be a soldier, one were asked "What religion are you?" and upon answering "Christian", you were then summarily rejected.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
And of course, again, the thing you link (or rather quote with no link, so I can't check. Who the fuck is Mark?) to in support of your stance (no debate) is in fact...a debate in and of itself. Just like the numerous other times you try and discredit Mike Masnick and link to things that in fact prove him right and you wrong.
Re: Re: Re:
Did not promote debate? Wha...?
Whether or not one believes Manning did the right thing or not in releasing those cables, to then say there was no debate?
OF COURSE THERE WAS DEBATE! That's why whenever you get a group of US citizens in a room and just mention Manning's name, some of them will support him, some of them won't and there will be a DISCUSSION over it!
Re:
Shut the fuck up AJ. Not everything is about you and your one man war on Emperor Palpati...I mean Mike Masnick.
What you call treason is anything but. It is treason for the US intelligence community to spy on its own citizens in such a way as this, and then for their head to lie to Congress about it. That is treason.
Re: Re: Forward planning
Uhh...
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1257639/treaty-gives-hong-kong-option-reject-snow den-extradition-us
So...US citizen heavily embarrasses the US government, shows how evil it is, flees to Hong Kong. If I were the Chinese government, I'd give him a fucking palace and a harem as a reward. I simply cannot conceive of the Chinese granting extradition in this case. They would have no reason to, and every reason not to. By keeping Snowden in Hong Kong, they can keep pointing to him and say "Look here, he's living proof that the US government is just as bad as they say we are".
Re:
"it's funny you should say that considering how much (or little) Wikileaks had to do with any of this."
Wikileaks and SIMILAR SITES. Not just Wikileaks, but other sites focusing on leaked material. God, you guys have admitted to not bothering to read articles, are you now not bothering to even read the HEADLINES?
Re:
Same here. There was a short article in one of Ireland's national papers about the whistle-blower's name being revealed, but nothing else. Meanwhile, over the past few days, the most memorable front page story I can remember is the fact that Michael Jackson's daughter attempted suicide. While that is bad in and of itself...one would think that the most powerful country in the world, one lauded as a bastion of freedom and liberty instead being revealed as spying on its citizens would be far more interesting and newsworthy. Nope, instead we get blurbs on the front about a politician wanting the tax-payer to fund his wife's trips abroad.
Re: thyere ya go
I think I know what your angle is. Your angle is nothing. Or rather, your angle is to be completely at odds with whatever Mike reports on.
Abuses of the law in the name of copyright? You harp on about Mike even reporting that.
Lawyers shaking down thousands of people using shoddy evidence in an extortion racket? You harp on about Mike even reporting that.
US government is revealed to be conducting massive surveillance on AT LEAST 121 million of its citizens? You harp on about Mike even reporting on that.
President Obama goes on a shooting spree and kills hundreds (fantastical I know, but bare with me)? You would without a doubt harp on about Mike even talking about it.
You're not criticizing anything being reported. You're criticizing the fact it is being reported at all. What pray tell is a valid article then? What should Mike talk about? Please oh please tell us at Techdirt what we should be talking about? Do we have your blessing to talk about abuses of the law?
(untitled comment)
Okay. I'm going to admit something.
Before I was eighteen years old, I downloaded and played (for about ten minutes) Rapelay.
To this day, I have yet to even so much as feel up a minor.
I've also played the game Heavy Rain. There's a part in the game where you make a choice to cut off the protagonist's finger. Quite brutally I might add. There's preparations to be done, like anti-septic, alcohol, etc, and then you do the deed.
Now I look at my real life hands. Yup. All eight fingers and two thumbs. Still intact.
(untitled comment)
And this of course begs the question of why Bradley Manning and other whistle-blowers are being threatened with "treason" and the death penalty...when the very people targeting them have been shown to be categorically, unequivocally guilty of much worse.
My opinion? Give Clapper one opportunity (more than Manning was given) in an open court, and when he fails (foregone conclusion, after all, how can you defend lying about a simple question like this?) take him out back and shoot him. That's the penalty reserved for traitors, isn't it?
Re: How is it Mike both "supports copyright" and defends Kim Dotcom?
"How is it Mike both "supports copyright" and defends Kim Dotcom?"
I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic there, because in case you haven't realized, there is such a thing as a shade of grey. Copyright isn't a you-support-it-as-is or don't-at-all scenario, you can be like Mike and support the idea of copyright but be completely against what it's become today: the default tool that people grab onto when they want to censor others.
Re: Predictable
So...DotCom is at fault for having the temerity to demand that the FBI's illegally cloned hard drives be destroyed and the evidence returned to him? My god, the sheer gall of the man!
Re: Re:
Haven't watched those turtles cartoons since I was a kid. What's Shredder like? All I remember is he's the bad guy, a ninja. Is he also a political manipulator like Sidious?
Re: Re: founding fathers
Why is Ben Franklin not appropriate for our time? And no, no-one here quoted the Bible, Koran or any moldy Babylonian gods, so I haven't got a clue where you got that from. And Franklin is two centuries ahead of Shakespeare, so again, what the fuck are you talking about?
(untitled comment)
This brings to mind a line of dialog from early on in Star Wars The Phantom Menace. The Trade Federation guys are talking to their secret boss by hologram about their illegal invasion of Naboo. Their boss's response?
"Then I will make it legal".
Given how Darth Sidious is portrayed, it is very likely that in the Star Wars universe, if he had actually wanted to, he would have been able to manipulate the Galactic Senate into making an invasion by armed forces over a silly tax dispute completely legal.
So Obama...ball's in your court now. Do you want to be remembered as being the President who completely shredded the Constitution? Do you want to be known as a real-life Palpatine?
Re: Re: Re: troubling
Can you, at the drop of a hat, name every single politician (let's make it easy, let's just say your state senators) and correctly match those names to photos? Yes, if you're a political person, you are well known, but not every one is capable of remembering every single politician's name and face.
Oh and notice what you said, "walk into an aid clinic". I never said my hypothetical Horse would walk into one. He called an AIDS specialist doctor. Big difference. As for using a phone that can't be tracked to them? That's a big problem in and of itself. It means that now, just to make private calls, they now have to go out of their way to get specific phones.
Yes, I know that call information is given to a third party, the phone company, (have to, in order for their service to work, their systems have to know what your phone number is and who you're calling, and since most people use mobile phones, their system needs to know where the recipient is), but that's a completely different entity than the NSA! Why does the NSA have to know who Politician Horse called? Or Random Bob? What if Politician Horse called a sex line from his office (not a bright thing to do, but not illegal) and Dick NSA Man is easily able to find that out? Now Dick NSA Man can very easily extort favours from Politician Horse.
Re: troubling
Okay, I'm going to show you why just having the metadata is horrifying in and of itself.
Horse with no name is walking around, bumps into NSA man. NSA man is a dick, and demand's Horse's name. Horse, being the willing slave that he is (according to what he writes, he'd be the kind of person who would gladly do this) gives up his name. NSA man doesn't arrest Horse or have a cop do so (I'm unsure if someone from the NSA can arrest someone but that would be incidental here).
NSA man goes to his office and has access to Horse's name and details. He looks up Horse's phone records. He notices a few interesting details.
He sees that Horse has called a doctor well known for specializing in AIDS related diseases. Horse has also called a suicide prevention hotline, a gay support network. With information culled from Facebook and Google, he learns that Horse is from the Bible Belt, from an area where it is generally not socially acceptable to be gay.
NSA man has enough information here to ruin Horse's life. He does not need call recordings. Just this metadata is enough for NSA man to use logic to figure out that Horse is homosexual, that he hides said homosexuality from his family and friends, and that he has contemplated suicide and is worried about possibly having AIDS.
Now...what if it turns out that Horse is a political candidate or already in office? Suddenly, NSA man now has leverage over him.
Think about it. That is what can and will happen.
Re: Camcorders
Precisely. So, someone in the US who wants to put together a thesis in video format and wants to use clips from a Blu-ray must spend at least a few hundred dollars to get a decent 1080p camera (no, your phone's camera just won't do), point it at the screen, play the movie and then dump the resulting footage into Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier...when instead, they can put the disc into their drive and rip it, saving all that money they would have wasted on a camera.
Re: Port this
Emulating a tri core 3.2GHz machine? On today's hardware? Not possible.