Jesse's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the copyright-countdown dept
Just as with our discussions on the efficacy of rain dances, I am most fascinated by stories of the baffling choices of copyright maximalists which, albeit unintentionally, most definitely promote content piracy/theft [insert Chris Dodd's buzzword of the week]. With that in mind, my favorites list will consist of stories about various entities hilariously undermining copyright in spite of themselves.
Copyright Countdown: #7
Number 7 in my "A Week in Copyright" review is actually a multi-part post comparing the economics and psychology of parking to copyright. At first blush, this analogy seems a bit farfetched, but upon closer inspection the comparison is actually fairly on point. Larry Downes does an excellent job of calling out the content producers who want to reap all the benefits of essentially free distribution and reproduction, but not pass along any of those cost-savings to consumers:
Worse, even as the unit cost of media declines, the rules against unauthorized copying have become stricter. It's as if there were suddenly millions of new parking spaces available across Manhattan, but parking lots keep charging more than $10 an hour. And all the meters are suspiciously broken.
How true.
Copyright Countdown: #6
Honestly, I had been waiting all week for a post tearing down Blizzard for their abysmal Diablo III DRM fiasco, but alas my gamer rage will have to settle for a different target. And so we have this post highlighting the generous offering by Crytek to let you play the game for which you paid. Wow. Although I wouldn't fault someone for pirating/cracking a game they own, personally I wouldn't play this game even if someone paid me. If they can't figure out how to let paying customers play their games, I just can't imagine the rest of the product is worth the time it takes to remove the shrink wrap.
Copyright Countdown: #5
Number 5 highlights the cognitive dissonance the American government seems to be experiencing with regards to free speech and copyright. This is particularly amusing/interesting for me because up here in Canada, we actually have laws against "hate speech." Sometimes it surprises me how even the most extreme hatred is covered by the American first amendment. Personally, I am undecided as to which approach is better. At any rate, call me disappointed to learn that while racist hatred is protected by American free speech laws, suppressing speech in the name of copyright is apparently totally fine because, you know, reasons.
Copyright Countdown: #4
The post about copyright infringement and the coming "singularity" was, frankly, quite disturbing. Just when I was beginning to think that death would be my only escape from the insanity that is modern copyright, Techdirt points out that even in the great beyond I will be infringing on copyrights and ignoring shrink-wrap click-through agreements to no end (bringing all new context to the maximalist goal of "forever minus a day"). I guess with that in mind, we can amend that old saying to, "Nothing is certain but copyright and taxes."
Copyright Countdown: #3
I have always said that if the concept of libraries hadn't already been well established prior to modern copyright, they never would have been accepted today. Let's pretend libraries were just invented last week: can you imagine the uproar this would create among book publishers? "Accessing knowledge? For free?! Madness! This is practically a physical manifestation of the Pirate Bay!!1!" Thankfully, we don't have to exhaust our imaginations because the UK Publishers Association won't let a little thing like "reality" prevent them from harping against such an evil as libraries.
Copyright Countdown: #2
This one is a doozy. Apparently, some TV people have just realized that many viewers don't like commercials. So rather than, I don't know, make commercials people actually want to watch, those same people want to make it illegal to skip commercials. I don't really know what to say, but I think this may be one of those instances where a picture is worth a thousand words. [SFW, picture from A Clockwork Orange]
Copyright Countdown: #1
And finally, this
post, featuring Ethan Kaplan, once again offers some basic economics
lessons on supply, demand and artificial scarcities. Apparently, it's hard to
build a successful business if you ignore these most fundamental principles.
But the most interesting point here was Mike rehashing a probable causal link
between file sharing and increased sales. It occurs to me: there is
method to their rain dances copyright expansionism, and their evil
genius is much more sinister than previously thought. They are expanding
copyright to ridiculous extremes because they know this will only serve to
promote piracy, which in turn will ultimately trick us into increasing their
sales. How could we have missed that!?
So there we have it: 7 hilarious failures, one for each day of the week. But don't be sad; I have no doubt there will be plenty more next week. And the week after that. Just when you think we've hit rock bottom, someone else steps up to the plate with another hilariously flailing attempt at salvaging the copyright monopolies of yesteryear, but in actuality they only further undermine respect for the law and drive even more people to functional alternatives, legal or otherwise. It's so predictable and obvious, you almost want to charge them with inducement to infringe.
Re: Re:
The thing with unpaid internships is that it enshrines income inequality (and hence other inequalities, like race/gender).
Who can afford to work for free? The kids of rich people. Let's give them more advantages!
Re:
"It is at times like these when our enemies within become almost as damaging as the enemies on the outside."
Read: government critics
Re:
We need to make a new sales tax, and give all the proceeds to video game makers. What would we do without titles like "Lollipop Chainsaw?"
(untitled comment)
"It's a bit hyperbolic, but..."
Is it though?
Re: Oh come on Mike
So much win.
Also it's eavesdropping to videotape police (with audio)/
Re: Re: So what, now we are supposed to trust what they are telling us?
Well based on what I read they can actually publish it. They are only allowed to publish ranges if it includes all law enforcement requests as well, right?
Well do that, but then publish the non-classified numbers separately. Being that it's not classified or sealed, it's a first amendment violation to prevent them from disclosing regular law enforcement requests.
Simple subtraction gives you the rest.
Re: Re: Re:
What would that conversation even look like? He would make a few well reasoned arguments and you would resort to calling him petty names the way you already are? Why would anyone (other than you and your troll brethren) want that?
(untitled comment)
Greenwald should probably release the documents as encrypted torrents where he can release the password via a surrogate if anything should happen to him.
Re:
And that is all I need for evidence :) Bold face type in titles, SOLD
(untitled comment)
I don't think I've ever seen bold in the heading before. Considering the shocking titles we are used to seeing, it just goes to show how unbelievable that is.
Re: The terrorists have finally won.
People never appreciate civil liberties until they lose them...
Re:
"Why is he still in this job?"
Evidently because he has no qualms about lying.
Re:
I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law and say that, similarly, pretty much everything the Nazis did was legal in their eyes.
(untitled comment)
Maybe they don't have access to "ALL THE DATA" but they are getting so much of it that they need to set up entire separate servers to handle it all?
That doesn't sound like this monitoring is the exception to the rule, rather it IS the rule.
Re: Fiction
"We need more cybersecurity laws, because after we're done pissing off the world everyone is going to be gunning for us!"
Re:
Best comment ^^^
I feel the same way..
All I heard was, "Change! Change is bad! Stop the change!"
Re: Honest Answer
What about the rest of the world. If we want to have our human rights respected we need to avoid the US at all costs, right?
(untitled comment)
I like how everyone justifies violating human rights by saying, "It's okay as long as we don't do it to Americans."
Thanks America. Fuck you, too.
-All Canadians and the rest of the world
Re: Turnabout is fair play
Fine the IRS! Taxpayers will pay either way. :)
(untitled comment)
They could contract a highschool portrait company who then claims the copyright on the photos. They could even make a deal to transfer the copyrights to a sheriff, or the individual being photographed.