Just John's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the a-freetard-american-in-taiwan dept
So, here we are again at week's end, and there are more posts to review.
I was slightly surprised when asked to write the reviews, since I tend to be more “freetard” than anything. Not by choice, unless you call my choice to live in a country other than the US a choice. Instead, as some may know, I am an American living in Taiwan, and because of the banking rules here, online purchases and international purchases are not an option for me. Of course, this also means that I have some personal perspective when Taiwan makes fun of your current politics. That is when you know you've hit the bottom.
What does this mean? I must often times turn to illegal downloads of pirated materials for my entertainment, or suffer from endless bad shows in Chinese and very few options.
In the digital age though, this makes no sense. It is not as if you have to ship the package to Taiwan. It's a digital good, and I can just go to www.yourproductdownload.com. After all, even though I cannot use my card online here, I still have other means of ordering online and paying for it. So, what is the content industries excuse? Guess this shows more examples of how the content industry is hurting themselves.
I read this blog to keep up with the changes occurring in our world, as well as other blogs, because my job is part of the technical community, so impacts on that community impact me. However, as an international, I have also found the US government’s approach to the rest of the world more than slightly disturbing.
They choose to try to enact a world changing law, SOPA/PIPA, and exert their authority over the internet, when they are not the world government and have no right to do so. We see more and more that the US government is trying to find ways to detain foreign citizens, based on US laws. How does this make sense? Why am I paying taxes (And yes, I file taxes every year), to pay my government to go muck up other peoples countries? Maybe they should worry about fixing the problems at home first?
The worst part about it is, as we finally found out, the government isn’t doing this for the people, but instead is just pushing forward what they are told to like good little bought officials.
What is even worse is that these industries are making money, and have been shown how technology helps them over and over and over again.
On top of this, they fail to see how it can be abused, even though we already have an example here, here, and here. These are not just hypotheticals (well, the first is, but that is because it is the most outrageous); they happened. Want that company to shut down the consumer reviews because someone told you about bad service? How will you separate the good from the bad?
The one bright note, at least they are paying some attention and finally starting to admit the public does not like this. Maybe it is just an international trade issue and needs some trade agreements, not some internet breaking laws. After all, it’s not like they will stop it anyways.
And most of all, please, please stop throwing in child porn references into arguments about, well, anything except child porn. Maybe Godwin’s laws need to go beyond Hitler references…
Anyways, I will get off my SOPA box and see you in the funny papers.
Re: Generally speaking...
I think you painting Mike as an extremist shows you have been putting your own spin on his words.
Mike has never said, at least that I remember, that IP should be eliminated. He has in fact mentioned before that it can, as you say, benefit both the public and the creator.
His main argument is not how it should be removed completely, but about the erosion of the "public good" that has taken place in modern day IP law.
Please feel free to go back and review his articles again so you can understand how he demonstrates his viewpoints on how IP law has been completely perverted into "idea ownership", and that was not the spirit it is suppose to be operating under. Also please feel free to state one place, in case I missed it, that Mike has actually stated, ever, that IP should be eliminated completely.
I have always noted he specifically states that IP has benefits, but that the system has been abused and corrupted. Or do you honestly believe Life + 70 years benefits the public, or the artist dead for 69 years (Or some other arbitrary number of years dead, I just like 69...), in any way, shape, or form?
Re: uumm
Did you read the one about the guy who got his daughters drunk and then had sex with them? In a cave no less.
Re: Ender's Game' Is Pornographic
I think you just made my brain die, that was how horrible that article you linked to was...
Next time, post a warning, or something.
"What has been read cannot be unread"
Re: Tools being Tools
I think the song "The Grudge" fits the entitlement of the **AAs.
Wear the grudge like a crown
Of negativity
Calculate what you will
Will not tolerate
Desperate to control
All and everything
Unable to forgive
Your scarlet letterman
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/t/toollyrics/thegrudgelyrics.html
All of their BS has nothing to do with making money, they know how to fix that. It has to do with control, which is what their current battle is, disguised as a battle against piracy.
Re: This is sad...
I agree. I still love his music, and have both bought it (originally) and now illegally downloaded it since I cannot find it in Taiwan and it was not possible to bring my entire CD/DVD collection with me when I moved here (Two suitcases, overpacked, for your entire life doesn't leave much room), but it is sad to see him move from the thought provoking artist he was to the regurgitated garbage catch phrases that **AA keeps throwing at us.
Re: Re:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19722_7-scientific-reasons-youll-turn-out-just-like-your-parents.html
Need to check reason 7.
Re: ffuk u
You misspelled copyright...
Re: Re:
Who do you think he is shilling for >.>
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Odd, my flatscreen is hooked to my PC by HDMI cabling.
Funny part is, I do not even have a DVD player (Unless you mean my DVD ROM), just a PC and a really big second monitor.
Re: Re: Follow up
In China, it's called harmonizing
Re:
I served in the US army, and I support his actions. Because of my service, I got to experience some of the BS that our government pulls first hand.
While yes, I believe since he did the crime he deserves some time, I also agree with others that he is being crucified for this beyond what he should be. The sad part is they fail to realize they are making him a martyr, and making the government look even worse.
Lets face it, the government appears to have a policy of over-secrecy. You hide a document about a diplomat insulting another diplomat behind his back as a "confidential" issue?
I am glad of what he did because it exposes the BS the government is pulling behind our very backs. While there may be some initial pain (We have all seen how embarrassing some of these are, and it has undoubtedly jaded others impressions of Americans), I think overall this may end up being something that helps us grow, because the government is being asked to answer for the stupidity of some of it's officials.
I would love to see more Mannings. America was founded on the very principle of disobeying their governments rules (Or did you forget that we rebelled against England to get our US of A?). Let's hope the next leaked documents come from some of our biggest lobbiest companies (And their "bought officials), so we can see the BS that is occurring there.
Re: Open And Online BRAINWASHING!
For the use of caps, plus the added 3 !'s, you hit the trolling spirit perfectly.
Throwing in god fearing was also a good touch, faith vs. evidence.
I give you 8/10 because you forgot to throw in child porn and artists.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Time to go
Actually, you just hit the nail on the head, and yet sadly are arguing against your own logical reasoning:
If the park is filled with guys selling crack, the potential is that they could go in, make arrests, and order the park emptied while the search for drugs and dangerous needles.
So, they could get a court order to Subpoena the IP of the "criminals", and then go arrest, gasp, the ones participating in illegal activities, instead of shutting down everyone, including those not participating in illegal activities (bank robbers and cars come to mind, so lets take your car because you can use it to assist bank robbers...).
They could, gasp, apply due process and get a court order shutting down the site while investigations occur, instead of just saying "We can take it, no matter what due process says". That is, if they could convince the courts that this site was indeed set up to facilitate crimes (although it seems that more and more judges are sadly jumping on the shoot first, ask questions later issue).
Re: Time to go
I live in Taiwan, so if you want to move your hosting over here, feel free to contact me. Although, I am not sure that too many can move here, since Taiwan's political status internationally leaves it vulnerable to the US leaning on them to get it their way...
Maybe we can limit how many I can help move here so we do not have Taiwan put on the same list as Hong Kong.
Re: Re: Re:
You are failing to make the point though that there is a need for this.
Currently, SOPA/PIPA style enforcement is becoming more commonplace, so why do we need it? Currently, the content industries are making more money than ever before, so why do we need it?
Stop the war on drugs, it has failed and we loose more than is gained.
Stop the war on terrorism, it has failed and we loose more than is gained.
Stop the war on piracy, it has failed and we loose more than is gained.
Reasonable debate would be debating why we need to keep expanding copyright once every 2 years. Reasonable debate would be debating why we need to keep allowing patents that are common sense. Reasonable debate would be allowing the process to be transparent, and actually listening to all sides, not just the side throwing money at you.
It is not about profits, they have them.
It is not about channels, they can make them.
It is not about protecting the artists, they are still exploiting them.
It is all about control. Total, and complete control. Don't kid yourself, the government also does not object too heavily, since they can use the same laws to expand their own control.
Feel free to respond to these issues. I will be waiting with bated breath.
Re: Re:
Godwin's Law, you just invoked it.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I gave you a funny because of the fact that you actually know how to spell the chant from Monty Python.
I have tried looking it up before (so I could see what it meant) and could never spell it in a way that I was given the accurate spell check...
private study
So, are these available for private study, or only for students?
Like if I wanted to study up on business, is it available to me, or would I need to enroll in a business course?
password of power
So, next we should change our password to:
1234567890qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
Why is it though I always get the message "This password is to long"....
Honestly, the best way is to find 4 words 4+ letters in length, random with no direct subject links.
I remember reviewing the stats, and a brute force attack on a basic 16 character password like this would take 56 years (approximately) to go through every combination. The whole upper case, lower case, number, special symbol is actually less secure at a length of 8 characters than a 16 character password of only lower case words.
My home network password is 22 (6 words) characters long and my wifi access is 16 (4 words) characters long, and no matter how many brute force attacks I have had on my server (I once had a single IP address try for 2 days straight, resulting in 19 pages of logs before I noticed and permablocked the IP address), I have never had a breach.
Re: Grunt. Hmm, next time I'll be smarter
I personally like to use password, then when it has that password: I can easily remember it.