That Anonymous Coward's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the no,-not-that-one dept
No, not that Anonymous Coward, but That Anonymous Coward is handling this week's favorites....
Everyone on board the short bus!
I'm your tour guide, That Anonymous Coward but you can call me TAC.
So I was as surprised as you now are, when Mike asked me to write the Favorites of the Week post, but like moss I grow on you, given a chance. Everyone buckle up and lets review the short week as we ride the short bus.
If you look to your left, you can see Facebook whining because someone made their button illegal in Germany. They seem to be bothered that it is no longer the awesome tracker (read: money machine) they intended it to be. Who cares about silly laws, this is Facebook we are talking about.
Coming up on the right, just past the smoke from the fire and brimstone burning in the moat, you can just catch sight of the MPAA offices. After getting a court to decide the length of the cable matters in determining infringement, they then decided to put out some more "unique" uses of math showing losses to "piracy". They really aren't trying very hard any more to look remotely serious in their statements.
Now we turn the corner and zut alors! - France has decided Copyright is more important than Human Rights. I guess when you're sleeping with a model/singer you get a little confused. Oh and if you can't get the people to lay down to accept you screwing their rights, just sneak it in. (And let us not forget that they violate copyright when its convenient for them.)
Hold tight as we speed up to get past the villagers getting their pitchforks and torches ready to pay a visit to the capitol... and on your left we have, no wait, look away.... nothing to see here.... just making sure there are no terrorists hiding inside that nice lady's vagina.
And now we come to the Copyright Troll Cul-de-sac, over there you can see the new house being built by lawyers representing a religious group. It seems they were upset over some former members saying unkind things online. They couldn't get their names as they forced material down, so they filed for a copyright and boom the doors opened wide. Copyright is a great tool for bypassing those silly freedoms people expect.
Oh there is a moving van over at the USCG McMansion. They are considering shopping for a court that will blindly rubber stamp their lawsuit so they can "settle" with alleged copyright infringers. Little known fact: one of their clients is Uwe Boll, voted the worst director in history. Even Uwe saw the benefit in turning one of his "fantastic" films into box office gold by scaring people into paying on fairly questionable evidence.
And Swatch, this odd little shack seems just jammed into the neighborhood. We record our announcements so we can claim copyright if you report too much. This makes only slightly more sense than getting arrested for filming cops in public.
This little burned out quonset hut is the EMI "ranch". It used to be nice, and there were hopes the new owners would fix the property up. Instead they have some lawyers chasing kids out of their yard.
Holy Hell!... A huge new section has been added to the Cul-de-sac, as if overnight it just sprung up before our eyes. It's as if someone waved a magic wand and made every copyright holder's wet dream come true. Those fires burning over there?... Oh those are just the things now made illegal by the public domain being gutted.
Because it's my tour, I want to give a shout out to Steele Hansmeier LLC and their little stick house. So what if its on Ars... its my tour and I'm driving. Why yes your honor, we lied when we said the IP address would let us name the infringer... now let me search all the computers in the house because he refuses to settle. We'll huff and we'll puff and we'll blow our own damn house down.
Oopsie the cul-de-sac's private security force, those nice officers from ICE, are taking aim at us, and so we drive on....
Hey is that a wrecking ball heading towards the Cul-de-sac? I think that is being driven by Judge Bernard Zimmerman. He seems to be heading towards one of the smaller houses.
Look over there, ohh sweet a double rainbow... what does it mean? Yeah, I don't understand, and neither does he.
Who here is from America, no hands... ummm I can tell some of you are pretending to be Canadian, I can understand why. When we aren't secretly forcing other countries to do things we can't do here, and shilling for Microsoft, we are getting the money flowing back here... for content holders...making laws up as we go along... just to support those who don't pay their fair share... and want everyone else to pay to protect their content.... Well, I dunno what to say about that, eh?
Oh crap, pretending to be Canadian won't cut it any more. What else can we pretend to be?
*bump bump*
Oops sorry folks, just a speed bump as we run over Ubisoft screwing their customers yet again and finding new ways to fail.
And that gleaming spire there on the horizon... that's the number of "Patriot Act Warrant Requests", I guess drugs are terrorists too.... It is ok give us unlimited powers with no oversight or responsibility... we won't misuse it... Trust Us.
Intellectual Property is our greatest asset, it is a great slogan on that billboard over there. The shame is, they seem to only want to apply that to some people's IP. When the people who actually make the new jobs, instead of cling to a crap business model, are against it, isn't it worthy of some debate? If you really wanted to fix the whole problem with Imagin... I mean Intellectual Property, shouldn't you keep people from having to find new way to do the same thing each time?
And here we are... safe and sound at home again. I hope you enjoyed the tour as much as I did giving it. Thank you Mike for the use of the bus, and letting me take your readers hosta... I mean for a ride. It shouldn't take much to get the steering column repaired from me hot-wiring it.
I am and remain....
TAC
Re: Re:
And if they leave those links in Bing it sorta cuts the legs out from them screaming how the internet is robbing them blind and Google only profits by keeping those links available.
Pay Google to get information that Google does not offer...
Searching for information isn't a crime.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
someone told me there were ads here, and as ad blocking according to shills is stealing they would never block any ads so I am sure his fevered refreshing of the page generates a couple of pennies a day.
(untitled comment)
This is hysterical.
They always are screaming how Google needs to do more, spend more, more more more for them... but one of the largest takedown submitters seems to have forgotten they have their own search engine.
Of course it can't be because they are being slow, so that people will migrate to Bing to find things that were Google wiped. That would be so hypocritical and highlight that the process is a complete and total joke.
Re: They sent multiple documents to our tiny ecom
Just like how true copyright trolls work.
Re: Re: Re:
Its just fun seeing him behave the exact same way he claims Mike does, and then flee in terror when someone calls him out on it.
Besides had I not given him a response he would have just cluttered up the whole thread rabidly flailing that excuse for a penis trying to get someone to notice him.
(untitled comment)
While the 72 trillion is a bogus number, the sadder portion of this is that no one for a moment considered it wasn't exactly what the cartel demanded.
They are regularly completely over the top in their claims, and anyone would be hard pressed to not believe they would not have demanded more money than exists on the planet.
As the fines and penalties go up they expect they will somehow turn the tide and win the war. The problem is they are at war with their customers, and can't draw that little line connecting their insane actions to the number of customers telling them to fuck off and moving onto other things they found on the net.
blah blah blah pirates, blah blah thieves, blah blah blah.
A business model has to adjust to the times it currently wants to survive in. All of this money thrown into the "war" is wasted and is speeding their decline, but they are sure just a few million more and they will change the entire world... they are delusional. One can only hope they will finally going to die off like they have sworn every innovation was going to do and let someone new with a clue take over and be more successful than the cartels ever were.
Re:
So would you care to backup your statement or are you just going to throw stones without any evidence?
I've seen Mike and the others have to make corrections to stories, and they do so openly. They do it so we can trust in what they are reporting on, they also provide links to support their conclusions and sources.
You have done neither and just seem to be trolling in the vain hopes that someone will engage you in some kind of namecalling so that your e-peen will throb mightily.
And now you have gotten it... now run along, the adults are talking.
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And lets not forget how they run those tests and then cover up the negative things putting profits above life.
Re:
Your right it is a big financial risk for them, they might blow a huge amount of money advertising how everyone needs this drug on the wrong demographic.
I seem to remember they often enjoy rolling their marketing budgets for the drugs into "research" costs.
I seem to remember they like to try to change up the drug in some minor way as the patent is about to expire to lock it up again.
I seem to remember some of them are handed the rights to drugs already "discovered" and then cranking up the costs to recoup what that research cost them. Because something deemed to toxic for chemo became a huge cash cow for them. So what if people died around the globe, they were owed obscene profits for a drug they didn't fund the discovery of weren't they?
(untitled comment)
If cost of losing < Amount you can extort = WIN!
This is the new American Business model, you see it with patents and now copyrights.
Intellectual Property is soooo important we give people control over ideas and don't require them to do anything with them.
We let other dreamers stumble across a similar idea, built it into something, make some money then show up and demand our pound of flesh.
So many patents are in the hands of NPE's now, how does this benefit society other than providing higher prices for consumers as the lawyers get their cut?
There is such a thicket of overlapping concepts that no one can see if they are infringing on an issued patent easily, so they have to roll the dice and hope they reinvented the wheel in a new way to avoid having to pay off the troll under the bridge.
Re: Troll them hard!
That is cute until one remembers the NDAA and how it means Gitmo is a destination for anyone without needing a pesky trial.
(untitled comment)
I'm sorry Mr lawmaker man, I can't hear you over my outrage that your police force can commit perjury in a court of law and the DA can decline to press charges.
I'm sorry your more concerned about people calling you a halfwitted fuck online anonymously, than the abuse of power running rampant in the legal system in your state.
It must be nice that your biggest concern seems to be your butthurt feelings instead of your officers threatening to rape people, but given the number of cases where they have sodomized and murdered people in the process in the past I am thinking there might be a bit of an ass obsession in your state... could this be why they keep reelecting you?
You might need someone to explain to you that I'm calling you a giant ass.
I'm just someone anonymous online, you should be all outraged and worked up now... where was that when a nightstick was used to rape and murder someone?
Re:
Because if regular people could see it online for themselves they would have to actually question why it is "News" corporations (who get to see these things) aren't being truthful about the actual content of them.
The American people don't care about facts, they care more about large showy things to fix huge problems that have no actual solution. They are glad to have money poured at the problem, even if it is being wasted completely. (ex. TSA)
This is where the long history of special deals between corporations and the officials they purchase special access have lead us to. Many people are no longer willing to accept what they are told without being able to see the facts, and they are fighting to get the truth out there. This threatens the entire Government system they have devolved to.
If you had easy access to see your congresscritter slipped in an amendment to make sure the large corporation would never be held responsible for polluting the ground water in your town, how long would they still have their job? Instead this is buried in a bill of several thousand pages and behind a few layers of war on drugs, for the children, to keep cyberwar from happening and no one looks at all the parts.
Until we can get people to stop voting for kneejerk soundbites, and look past their own selfish desires we will never see change. The system as devolved to the idea of - well my senator voted to try and have all abortion providers shot and that is more important than him gutting FDA oversight. And they refuse to care until they get sick from e coli tainted meat that the FDA was blocked from stopping.
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I am sure the actual reasoning they would give in court is that we fully believed that these were possible outcomes and statements that could be made, but had not had the time to fully review the entirety of the case before making them.
Copyright trolls often use this to cover up their claims that you could be found liable for upto $150,000 for infringing on copyright, even in cases where those damages are precluded by the copyright law itself. It is mostly a fear tactic designed to scare and intimidate people into paying them money to make it go away ASAP.
(untitled comment)
CEG CEG CEG....
don't mind me trying to summon SJD... this troll needs slaying.
Copyright trolling should completely force a change in the system, it does not work in todays society and needs to be revisited.
(untitled comment)
http://www.google.com/patents/US20070172576
Improved restructured meat products are provided which exhibit enhanced texture, tenderness, juiciness, and flavor. The meat products are formed by mixing together brine-treated, essentially gristle free raw meat strips (e.g., beef, poultry, pork or mixtures thereof) in the form of strips and ground beef containing naturally-occurring fat, followed by forming the mixture into steak-like bodies.
Given the other patent one has to wonder if this is a naturally occurring cut that was missed previously or if it is meat glued together pieces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transglutaminase
Re:
Your one of the people who sued Oprah aren't ya?
Re: When you take protecting privacy too far
Wasn't that an episode of Numb3rs?
(untitled comment)
I wonder how fast they got this change done vs how long it took them to address the women's health issues Siri was deaf to.
Re: Why was the subpoena censored?
Your new to the interwebs aren't you?
The originally posted document might have been done by the company who believes in privacy and might like the court to accept more reasonable terms by not being the source of a buncha pizzas and hookers showing up for the Judge.