Torg 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (625) comment rss

  • On the post: David Lowery Wants A Pony

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 06:28pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: boys will be boys

    "Now you're talking!! I like solutions. As users, we stop downloading illegal music."

    Done.

    "That's an insane, helpless solution, because it means we'd all have to figure out how to earn more money and have the self-control to not be tantalized by carrots (like free music) dangling in front of our faces."

    Wait. You want me to give up free music too? I can't do that, I'd go broke before filling a quarter of my iPod! I'd much rather spend my money on video games, where the paid offerings are actually better than the free ones. Or were you under the impression that all free music is illegal, and your two requests are analogous? They aren't. Doing without free music is a much more restrictive policy than doing without illegal music. Between freely available Bandcamp albums and artists who just put their work directly on Mediafire, I only ever pay for music if I feel like supporting an artist, all within the bounds of the law and the artist's volition. Are you going to tell me that's stealing too?

  • On the post: David Lowery Wants A Pony

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 06:05pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: boys will be boys

    "If you dont think Piracy is theft, then I assume you think its ok to file share software as well"

    Because theft is the only thing that's morally wrong.

  • On the post: David Lowery Wants A Pony

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 04:04pm

    Re: Friendship is magic

    Friends do still file share, though, but it's not stealing when they do it because friends don't charge friends for music. On the other hand, really good friends will get music from the Bandcamp link instead of the Mediafire one. It's a pretty lax environment overall, and that doesn't seem to be impeding its development.

  • On the post: David Lowery Wants A Pony

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 03:11pm

    Re: Re: boys will be boys

    Like so.

  • On the post: David Lowery Wants A Pony

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 03:04pm

    Re: Holding back the tide?

    So we couldn't, perhaps, characterize Cnut as demonstrating how arrogant people have to be to think they can hold back the tide? He commanded the tide to stop; the tide came in anyway. Regardless of his motivations for the command, the saying and its apparent originator mesh well enough, unless you're saying that one who tries to hold back the tide is to be considered pious.

  • On the post: Google's Latest Transparency Report Shows Increased Censorship From Governments Not Normally Known For Censorship

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 12:21pm

    Re: Re:

    Even given that you're right about their motives, Google is still setting a good example. If everyone put each other's cards on the table, everyone's cards would be on the table.

  • On the post: NSA: Figuring Out How Many US Citizens We Illegally Spied On Would Violate Their Privacy

    Torg ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2012 @ 07:43am

    Re:

    "Spying is Privacy" does have a nice Orwellian ring to it.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Torg ( profile ), 18 Jun, 2012 @ 06:16am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    And I understand that relying on fair use isn't always wise. My comment brought up silly extremes because the article was about silly extremes. The way I see it, either you think that a "fair use license" is a coherent concept, you think Techdirt should have negotiated with the guy who didn't like them quoting him, or your comment wasn't directly about the substance of the article. I went with the second interpretation, because the first is fucking stupid and the third one rarely occurs to me except in retrospect. If it's the third that's the correct one, then I apologize.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Torg ( profile ), 18 Jun, 2012 @ 05:02am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    That should end with "one of those gray areas", not "fair use".

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Torg ( profile ), 18 Jun, 2012 @ 05:01am

    Re: Re: Re:

    The article was about people that think you need to negotiate or pay for things that are fair use, which, regardless of the pragmatism of negotiating in gray areas, shows a complete misunderstanding of what fair use is. I gave the guy I was responding to enough credit that I didn't consider that me might not realize how nonsensical the concept of a "fair dealing license" is, and so figured he was talking about the guy who thought Techdirt should have negotiated with him about quoting one of his articles. Thus, "did you ask Techdirt's permission to post that quote". Was the flaw in my thinking that the other guy didn't see how stupid it is to have a license explicitly for things you don't need a license for, that he wasn't responding to the specifics of the article but rather what he thought the general idea was, or is quoting actually fair use?

  • On the post: Fair Use/Fair Dealing Doesn't Require Payment Or Permission

    Torg ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2012 @ 10:15am

    Re: Re: Re:

    It's exactly comparable to the second case mentioned in this article, in which a guy got pissy because a bit of his article was quoted. As you say, anyone who knows their rights won't be concerned about that.

    The first situation doesn't make sense for a different reason, that being that, while it does make sense to license things that aren't clearly fair dealing, the term "fair dealing" doesn't belong anywhere near such a license. It's either fair dealing or a license, but both is nonsensical.

  • On the post: Fair Use/Fair Dealing Doesn't Require Payment Or Permission

    Torg ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2012 @ 06:39am

    Re:

    Did you negotiate with Techdirt to determine if you were allowed to quote that paragraph?

  • On the post: Police Arrest Woman For Filming Them, Take Phone Out Of Her Bra, Claim That It Must Be Kept As 'Evidence'

    Torg ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 07:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Do you have a YouTube account? Great. Upload that video now. Yes, while I'm watching."

    That would take, like, five minutes. There would be no error, and the chain of evidence would be respected. It most certainly would not take until the trial starts.

  • On the post: Police Arrest Woman For Filming Them, Take Phone Out Of Her Bra, Claim That It Must Be Kept As 'Evidence'

    Torg ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 03:15pm

    Re: Evidence

    Nowadays it's pretty damn easy to get someone's recording of an event without taking any part of the mechanism they used to record it. It is literally as easy as putting a video on YouTube. Confiscation of a digital camera is therefore never a reasonable way to collect evidence, especially when that camera is part of something as important to a person's daily life as a phone.

  • On the post: Police Arrest Woman For Filming Them, Take Phone Out Of Her Bra, Claim That It Must Be Kept As 'Evidence'

    Torg ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 01:23pm

    Re: Involuntary participation in the justice system

    If that had been the cop's intent, he could've asked for a copy to be sent to him on his own, without prompting. Also, telling her to stop filming doesn't fit very nicely into that chain of events.

    I don't think all cops are bad. One of my best friends is a cop. However, this one seems to pretty clearly be in the wrong.

  • On the post: When The Entertainment Industry Can't Legally Shut Down A Site It Doesn't Like, Bogus Charges Can Do The Trick

    Torg ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 06:28am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Maybe it's just me

    "a-", used as a prefix, usually means "without". Therefore, calling such an organization afact is actually being fairly honest.

  • On the post: Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same

    Torg ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2012 @ 06:30pm

    Re: Re:

    Plenty of freely released projects have succeeded on Kickstarter. I, myself, have backed a Creative Commons-destined movie. This guy is having problems because his pitch is shit, not because people won't pay for free things.

  • On the post: Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same

    Torg ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2012 @ 06:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Well, there's the sucker factor

    False. Kickstarter is a fundraising platform that, yes, can be used to order the products supported by it, but it works just fine for Creative Commons and open source projects.

  • On the post: Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same

    Torg ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2012 @ 02:19pm

    Re: Well, there's the sucker factor

    Given that Tube had the exact same deal as this one and earned $40,000, the problem would seem to lie in this project's execution, not in the basic concept of asking people to pay for something that will be freely available if it's made. The one that sticks out to me is that, beyond saying that it's going to be a public domain work, the page doesn't mention a lot about the actual product, instead relying on the statistically unsupported assumption that the prospective backer is familiar with the earlier works in the series. Poor execution doesn't imply a flawed concept.

  • On the post: Hollywood Bending Over Backwards To Appease China

    Torg ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2012 @ 01:12pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    No, we haven't always been at war with them for months.

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