Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the trump-cards dept

This week, the MPAA unveiled some new anti-piracy ads that are targeted (of course) at people who have already paid to go see a movie. Vincent Clement won most insightful comment of the week by underlining just how backwards this is:

It’s interesting that at no point does the RIAA or movie studio every THANK people for paying to see the movie or for buying the DVD or digital file.

Even a used car salesman will shake your hand when you buy a vehicle.

Meanwhile, as we continued our discussion of the Uber crackdown in France, one commenter brought out the disingenuous argument that this is is really all about knowing that you’re insured when taking a cab. Senor Space Beans won second place for insightful by putting that notion to bed:

It’s funny, my state government checks to see if I have insurance before issuing my drivers licence. It doesn’t cost six figures to perform said check. The license doesn’t provide the insurance; it stipulates that you have insurance.

Taxi Licenses in Paris cost so much because legacy taxi companies lobbied to have them raised to prevent any new comers from elbowing in on their market share. They’ve created their own problem and nobody’s talking about it because it’s easier to blame someone else when you’ve failed to innovate.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a response to the FCC commissioner’s apparent view that broadband isn’t all that important. Seegras had a solid theory on just how he could be so wrong:

Secretary Syndrome

Some people don’t even realise they’re dependant on the internet, because they have all their staff doing the work — depending on the internet — on their behalf.

Next, we circle back to the MPAA’s anti-piracy ads, where one commenter suggested there’s nothing movie studios could that the Techdirt community would approve of or appreciate. DannyB chimed in with a list of counter-examples:

You are wrong. But you are too blind to see it.

Here are a dozen things the movie industry could do.

1. Quit focusing on Google which has absolutely nothing to do with piracy.
2. Go after actual infringers. With proof. Using due process. You know, the site hosting infringing content. Free Clue: if you take those down, then those sites don’t appear in Google. (and other search engines!)
3. Quit trying to use copyright as a censorship tool.
4. Quit trying to create laws the impose liability upon everyone except the actual infringers.
5. Try making movies that I actually want to see. (There is exactly one movie this summer that I am interested in seeing — this is the first time in several years. This new stupid anti-piracy ad for three minutes is giving me 2nd thoughts.)
6. If you want to actually help the hard working people you feature in your anti piracy ad, then get rid of Hollywood Accounting.
7. Quit complaining about the Creative Commons license.
8. If I buy a DVD (or CD) I should own either a piece of plastic that costs virtually nothing to produce, or I should own a licensed copy that allows me to very cheaply replace the worn piece of plastic. Or have reasonable backup policies. Most people are honest. But you’ll never see this.
9. Quit trying to destroy the public domain. Quit trying to re-copyright it.
10. Quit extending copyright.
11. In short, quit abusing copyright.
12. Quit trolling TechDirt

Extra freebie:

13. Get your head out of the sand. Quit being stuck in the past. See the future. Technology is your friend. It always has been historically even when you fought it kicking and screaming.

Over on the funny side, we start out on a recent patent trolling story, this time involving newly-formed company Wetro Lan, LLC. Beltorak noticed something about that name, and I’m not even entirely sure it’s a coincidence:

wait wait wait wait

are you serious?? a patent troll called “We Trollin”??? How is this not some form of high satire?

oh yeah, cause they’re serious :-/

Next, in response to Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit over an Instagram photo that put his face next to Dylan Roof’s, one anonymous comment’s second-place win shows just how much people can’t stand Trump:

About that side-by-side picture- between the two of them, why is Trump the one suing?

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ll start by heading back to the MPAA anti-piracy ads one more time, since one anonymous commenter discovered something hilarious when he tried to watch:

I don’t usually go to the movies but I still wanted to see what these commercials are about, so I clicked the links.

“This content is not available in your region.”

Huh, I guess they only want people in the United States to stop pirating.

Finally, every now and then we get a comment that is a complete satirical re-imagining of a famous work. Truth be told, a lot of them don’t seem all that inspired — but DannyB deserves a second nod this week for his opus, How the Cable TV stole Internet Streaming:

Every Who on the Internet liked Netflix a lot…
But the Cable who lived north of Internet, Did NOT!
The Cable HATED Netflix, the whole TV streaming!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his greed was too tight.
But the reason most likely for the copyright pigs
May have been that their ego was six sizes too big.

Whatever the reason, Their heart or their greed,
They stood on the precipice of Cable TV.
Staring down from their cave with a sour, greedy fret,
At the warm lighted screens all over the Internet.

For they knew down on the Internet
Every Who they could see
Was watching Netflix original series
Instead of Cable TV!

And that new streaming content! cable snarled with a sneer,
Streaming TV is popular, it is practically here!
Then they growled with their long fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find some way to stop the Streaming from coming!”

For in the future cable knew, all the Who girls and boys,
Would be watching on smart phones, their tablets, gadgets and toys!

Then they got an idea! An awful idea!
The Cable got a horrible, awful idea!
“I know just what to do!” The Cable laughed like a brute.
I’ll call my lawyers”, they snarled, “to file a lawsuit!”

That’s all for this week, folks!