Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the anon-in-the-lead dept
This week, both our winning comments on the insightful side came from anonymous commenters on our post about the CAFC’s insane ruling overturning Google’s fair use victory against Oracle. In first place, we have some thoughts on whether this goes any further:
I think Google actually might have a good shot at the Supreme court, mainly on procedural grounds. The CAFC explictly ruled that a Jury should determine fair use. A superior court normally shouldn’t disregard the Jury finding, and they have noted no bad jury instructions or other reasons to disregard the Jury findings. That seems, from an outsider, to be a major misstep, the kind of which the Supreme Court has loved to smack around the CAFC for.
In second place, we’ve got a deeper dive into the problems of the case:
This whole argument is being framed over language that is misleading to the extreme. “Declarative code” and “Implementing code” are not industry terms; the terms every CS101 student learns are “code declarations” and “code definitions”. This is important, because the phrase “declarative code” implies that code declares, when in reality, code is declared. This is perhaps the biggest source (and evidence of) confusion in CAFC’s opinions (and that of the Solicitor General in his brief to the Supreme Court in the previous appeal).
Code declarations and implementations are like dictionary entries. Dictionary entries contain two parts: Syntax information (spelling, pronunciation, part of speech, etc) and the definition.
Syntax information allows writers to correctly use a word, as well as allows readers to determine if a word is used correctly. For example, if I tell you that the word feldercrump is a noun, then you can write the following sentences, and see that the sentence “I saw a feldercrump” uses it correctly, whereas “I feldercrump on Sunday” does not.
However, without the Definition, no one can extract any meaning from the sentence. You can’t know what idea backs the word feldercrump. Even still, different dictionaries might contain similar but different definitions for the word, even though the syntax information stays the same.The former is equivalent to code declarations: they do not instruct computers, but rather, allow compilers, interpreters, and programmers to know how code is to be used, as well as determine whether code is used correctly, but there is no code to run or execute. Implementations, however, are the definition of a function, and consist of actual computer instructions. Any function used to implement a particular interface can be used to give meaning to a use of the interface.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from PaulT on our post about the rise of streaming exclusivity, in response to a commenter noting that it makes piracy the “path of least resistance”:
That’s all it ever is, and all it ever was. The resistance might come in the form of pricing, inconvenience, regional or format windows, language or some other factor. But, piracy usually there as the easy option. It has existed well before the internet, and it will continue to exist.
The biggest problem facing these companies is that in order to fight the problems causing this resistance, they erect more barriers (as you correctly note, DRM is one f the more recent ones). If they could just learn to make the legal routes easier than piracy they will find more success. I mean, literally the selling point for most people I know regarding services like Spotify and Netflix is because they were easier than piracy, and they’re happy to pay for that. Stop trying to make them more difficult again.
Next, we’ve a simple anonymous response to the RIAA’s boasting about all the money being made from streaming subscriptions:
In other words, that thing the RIAA fought tooth and nail to prevent from becoming a thing?
Over on the funny side, we’ve got a pair of anonymous winners again. In first place, it’s a response to Kim Dotcom’s human rights tribunal victory over the New Zealand government:
Well, the only reason New Zealand authorities withheld information from Kim Dotcom was because there was no where to transfer all of the files to.
In all fairness though after collecting years and years worth of legal documents it would have been a mega upload.
In second place, it’s another response to the problem of exclusive streaming services:
Entertainers Assemble!
With so many walled-off streaming services popping up, there needs to be some kind of initiative to provide customers with access to the difference channels of content. Perhaps said services can come together to provide some universal subscription to all of the difference services under an easy to digest acronym, like for example: Content Aggregate Broadcasting Limitless Entertainment Television or CABLE TV for short.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with the story of a school selling out its students first amendment rights by censoring a news article with images of some controversial art. Jeremy Lyman honed in on a different detail, after one teacher apparently apologized “on behalf of 99.9% of the teachers”:
Probably wasn’t a math teacher.
They’ve got at least 1,000 teachers at this school? What are the class sizes like?
Finally, we’ve got a deservedly flippant anonymous response to the accusation that we are ignoring all the arguments in favor of SESTA:
All arguments in support of SESTA, in their entirety:
- fibble dibble bop
- cluck cluck
- shrimp paste
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
And still the Mpaa/riaa
Dont see whats in their face..
Old days they had..
Full production facility(they charged the ARTIST for this)
Art(they charged for)
Producing the recordings(they charged for)
Shipping, handling, distribution(they Owned it all)
What do they get?
Shipments not getting to the ones that WANTED the recordings. Ship them to Metro areas, when the country folk wanted it. And Vice versa.. HOW to get the recordings where they WOULD PAY for it..
They would ADVANCE the artist money, THEN CHARGE them for every part of creating and shipping the album, AS IT they had done it themselves, and PAID PREMIUM PRICES FOR THE SERVICES..
then pay the Artist? AFTER giving advances?? and putting them IN DEBT, to the corporation.
The Corp would also, LIMIT the number of persons they would Publicize, and advertise.. Did you ever see 1000+ adverts and songs published in 1 year, for 1000 artists?? nope.
The corp, decided it didnt want to change anything, so let others do the work and EXPLORE what could be done with the net, and STOMPED ON EVERYONE..unless they made 1-sided deals to PAY THEM LOTS OF MONEY..
Deals were abit stupid..as IF’ the corp had done ANY opf it themselves??? IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PURE PROFIT.. ANd they are still pushing others to PAY MORE..as the old contracts die, they are pushing for MORE..
All this, on top of MANY artists upset with the Corps from the past, NOT PAYING THEM all the money owed..
A $20 recording, at the store, AFTER the sore profit, is Under $10..then you deduct all the stuff THEY CHARGE for..and you get down to about $1.50 to $2.. Giv e the artist about $0.50 OR LESS..WITH ALL TYPES OF REASONS why THEY SHOULD GET LESS..
now–if THEY HAD CREATED THEIR own site..
They could charge $5 for any Album they have stored from the past 100 years(yep, its about that old).. and paid about $1 per album for the service, per sale..and $50 to the artist, and ALL the rest is PURE PROFIT..(even if they do the Original recording its a 1 time cost, to distribute ########## recordings..)
feldercrump
You can’t know what idea backs the word feldercrump.
I tried highlight > right click > search with Google.
I’m thinking it means “I invented Email”
Re: feldercrump
It’s a perfectly cromulent word. What’s more, the derivations of feldercrump are bunglemirthed and hedgegroomed by the harbendoggles of flangemithrensence, excultifications of slogprattles and ultimately, the scentillitude of unflurgled covfefe.
Re: Re: feldercrump
Agreed, except that covfefe is flurgled all the time. Always!
Legal routes easier
> making legal routes easier than piracy
This line of argumentation was rejected by drafters of copyright. The law regognizes that authors cannot reach everyone in the world, and thus end users need to do additional work to reach authorised vendor. There’s also significant point that use of the product is illegal outside the area of the world that cooyright owner can reach. How this reaching is done is not relevant, internet tech is as good as buying the product from local shop.
Re: Legal routes easier
Then the drafters were wrong.
What kind of bullshit is this? You’re telling me that if I buy a DVD in the US, then move to Asia that I then have to re-buy that DVD because it’s "illegal" to watch it outside the US?
You just invalidated all your other arguments with that one statement. The internet is the great equalizer. With it you can reach all over the world, therefore there should be no place where use of a product is illegal because the copyright owner’s reach is worldwide.
It also invalidates your argument about authors not able to reach everyone in the world. Guess what, with the internet, they can.
There is no reason that legally purchasing something for your entertainment should be harder, more work, and more onerous than going out and pirating it. This isn’t hard.
Re: Re: Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re: Legal routes easier
What are you smoking?
If an author self publishes their book, because the were turned down by some distribution channel, they are NOT allowed to distribute that book world wide?
Re: Re: Re:2 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re: Legal routes easier
Yes, and?? Your point is what? What does this have to do with the discussion at hand?
Why would anyone look to Techdirt’s comment section to get anything other than some intellectual debate and a good laugh every now and then?
If I write a book and sell it on Amazon, I’ve instantly reached the entire world. Something doesn’t have to be on every single internet service to reach the world, it just has to be on the internet, period. One service is enough to satisfy that requirement.
Name one.
This is maybe true. Though given the amount of drivel on TV lately I have to wonder. In either case that is beside the point. You’re missing a third option, the internet. This is denied to no one and there is no acceptance or review to go through, it just gets published.
Not an issue if you distribute it with the internet. And let’s be honest, TV and radio are hemorrhaging users. They won’t die completely, but they are no longer the primary source of entertainment for the population at large.
So if I write a book and put it up for sale on Amazon, they’ve just stolen my property and I never get paid for it? How delusional are you?
Anyone can buy anything from Amazon.
Then please explain Amazon and every single other site on the internet that lets me access content from any where in the world. Walt Disney is dead, by your logic it should be illegal to access any of his works because he’s not available any where in the world, because he’s, you know, dead.
According to you, every kid today who’s ever watched a Disney movie is a filthy pirate because the author isn’t available where they live, despite the fact that their parents went to Walmart and paid $20 for it. If you’re right and I’m wrong, then what’s the difference if I pirate something or not? The author is likely not available where I live, so whether I pay for it at Walmart or download it free on the internet I’m still pirating it. So why would I pay for it?
Re: Re: Re:2 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:3 Legal routes easier
Dude, what kind of mental gymnastics do you do to come up with this stuff?
Newsflash, anyone can now self-publish through the magic of the internet and sites like Amazon. No need for archaic publishing entities and 100% of the profit goes directly to the author.
Same applies to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc…
Newsflash, self-publishing on the internet gets 100% of that money to the author, not 1.5% to the author and 98.5% to the publisher, unlike the publishing entities you are so fond of.
No. This is not even remotely true. What about free promotions? Charity donations? Giveaways? Sales where you buy one get one free? All of those are legal ways in which you can acquire content and in every single one of those, the "money flow link" is broken. Neither the publisher, nor author, gets paid for any of those.
Try impossible.
Oh oh! This is rich! So it’s illegal if it has a pirate "feeling". What the crap man? Extortion is illegal. Traditional, so called legal vendors have an extortionist feel because they charge me WAY too much for their content. $20 for a DVD? Feels like extortion to me, therefore it must be illegal. I better not buy from Walmart/Bestbuy/Target/Shopko/etc… ever again. Just because something feels wrong doesn’t make it so. You need proof, not just a feeling.
You really have no idea how this works do you? So explain all the sites where you illegally buy products that simulate a legit website? Or even brick and mortar.
No. You can’t say "well it doesn’t feel legit so it must not be". What kind of bogus logic and reasoning is that. You don’t feel legit so you must not be.
No, that’s absolutely wrong. It CAN be but doesn’t automatically mean it is. Sale price, to lower negotiated price with the author, to buying in bulk can ALL be legitimate reasons for a lower purchase price.
Yeah, because they do illegal stuff. Newsflash though, there are many sites identical to the pirate bay that don’t do illegal stuff. In fact, you can use the pirate bay and never do anything illegal because they also host legal stuff, as long as you don’t download the illegal stuff, you’re fine. Torrenting is not illegal in and of itself. If you use it to download illicit content that act is illegal, but not the use of the service overall.
I am astounded by your total ignorance or willful and deliberate shilling for such blatant and false information.
Re: Re: Re:4 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:5 Legal routes easier
Producing a great work is not by itself enough to make a living from creative endeavors. You need to escape from the obscurity in which all creators start. An audience will not come to you, but rather you have to go to them using the social media tools of the Internet, and allow them to at least sample your work before they will buy it.
Further, making a living from creative works is not guaranteed, and the advice given to most authors is still true today, and that is: "Do not give up the day job". Also do not expect one work to make your fortune, as that as rare as winning the lottery.
Re: Re: Re:5 Legal routes easier
You have heard of sites like Amazon, ebay, Youtube, Spotify, etc… You can publish your stuff on those sites and others for free or extremely cheap, depending on options, and your stuff will be instantly seen by thousands, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people in a short period of time. No muss, no fuss, no messing around with Google rankings. Your argument is disingenuous at best.
So now you’re saying it’s illegal for authors and publishers to give out free copies as part of promotion? Giving stuff away for free isn’t illegal, especially if you own the stuff you are giving away. Game makers do this all the time. They’ll give away a bunch of game keys to promote their game. Book authors do the same thing at promotional events. I could go on.
True, but there’s no reason that says every legitimate product has to be horribly expensive either. I pay $10.00 per month for Netflix. In return I get thousands of movies and shows that I can watch as much as I want. If I had to buy each individual movie and show, it would cost millions of dollars. Netflix isn’t a piracy outfit, but they offer the same content for much cheaper and easier access than buying a physical copy. Your argument is invalid.
I honestly can’t believe you’re serious right now. Nobody is going to take the time to check through all of that just to buy some entertainment. Nor should that be a requirement. That is doing the work of the author and enforcement agencies for them. If you happen to come across a place that is selling illicit goods, sure, report them, but no one should have to do a full on background check on the place they want to buy something from. People do not have the time to do that, nor money, because honestly looking into that kind of stuff is not cheap. This is just unbelievable.
Oh? Which ones would those be? The ones who pay outrageous prices at their local Walmart for a Disney movie?
Not a bad thing. When I run across one I’ll let you know. But I’m not going to go out looking for one every time I purchase something off Amazon or Walmart.
This damage being legacy publishers raking in billions of dollars a year by charging exorbitant prices to paying customers? That damage? Because let’s be honest, the amount of sales lost by piracy is a drop in the bucket and probably not even noticed.
This is the part where we throw our heads back and laugh. Ready? Ready! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
Figure that out on your own did you?
So now we’re all idiots because you think no one is smart enough to tell legal from illegal?
No. As long as the site itself does not actively engage in illegal activity, what reason should I have to switch if I’m getting what I need legally from them? I bet you could find a bunch of illegal stuff on big sites like Amazon, ebay, and such. Does that mean I should stop using them? In many cases I can only buy what I need from those sites. Some authors only self-publish to Amazon. If I stop using the site, I can’t get that legal content anymore. Your argument is ludicrous, and invalid.
Nope, it’s not worth the effort, and as I stated above, in many cases impossible to find another alternative that is just as legal as the one I’m using now.
Game makers, such as Blizzard, use torrents to distribute game updates. Linux ISOs are distributed over torrents. I could go on. There are many legitimate uses for torrenting that far outnumber the illegal ones.
As I have now utterly destroyed all your arguments, I only have this final statement to you:
You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you absolutely have been found wanting. Welcome to the new world called the internet! May the gods of the internet save you, if it should be right for them to do so.
Re: Re: Re:6 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:7 Legal routes easier
That is ludicrous. Any platform will be abused, no matter how hard you try to prevent it, by anyone determined enough.
Name one site that has ZERO illegal items on it.
Re: Re: Re:8 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:9 Legal routes easier
Ah, I see you can’t prove me wrong so therefore you have resorted to hand waving and attempting to change the subject.
With this logic we should all still be living in the stone age because every service ever designed (electricity, water lines, telephone lines, cell service, gps, radio, TV, telegraph, printing press, megahorn, soapbox, etc..) has been abused and continues to be abused for those that are still around.
Who said they were resorting to illegal operations? Nobody. And they aren’t. But people can use their services for illegal purposes. Just like terrorists can use electrical service to run their computers and lights to plan attacks. So can someone post a book for sale on Amazon for $30 and ship the buyer a stack of bootleg DVDs. How would Amazon ever know? Abuse is not a simple thing to detect and filter out as you suggest. Anyone who believes otherwise is either naive, ignorant, or deliberately lying.
I’ll make this easy for you and expand my statement. EVERY thing ever made by humans, whether it be boats, planes, trains, cars, smartphones, lightbulbs, water bottles, headsets, shoes, roads, food, electricity, the internet, whatever!!! You name it and it can, has, and will be abused, without exception. Period. Full stop. You can’t stop it, no one can. You can mitigate it but never stop it.
I dare you to name one thing that hasn’t been abused in some way shape or form. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Re: Re: Re:2 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:2 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:3 Legal routes easier
“After this decision, any further distribution via internet is illegal.”
After this decision, any further distribution via internet in other works that aren’t covered by a contract is illegal.
Remember, it’s all up to the pact that he has signed with the Devil.
Btw, you’re mistaken in one thing: copyright isn’t there to make sure that the authors get paid, but the copyright holders.
That’s, of course, if he hasn’t signed (or been made to sign, publishers have that power) all the copyrights for his works for the years to come or something.
Re: Re: Re:3 Legal routes easier
That logic only applies to self publishers, while where they have a contract with a legacy publisher that allows Internet distribution, the Author has no control over the distribution. Then they can only take the issue up with his publisher. However best of luck to them if they try that, as they are likely to run into all the tricks of Hollywood accounting.
For instance, the label artists complaints that they do not receive enough money from Spotify is not a problem with Spotify, but rather a problem with the amount that the labels keep from the payments that they receive from Spotify. Indeed it looks like the Labels wish to drive Spotify out of business by demanding more than it can afford to pay by way of license fees, while minimizing what they pay to artists so that the artists demand more license fees from Spotify.
Re: Legal routes easier
In the early days of manufacturing copies, different publishers were often used in different countries because that both increased the production capacity, by using local printers, and avoided expensive shipping of heavy objects; i.e. books. There was noting, apart from expense and time, to stop people shipping books around the world.
Copyright was, and should be about the production of copies, and not the control over those copies once they have been sold.
Also, in the Internet world, patronage rather than copyright is becoming the most effective way of supporting creators, and allow anybody on the Internet to send money to those people they want to support in the creation of new works.
Re: Legal routes easier
If the authors cannot reach everyone in the world then it’s none of my damn business they don’t get my money.
Re: Re: Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re: Legal routes easier
Or the “product” might just come from the public domain.
I guess that prospect gives you a severe allergenic reaction so you apparently don’t think that exists.
Re: Re: Re:2 Legal routes easier
Re: Re: Re:3 Legal routes easier
Which would explain why Disney’s most famous works had absolutely no root in the public domain. Snow White, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, all didn’t have a shred of popularity, right?
At least have some argument that isn’t so easily disproved. Your obvious lack of legal knowledge is getting old. Especially when you have to default to petulant insistence.
>>Also, in the Internet world, patronage rather than copyright is becoming the most effective way of supporting creators.
How could that ever work?
Where would Beethoven … Boswell … Cervantes … Dante have been without copyright? How much of that creative output would have been lost forever if they’d had to depend on patronage? And what would it have been like if Shakespeare had to depend on live audiences for his income? And you can’t think only of artists in the free world! How about people living under dictatorships–Solzhenitsyn, Anne Frank, John Bunyan? What incentive would they have had to write?
Re: Re:
Either you need a /s or you epicly failed history.
Exactly where they are today. Copyright either didn’t exist back then or was in its infancy when they were producing, depending on which one you are talking about.
None, most artists back then only had patronage to rely on. Mass production and royalties didn’t exist. In order for them to get paid, they had to actually perform. They didn’t perform unless people paid them. Kind of the definition of patronage.
He did rely on live audiences for his income since he mostly wrote stage plays.
Ummm, John Bunyan didn’t live under a dictatorship. At least not in the sense that others did. Monarchy? Yes. But not a dictatorship as such. Regardless of that, for some of them they wouldn’t even likely be eligible for copyright when they wrote their works. Especially Anne Frank since her works weren’t even published until after she died.
I’m really hoping you just needed a /s, and based on some of your statements I’m guessing that’s the case. If not, see the above.