Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the the-word-is-out dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Pixelation with a response to the AT&T executive bragging about the company’s misleading 5G claims, with the comment “if I have now occupied beachfront real estate in my competitors’ heads, that makes me smile”:

You haven’t occupied beachfront property. You have occupied property a mile from the water, thrown some sand on the lawn and called it beachfront.

In second place, we’ve got an anonymous response to the description of Techdirt as a “left-leaning publication”:

It’s not a left-leaning “publication”. It’s a realist blog site. Granted, some of the blog posts are less than realistic but, in general, this is a rather balanced site.

“Left” and “right” both suck and have no place in critical thinking on any topic.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of responses to the EU Parliament’s ridiculous defense of the Copyright Directive. First, it’s an anonymous commenter bringing some perspective to the situation for artists with a comparison:

The counter-argument:

In the art world if you want to exhibit your works you pay a venue to host the exhibition. They don’t pay you.

On the internet you can have your works hosted for free and the venue (site) gets paid by attaching ads to the exhibition.

An exhibition is done to promote your skill as an artist, not directly to make money. Though some art may be purchased during the exhibition, in the online world your services may be contracted due to having seen your work.

Precisely how is an artist not being “fairly remunerated” on the internet? And how is it the venue/site’s responsibility to make sure they are?

Next, it’s James Burkhardt doing the same by passing along an artist’s perspective:

So, I know an artist, Gavin Dunne aka Miracle of Sound, who is an EU Musician/Music Writer on YouTube. He has a number of revenue streams. From my understanding based on his discussions on podquisition, the Jim Sterling-lead Podcast, he doesn’t see YouTube as a significant revenue source, it’s an advertising source driving people to buy his music or get royalties from spotify (where he gets far more traffic) or pay him directly on patreon. One one the reasons it isn’t a revenue source is how YouTube filters allow gatekeepers to claim copyright over his original works. The other is that Youtube has become more and more inconsistent in traffic volume. Nothing in Article 13 fixes that issue. Nothing in Article 13 makes YouTube a greater driver of traffic or suddenly fix its automated filtering system. Article 13 only says “You need to pay royalties, and filter out infringing content, and associate all copyright content with the correct copyright owner, and respect fair use, and do all of that perfectly without error or you pay massive fines.” That doesn’t help Miracle of Sound. That doesn’t fix Youtube as a revenue source.

Over on the funny side, our first place comment comes from Gary in response to the trademark battle over Pinkerton detectives in Red Dead Redemption 2:

Confused?

I immediately went out and tried to hire Take Two to beat up some union activists but they refused. It’s hard to hire good thugs these days!

In second place, we’ve got wshuff anticipating the EU’s next move after Google showed how empty Google News would be under Article 11:

European lawmakers are now furiously drafting Article 14, a law which will require Google to link to European news sites using snippets that Google will be required to license under Article 11.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with stderric, who offered a follow-up to that comment:

Article 15: all EU citizens granted an annual, Google-funded, two weeks paid holiday in Mountain View California.

And last but not least, we’ve got an anonymous response to McDonald’s losing its Big Mac trademark in Europe:

“So Vincent, what do they call a Big Mac™ in Europe?”

“A Big Mac”

That’s all for this week, folks!