Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the the-good-word dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is MathFox with a comment about the troubles at Truth Social:
What ‘Truth Social’ shows is how easy it is easy to create an Internet platform. It also shows how hard it is to make an Internet platform successful.
In second place, it’s Thad with a comment about Clarence Thomas gunning to overturn NY Times v. Sullivan:
I wonder why Clarence Thomas would want to make it easier to sue people who say damaging things about public figures.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment on our post about Facebook moderating posts that mention abortion pills:
Well the comments on this are definitely going to be… interesting. So let’s just head off a few of the strawmen right now.
1. This article did not in any way say that Facebook is not allowed to do this or that they should face criminal or civil penalties for doing so.
2. At no point were Trump supporters posts auto-removed simply for posting the words “Trump” or “Conservative”
3. It is not hypocritical to disagree with a particular moderation decision while still supporting their right to moderate
OK, carry on.
Next, it’s That One Guy with a comment about the ongoing attacks on digital ownership and the library model:
‘If libraries were not already a well established part of society they never would have been allowed to be formed.’
Modern publishers: ‘Challenge accepted.’
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Beefcake with a comment about the USPTO granting Ohio State a trademark on the word “the”:
This article illustrates that nothing is as definite as it used to be.
In second place, it’s Naughty Autie responding to a post about Nintendo’s IP bullying that mentioned “using Nintendo as something of a virtual punching bag”:
Careful, Tim. That’s Nintendo’s too. 😉
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got two more comments from That One Guy. First, it’s a response to Google giving in to GOP political spammers and launching a pilot program to whitelist them out of spam filters:
‘Oh no no no, you opted out of messages from giveusyourmoneyandvoteforus(at)politicalparty1, this message is from giveusyourmoneandvoteforusy(at)politicalparty2, totally different so the original opt-out choice doesn’t apply. If you want to opt out of this sender’s emails that’ll require marking this sender’s messages as undesirable, and this opt-out will of course not apply to tomorrow’s messages which will come from a totally different group that just so happens to have a very similar email address as ours.’
Finally, it’s a bit of sarcasm about objections to the idea that long copyright terms are necessary to motivate creators:
I don’t know what you’re talking about really, I mean I can’t imagine that I’m alone in having been utterly bereft of any interest in creating anything until I learned that my great grandchildren would be able to act as gatekeepers for it.
Indeed it was only after I learned that anything I created, built upon what had come before, would be locked up and kept out of reach of others that might want to continue the cycle of creativity that I had any interest in creating works at all, so I can safely say that setting copyright to last decades after I was turned into a pile of ashes was the real spark that fueled my creativity in the first place.
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
1st
https://www.criterion.com/films/28703-a-face-in-the-crowd
Anyone know this collection? How many Films are hiding in here?
Why do they have Price of Movies that SHOULD be in public Domain?
Definition of SPAM, is similar to the Definition of a Weed.
Any plant growing in the Wrong spot.(I dont want that in My lawn)
What the Hell is this SPAM doing in my mail?
Nintendo vs the internet?
Interesting that a International corp that is not based in the USA can Control what is Posted in another country?
Libraries.
Ditto comment.
Truth Social.
Interesting name for which there is Little truth and less Social.
For all of this week and being a long weekend, for Some.
Iv been watching a site called Quora.
DONT GO there. You WILL want to have something to say.
“What the F’ did they say?” is a good comment for the site.
You will wonder how SOME of these people got out of high school, or WHO the hell taught them anything.
There are some interesting things, like people looking for Story lines and asking Very strange questions.
There are Comments from PEople who think Every Christian is the same, and Everyone of them reads the SAME Bible. But they DOnt knwo where the bible came from or any of its history and re-writes.
Re:
Why do they have Price of Movies that SHOULD be in public Domain?
Copies of movies in the Public Domain can legally be sold. It’s possible that those selling them have remastered them and simply wish to recoup the financial costs involved in doing so, but if you want to have them for free, the Internet Archive should have non-remaster quality copies.
Re: Re:
It should be pointed out that in some countries for certain works, selling or performing a public domain work means you still have to pay a royalty (Domaine public payant). Something a company I worked for ran into in Italy in the early 90’s, but they ended the practice in ’96.
Other than that, if I remember correctly, you are allowed to charge for any ancillary costs (ie handling, printing, performing etc) if you sell public domain works but not for the work itself (with the above caveat).
Re: Re: Re:
In the UK, that’s only the case for scripts of Peter Pan, and no such rules exist in the US. When royalties are paid by an American production company to GOSH for making yet another adaptation of Peter Pan, that’s entirely voluntary.
Re: Re: Re:
I don’t think there are any restrictions on charges (my limited, hand-tooled leather edition of “Treasure island” with gold embossed lettering comes at a hefty price completely unrelated to the costs incurred) What you’re not allowed to do is claim copyright.
I so think (and ready to be corrected), that some counties have a sort of “collection copyright” on, for example directories, but don’t think it applies to “The complete works of Mark Twain”
Re: Re: Criterion
They OWN the rights.
They are a collection service, from years ago.
OTHERS pay them to use the films.
Re: Re: Re:
If rights are owned, the content isn’t in the public domain. If the content is in the public domain, there are no rights except those of the public.
Re: Re: Re:2
THe link I gave is a movie from 1957, and they have many others even earlier.
Re: Re: Re:3
But it’s based on a book that is in the public domain.
Re: Re: Re:4
It’s based on a short story, actually.
Singers like to sing, writers like to write, people make art , music, film. I doubt if there’s anyone thinking, I’ll create videos, art, music, poems, so that my ancestors can collect money in 70 years from now, theres more people making videos , music, art, podcasts, using the Web as a platform than ever before. All you need now is a basic pc, laptop, phone, free software to create content. You don’t need a record deal or a book deal theres YouTube, tiktok. Patreon, twitch, etc if you make good content people will find you.
The problem creators will face is various laws
in the EU or America
that will mandate filters that will somehow magically do the impossible and check all video, audio image content in case it infringes on registered ip owned by big corporations like Sony, Disney, hbo etc
Re: magically do the impossible
and check all video, audio image content in case it infringes on registered ip owned by big corporations like Sony, Disney, hbo etc
But will the filters magically check content FROM those organisations against material that PRE-DATES their establishment?
See Adam Neely for more discussion on that.
Re:
This isn’t impossible. Easy solution is to block all content before publishing it. Guaranteed to filter out all infringement if you don’t publish anything.
When you actually start publishing something, you need to balance two competing phenomenons: 1) the value of the content you’re publishing 2) and the $300,000 damage award for every infringing video.
If you cannot filter out infringing videos, then maybe you shouldn’t be in the publishing business.
Re: Re:
Block Meshpage, then you might be onto something.
That One Guy's second funny editor's choice pick.
Leigh Beadon’s #2 pick for funnies comment by That One Guy was in response to a comment by myself arguing that copyright should be “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” and be renewable for another term if the copyright owner so wanted. I ended the comment by repeating my claim that all my works of authorship will enter the public domain once I leave this mortal coil.
I’m happy for That One Guy and that his comment in response to mine won for funny!
Re:
And all this, of course, was because one triggered troll couldn’t accept that someone referred to Bayside Advisory as “copyright law’s best and brightest”.
Re:
Why discuss this here and not on the relevant page?
Re: Re:
Um, because the comment that replied to mine made the end-of-week’s list? I don’t know…
All of us need to continue working together to ensure that these kinds of things don’t happen. And as always, please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us at Techdirt by leaving a comment below. We’d love to hear what you have to say!