Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

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Hey folks. Mike is at Innovate/Activate this weekend, so I’m bringing you the roundup of funniest and most insightful comments. No record-busters this week, but lots of high scores nevertheless.

The insight trophy goes to RD for a challenge to copyright maximalists that has so far gone unanswered. When we posted the news that the son of Interscope Records boss Jimmy Iovine had his SoundCloud account shut down for copyright infringement (and quickly reinstated), RD asked someone to please explain the injustice:

So can one of the oh-so-smarter-than-us rah-rah-copyright shills who regularly post here tell us why THIS kid was allowed to “correct” the problem and simply remove the offending material, and allow his site to continue, when EVERYONE ELSE who is not the son of a Big Media Exec gets the JusticeHammer(tm) right up the ass, has their site seized and domain (if applicible) permanently removed, and is sued/incarcerated/fined into oblivion?

Here is your chance to put us all in our place once and for all. We are waiting.

That comment spurred me to look up what usually happens in SoundCloud disputes, and apparently SoundCloud claims they have no control over the takedown system. I guess that means the labels are in charge—so maybe that’s why Mr. Iovine was seemingly able to expedite the process.

The runner up for Most Insightful was Mesonoxian Eve on our post about Hollywood’s ongoing efforts to kill Netflix, noting that a lack of legitimate sources doesn’t drive everyone to piracy—sometimes it just drives them away:

I just recently canceled my Netflix subscription because of the fact it doesn’t seem to be nothing more than a Hulu clone anymore. I signed up for the streaming service, but it’s nothing but television shows, not movies.

But I’d like to point out something: “All this does is drive more people to piracy…” This isn’t true for me. Unlike most, I don’t need Hollywood. It needs me. I’ve done without and it’s their fault.

If Hollywood wants my money, they sure have a screwed up way of trying to get it. It truly is a shame they expect me to buy plastic disks, and in the internet age, is something I’m not doing ever again.

I’m sick of storing this crap. Sick of buying a title only to watch it a few times and then never watch it again.

Entertainment is disposable, just as the income is to view it.

It’s a shame this is a multi-billion dollar industry, because it’s that greed of keeping it this way that’s making it difficult for everyone, especially those “2 million” who rely on my money to make their salary.

It’s just a shame it’s the other way around to the point Hollywood knows people need it more, because it’s true. People whine and complain but they still don’t go without, never realizing if they took a different action, they’d win the war.

For Editor’s Choice, first we’ve got one Anonymous Coward responding to another on our post about copyright maximalists regrouping and strategizing. The first AC sought a definition of just what makes a “copyright maximalist”, and the second offered up an answer:

A copyright maximalist is a person who believes that copyright law should only be modified in one direction — more to the benefit of copyright interests.

Or, in another way, that the best “compromise” in copyright law is the one that extends the maximum benefit to copyright interests, even to the detriment of all other interests or positions.

In my own opinion, I see a copyright maximalist as a person who threatens to poison the town’s well if they won’t allow him to charge people for the water within.

Next, we’ve got another Anonymous Coward on the same post, responding to one of our regular critics who referred to “grey area behavior like sharing newspapers or libraries”—a statement this commenter found ridiculous:

The day libraries are considered “grey areas” is the beginning of the end of civilization.

The funniest comment this week came from ahow628 on another post about the bumbling tactics of IP maximalists, this time when it comes to Twitter and social media. Ahow628 employed some blunt irony to expose the absurdity of their plans:

Boy are you going to look stupid when their millions of blog readers, Twitter followers, and Facebook likers stand up and say, “We want – NAY, DEMAND – the content we consume be more expensive, less convenient, and of lower quality!”

Egg. On. Your. Face.

In second place we’ve got an Anonymous Coward on our post about how Paramount doesn’t think Louis CK “monetized” despite the fact that he made a million dollars in less than two weeks. The comment (which also got a lot of insightful votes) tried to explain the metrics Paramount uses:

Again… you’re missing the important point.

In Louis CK’s “experiment” you’ll see the following:

1. $0 – Paid to any of the MPAA members
2. $0 – Paid to copyright lawyers for protecting trademark/copyright
3. $0 – Paid to any company to trace and track unauthorized distribution
4. $0 – Paid to any Legal representation for shaking down and prosecuting fans for sharing
5. $0 – Paid for lobbying effort to protect the copyright industry

See, every one of the paths to monetizing content was ignored. Basically, this freeloading SOB just bent the whole world over so that he could just steal other peoples money.

I hope he’s really, really proud of himself.

I know right? It’s almost as if he thinks his first duty is to his fans, or something.

For Editor’s Choice, first we’ve got another comment on the same post, this time from dwg. It could have just as easily been on the insightful side (and it did well in both categories), but since funny votes were in the lead I’ll put it here:

Here’s the real problem:

Louis C.K. is actually talented and funny. So the model he employs can’t really be applied to “Transformers VI.”

That’s the thing about substance-free big budget movies. If you build them, they will come—but if you don’t, people will find something a lot better. Next, we’ve got an Anonymous Coward responding to our post about how so-called “cybercrime” losses are massively exaggerated. This particular AC has some anecdotal evidence to the contrary:

I personally lost $150 billion in sales due to cybercrime. You see, this prince in Nigeria promised me $150 billion dollars if he helped me move $1.5 trillion dollars out of Nigeria. But it was all a scam. It was…cybercrime. So there’s proof that our economy lost $150 billion due to cybercrime. And since I was planning on giving it all to orphans, it’s hurting children directly.

Hmm… well, perhaps we were wrong. Anyway, that’s all for this week—it turns out writing these posts is pretty easy as long as you guys submit a bunch of fantastic comments, so keep it up!