Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the words-were-said dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is James Burkhardt with some additional details on the court decision against Richard Liebowitz:

I feel the need to jump in before Sanford shows up to troll. I want to highlight something clear from the Judge’s words, but not this article. Rule 68(D) only applies when the offer is deemed reasonable. When you read the ruling from the judge this is made clear: they spend a lot of time discussing the normal recovery from such a suit, how bad the pattern of facts in the case are for Liebowitz and his client, and how their offer is significantly in excess of the fees expected from a license. This makes the settlement reasonable. If the defense offered a $20 settlement, it would have a far higher bar to be considered reasonable.

In second place, we’ve got an anonymous commenter with an excellent response to the question of what the difference is between fascists and anti-fascists:

Anti-fascists only seem to cause violent reactions in the presence of fascists. Fascists, on the other hand, seem to cause violence wherever they appear, whether antifa are there or not.

I know not everyone will agree that’s a fair characterization, so for our first editor’s choice on the insightful side, here’s Stephen T. Stone with a response that is largely the same but leaves a bit more room for criticism of anti-fascist tactics:

Antifascists commit acts of violence to defend themselves or others, even if the threat is only a perceived one.

Fascists commit acts of violence to terrorize people out of participating in society.

(If that still seems unfair, I can’t help you.)

Next, we’ve got a comment from That One Guy with a good reminder about blaming copyright filters for the ways they can be manipulated:

Not quite, the source of the problem is those that are either ignorant or indifferently malicious and pushing for/mandating those things.

Remove the politicians and groups that are constantly pushing to put The Holy Copyright ahead of anything and everything out of the equation and a whole slew of problems go away, including the one mentioned here, whereas if you just removed the filters they’d come up with some other boneheaded ‘solution’ to screw things up.

Filters are a problem, but they are not the source of the problem, that honor goes to the fools that are used to push such rubbish and the greedy and/or corrupt individuals and groups that do the pushing.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with a response to the recent article pointing out how the White House’s own content moderation policies look a lot like the ones Trump is complaining about:

But what else would you expect from a left-wing rag like *checks notes* the Washington Examiner?

In second place, it’s Qwertygiy with a response to the failed attempt to claim muting a video game character can violate the player’s First Amendment rights:

There is no free speech in video games.

You have to pay $9.99 for the DLC.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Tanner Andrews, who was not so sure about the resolution of a trademark dispute with Viacom over the word “slime”:

Sorry, not convinced

When I think of slime, I certainly do not think of some kid in NZ.

Indeed, slime is the very essence of Viacom (Nickelodeon), and it works the other way, too. When someone says Viacom, many people think “slime”.

And finally, though I tend to think “straw man” accusations get thrown around a bit too wantonly in a lot of debates without actually accomplishing much, we’ve got an anonymous commenter with a version I’ve never seen before that I can’t help but love on its own merits:

That right there is enough strawmen to need to qualify for a parade permit.

That’s all for this week, folks!