vilain 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (127) comment rss

  • On the post: Redditor Points Out The Flaws In SimCity's Online-Only DRM, Gets Banned By EA For His Troubles [UPDATED]

    vilain ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2013 @ 08:01pm

    Time to short EA stock

    This response says it all. Let's hope the gamers hear this a vote with their wallets.

  • On the post: OXO Shows The Right Way To Respond To Bogus 'Outrage' Over 'Copied' Product

    vilain ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2013 @ 10:18pm

    Quirky isn't so hot a startup

    I bought a few things from them. Talking strictly about the company itself, it took WEEKS to fulfill my orders. And I finally had to email their CS person to find out where my stuff was. Apparently they can't track orders with their processing system or provide shipping info. So they mailed me another item, which I got two weeks later for a total of 6 weeks to get something. What is this, 1960?Thankfully Target's been carrying some of their stuff so I can bypass web-ordering.

    Pricey, but nice, gifty things. That you have to wait for a while to get. Which precludes giving them as gifts.

  • On the post: California Senator Leland Yee Tells Gamers To Shut Up And Let The Grown Ups Talk

    vilain ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2013 @ 09:55am

    Pure trolling

    Until I heard Rachel Maddow's show on the NRA Obama's Kids ad (it was really about trolling), I had no context for comments like this. And they would piss me off. Which is exactly what Yee wants. And to rally like minded people to his cause or show someone that he stands for something.

    Guess SCOTUS telling him to STFU isn't enough. Maybe holding lawmakers in contempt (e.g. tossing them into jail for a week, a month or maybe a year) might be a solution. It worked for the the terrorists at Gitmo, right?

    I'm bordering on trolling here myself but I have a problem with lawmakers infringing on what I can do legally in my own home on my own time. Belmont when after smoking in condos and apartments (which I don't do but reserve the right for anyone to smoke in their own home).

    Now he wants to come after video games? You'll have to pry the keyboard out of my cold dead fingers, Senator Yee.

  • On the post: Carmen Ortiz Releases Totally Bogus Statement Concerning The Aaron Swartz Prosecution

    vilain ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2013 @ 10:48am

    Time will judge her

    While she may get away with her actions in this case, justifying and outright lying about them to the public. In private, her family and her conscience ultimately will judge her for what she did. If she has no conscience, then, as a true sociopath, she's perfectly positioned to become the next governor of Massachusetts. My only hope is that people of that state have a long memory for such things and her opponent will hammer home the "she drove a 24 boy to suicide" over and over and over.

    While she may never see the consequences of her actions, time may judge her more harshly than if she was actually removed from office and stripped of her law license.

    Please sign the Whitehouse petition to fire her.

    http://boingboing.net/2013/01/14/whitehouse-gov-petition-to-rem.html

  • On the post: 'Under American Law, Anyone Interesting Is A Felon' – Tim Wu On The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

    vilain ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2013 @ 10:33pm

    Sign the Whitehouse Petition to remove this prosecutor

    BoingBoing has a link to a petition submitted to Whitehouse.gov to remove this prosecutor from her job. I think the more people that sign it, the more the Whitehouse will have to look at the problem.

    If the petition process was enough to get Obama to say "We're not going to build a Death Star. Get over it." Maybe getting them to review this person's position in the Justice Department (a misnomer if ever I've heard one).

    http://boingboing.net/2013/01/14/whitehouse-gov-petition-to-rem.html

  • On the post: Police Chief Deploys Officers With Assault Rifles To Stop & ID Everyone; Says Local Crime Stats Give Him Probable Cause

    vilain ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2012 @ 05:44pm

    ACLU challenge detected...

    I'd like to see a group of 10 different ACLU attorneys, all of different ethnicities and ages, go walking in this area with remotely uploading video uplinks. When asked to show their papers by the various officers, they can go through the dialog "What's your probable cause." and refuse to produce them. Videos would then be used for litegation against the arresting officers, police chief, and mayor. That city is going to be bankrupt from all the litigation very quickly.

    Time to dump these clowns.

  • On the post: BPI Threatens To Sue UK Pirate Party Leaders Personally Due To Internet Proxy

    vilain ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2012 @ 09:16am

    up the anti on crazy

    And by threatening MPs, the next step is for all the Board members of BPI can be pulled into local police stations and questioned about ALL their activities around this threatening behavior. Police interrogation and the information used to assemble a case against BPI for the UK equivalent of racketeering. Love to see these guys behind bars.

  • On the post: HuffPost Moderates Comments To Please Advertisers [Updated: Or Not]

    vilain ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2012 @ 11:59am

    What about the writers?

    Granted the HuffPo doesn't pay writers. What about 'moderating' the opinion of writers and columnists? I know someone who writes freelance for various PC magazines who went to 'the mall' recently to buy Windows 8 and a Surface tablet. He walked away based on his interactions with the store's staff who actively tried not to help him. Although he actively defriends people who pull the Mac vs. PC debate on his FB wall, he did marvel that just across the Mall the Apple Store was doing booming business. And that every sales associate was actively trying to help him _solve his problem_ (not the same thing as sell him a computer). Will his little FB rant ever appear as a column in the PC magazines where he appears? That remains to be seen. Faulting Microsoft in print isn't a good strategy for a magazine that want to continue publishing. I wonder if my friend will stay silent on this or post a YELP review or email someone in Microsoft corporate directly to provide them with the feedback that they're customer service sucks dead bunnies. Before he publishes his opinion in print along with comments from various Microsoft sources. His main job is 'plotting revenge for a living' and he's been writing for 40+ years so I don't think he'll go hungry.

    Moderating what 'the great unwashed' (e.g. the general public) says on your website is just good business. Keeps the lawyers at bay. I'm sure Techdirt's had to pay lawyers regarding user comments on more than one occasion.

  • On the post: School Suspends Students For Finding 'Racy' Photo Teacher Accidentally Put On Their iPads

    vilain ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 10:28am

    Beth Clarke is a lawsuit waiting to happen

    especially when they find screen grabs from MAGIC MIKE on her phone and laptop.

  • On the post: California's Law Barring Demands For Social Media Passwords Sounds Good… But Might Not Be

    vilain ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 01:45pm

    Doesn't matter for big companies

    In the end, big companies make their own rules. If someone hiring does the wrong thing in California, there may be legal consequences for failing to hire because you declined to give access to your social media. But it requires the lawyers become involved.

    While it's not required to get various forms of Trust and Durable Power of Attorney documents notarized, Wells Fargo requires all documents be notarized. Don't like it, bank somewhere else. Or sue.

  • On the post: Judge Says Sniffing Unencrypted WiFi Networks Is Not Wiretapping

    vilain ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 09:23am

    All depends on who's doing the tapping

    A reporter for a local paper sat on the bleachers of the local high school and accessed an OPEN mount point on the schools file server via an open WiFi network. He didn't modify any files but he was able to open and read stuff that shouldn't have been publicly available. Then he wrote about it for the paper. The school district's IT department was in a dither about the lack of security but don't know if the City attorney tried to go after this guy. This was in Palo Alto, the heart of the Silicon Valley.

    If open WiFi networks aren't wiretapping, then the DA had no case. But that didn't stop them from trying to make one.

  • On the post: The Inevitable Crowdfunding Backlash When People Realize Projects Fail & Change

    vilain ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2012 @ 08:47am

    Depends on why you're funding a project

    Up until seeing this post, I hadn't considered using Kickstart or other crowdfunding to do something other than offer a way to see a project that might not otherwise happen. I've funded two things so far--a gay-themed superhero comic book (and seen the pages the author and artist has posted over the last months) and a coming-out film (it didn't make it's goal so the film didn't happen and my card wasn't charged $20). In both cases, I was funding something I wanted to see happen.

    If it something to "invest" in, where I expect a monetary return for my money, that's another matter. I see crowd funding as a dicey proposition for that--rife with fraud and possible criminality as well as an opportunity to make money faster. It's not what I would do with my money in order to grow it.

    I'd rather spend $$$ to keep the Castro Theater in SF showing the nightly eclectic Queer-friendly fare rather than it turn into another souless cineplex for the yuppies that are invading the neighborhood. They growl at the same sex couples holding hands and get all bent out of shape when those same couples tell them to 'F*ing breeders. This was _our_ neighborhood before you were even born. Take your 2-cup baby stroller and go live in the Marina."

  • On the post: People Who Pay For A Service Are A Lot Nicer Than Those Who Don't

    vilain ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2012 @ 07:16pm

    NeoOffice users aren't so nice

    The 2 guys in a garage who ported OpenOffice to MacOS have found that new users have become the bane of their existence. These people are upset that they have to pay $10/year for support of a 'free product'. It's gotten so bad that the developers have stopped fixing bugs because they're spending all their time answer tech support calls from users.

    So, they shut down the payment system and let the current crop of people go without help. Only if you've bought support in the last year will they allow you to pay for another year for support and then answer your questions.

    This seems just the reverse of what the original article is saying. But this is pissing off a LOT of people in the Macintosh news groups. You can't even post to the NeoOffice forums and emails from non-subscribers are bounced back. Their excuse is that they aren't a company and are doing this 'because they want to'. They took a free-software package (OpenOffice), forked it, changed the copyright to another form (it's legal), and now users are left twisting in the wind. The last time a developer did this (Brian Clark, 'author' of Thoth, a MacOS news reader), users either held their nose or told him to bite the big one.

    Someone needs to drop a house on these guys who are doing this to NeoOffice.

  • On the post: Where Do Teens Discover New Music? YouTube.

    vilain ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2012 @ 05:48pm

    Certainly is for me

    I stumbled across Sam Tsui (recent Yale grad) who's a "Youtube phenomenon". He and his music producer led me to other Youtube artists who subscribe to. The video for this summer's hit CALL ME MAYBE was mentioned by one of the Glee actors. The ending became the plot for quite a few fanfic stories.

    The idea that you need a recording contract to get your music out there is, I think, no longer true. Those struggling artists need $$$ to tour and actually give live concerts. Kickstarter, maybe? That's why I buy covers from them in iTunes--they get more $ from the sale than any commercial album.

    Time for the record and movie industry to stop with their rectocranially impacted business model. They're selling buggy whips and don't even smell the gasoline.

  • On the post: Bait & Switch: Buy A Lifetime Account For As Long As We Exist Or Until We Get Tired Of You

    vilain ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2012 @ 03:27pm

    Some companies keep their promises

    An aunt was a 'lifetime' subscriber to the New Yorker until she died at 89. That subscription lasted 70+ years. Someone else down the block was a lifetime subscriber of The Reader's Digest (they were from the Midwest--not their fault) and had a similar run.

    I'd love to see the early customers band together to launch a class action lawsuit against these clowns. No one really wins in those things except the lawyers, but if it makes the company keep their promises, great. Otherwise, they deserve to go out of business.

  • On the post: Viacom Uses Fans As Hostages: Blocks Daily Show, Colbert Streams For Everyone To Spite DirecTV

    vilain ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2012 @ 08:05am

    Why aren't Colbert and John Steward looking to move

    If the distributor isn't doing their job by making their content available, why aren't Colbert and John Stewart's attorneys now screaming at Viacom to get their head outta their collective anni? If that's not part of their contracts, it sure ought to be. "Keep your corporate hands offa my show or you loose the right to distribute it. Where _I_ want it distributed."

  • On the post: Fair Use/Fair Dealing Doesn't Require Payment Or Permission

    vilain ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2012 @ 03:14pm

    Song lyrics

    I recently had a story on a fanfiction site taken down without explanation. I wrote a number of times asking why only to be ignored. Finally, I emailed a copy of the story and they objected to my use of the word "Bitch" in the title and the song lyrics I had in the story. I researched Fair Use and the advise from the US Copyright office said "when in doubt, get permission". If you can't, then don't use it. The use-case for Fair Use would require a judge and jury to decide, according to this site. This from

    http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

    So, I trimmed the song down to 4 lines rather than the whole song. The site seemed to accept that. I took out "bitch" in the title.

    So Mike, where did you get your guidelines for Fair Use. When someone won't accept them, do you say "Talk to my lawyer" and leave it at that?

  • On the post: Police Arrest Woman For Filming Them, Take Phone Out Of Her Bra, Claim That It Must Be Kept As 'Evidence'

    vilain ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 08:08pm

    growth industry for litegators

    Once the internet uploading phone app appears, which would stream directly to the cloud, confiscating the phone will be the least of the police's problems. A court order to take down the video (as "evidence") would soon follow.

    What I think is needed here is skilled observers. This would make a great 1st year associate's job. Go around filming police, staying out of their way, getting arrested, phone impounded, 'resisting arrest' and 'inciting' while being arrested to compound the arresting officer's offenses, and ultimately fighting the entire thing in court, filing damages against the city, police chief, and officers involved. Cities would settle. Marginal cops would be off the streets guarding the malls of America, and these law firms would make a ton of money.

  • On the post: Park Ranger Tases Guy Walking Dogs Without A Leash

    vilain ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2012 @ 09:46am

    Bust gone bust

    When this all comes to trial if some DA decides to prosecute, I'm sure the ranger will be called to the stand to explain why she tazed the suspect. And to explain why, when asked, "Can I go now?" she said yes.

    If the judge throws this out of court, I would not be surprised.

    If the DA charges this guy and not accept a plea, I would not be surprised.

    If this park ranger continues tasing people with impunity, I would not be surprised.

  • On the post: US Can Extradite UK Student For Copyright Infringement, Despite Site Being Legal In The UK

    vilain ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2012 @ 12:20pm

    what about the reverse

    If the UK will extradite one of their citizens to the US for doing something that's legal in the UK but illegal in the US, then I see the reverse happening. Meeting the grounds for libel and defamation in the UK is a lot easier, so suing a US citizen in a UK court for such might be interesting. Same for other crimes.

    A disaster that caused a gas pipeline to explode killing 8 people in SF has been found to be caused by various illegal and the company diverted funds collected from rate payers to pay themselves. Suppose some QC in the UK decides to prosecute the CEO and Board of the gas company various criminal charges because a UK citizen died in the explosion. Doubt the US courts would extradite these 1%-ers to the UK for trial. So Interpol sends some people to 'extradite them' with extreme prejudice. I can see this as a LAW & ORDER-UK episode in the near future.

    What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

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