PaulT 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (29334)

• On the post: Would You Trust All Of Your Financial Services & Money To Elon Musk?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:23pm

  "Half the things literally didn’t happen, the other half weren’t stupid"

  I'd love an honest breakdown here. I know one won't happen, but I'm wondering which idiotic moves you think were not stupid.

  "Go to mastodon, already, you keep on claiming it’s gonna be a thing."

  It is a thing. It's not the mainstream thing that Twitter was before Musk took it over, but it's more popular than some of the right-wing echo chambers that were set up to grift from people who thought that people telling them they were not welcome in polite society was censorship.

• On the post: Would You Trust All Of Your Financial Services & Money To Elon Musk?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:19pm

  "MM sycophants don’t change what the truth is. Lots and lots of view point discrimination which Masnick desperately wants back."

  Many people have indeed told you to fuck off, of at least deal honestly with facts. You being downvoted because you refuse to do these things is not discrimination. I swear, I was always told that ignorance is bliss, but the most ignorant are always so angry...

• On the post: The Retail Theft Surge That Isn’t: Report Says Crime Is Being Exaggerated To Cover Up Other Retail Issues

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:16pm

  I'm not surprised that you don't understand the issues here, but I suspect you place the blame in the wrong place.

• On the post: The Retail Theft Surge That Isn’t: Report Says Crime Is Being Exaggerated To Cover Up Other Retail Issues

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:12pm

  "You know why no one stops them? Nobody is working"

  No, it's because everything's insured and the employer stands to lose more by some wannabe hero getting killed to protect a pack of toilet roll. There's nothing sold in a Target that's worth a life.

  "People just walk out because “police are not allowed to do anything"

  I mean, to be perfectly harsh, they didn't do anything in Uvalde, what are they going to do about petty crime?

• On the post: The Retail Theft Surge That Isn’t: Report Says Crime Is Being Exaggerated To Cover Up Other Retail Issues

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:09pm

  Sadly, there have been a couple of examples of flash mobs in the US and UK either co-ordinating shoplifting or gathering for promised giveaways that never happened. So, the far right wants to pretend this is normal and the fault of Democrats. Of course, the real problems are not only far beyond "Democrats", but global and in the US largely laid at the feet of the right, but some people are programmed to believe that a problem happening now is only due to the actions of people today, and not the complicated and slow progress of many decisions in the past.

• On the post: The Retail Theft Surge That Isn’t: Report Says Crime Is Being Exaggerated To Cover Up Other Retail Issues

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 07:02pm

  Last time I checked, the rate of goods theft by employees or consumers was way less than wage theft, etc. If employees are stealing, maybe they should be paid better?

• On the post: The Retail Theft Surge That Isn’t: Report Says Crime Is Being Exaggerated To Cover Up Other Retail Issues

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2023 @ 06:58pm

  Yes, small crimes are often a symptom of other issues, like poverty and drug addiction, and dealing with those root causes instead of destroying lives of multiple generations for relatively minor infractions is something that's proven to work.

  "The stores in other nearby municipalities have the same prices, and yet they stay in business despite lower population density."

  How do more crimes happen in places where more people live? Must be the Democrats, at fault because they routinely win in places where more people live despite them not winning enough seats to make a national policy... Absolute morons... I'm going to guess you'll vote against the next plan to deal with this because it might accidentally allow a woman or trans person some rights (while ignoring the regular Republicans convicted of sexual abuse of minors, of course).

• On the post: Streaming’s Latest ‘Innovation’: Ads When You Hit Pause

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2023 @ 03:48pm

  "What would a disruptor to the current streaming market even look like?"

  Netflix. The problem is that everyone wanted a piece of that pie, so the company that offered "everything streaming to every device" - which is what the public actually wants - now has to compete with services that offer nothing other than a restriction. We had a brief moment where people for a decent and affordable alternative to piracy, but greed seems to be telling people that they have to sail again, and there's no "disruptor" that's going to appear when the tech is here but not the legal option to provide what people want.

• On the post: Streaming’s Latest ‘Innovation’: Ads When You Hit Pause

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2023 @ 03:40pm

  "They’ve been doing that for like a hundred years (well, they started off after the movie, hence the term “trailer”, but that didn’t last long because people would just leave)"

  Not really... It used to be the fact that you're buy a ticket and stay in the theatre as long as you liked. It wasn't until movies like Psycho stopped people from entering the cinema before a certain point that selling a ticket for one movie was common - before that, people bought a ticket and sat through the b-movie, cartoons and newsreels until the main movie started again.

  The idea that more ads will lead to fewer viewers is not supported by history.

  I disagree here - ads are one of the major excuses for piracy. Especially with people who used to be able to access ad-free content. I certainly know several people who stopped buying DVDs at least in part because they couldn't skip the anti-piracy ads on the discs they bought...

• On the post: Streaming’s Latest ‘Innovation’: Ads When You Hit Pause

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2023 @ 03:33pm

  I think there was a patent, but AFAIK getting a patent doesn't mean it's actually possible (or commercially viable - MS lost a hell of a lot of money because of less objectionable ideas with the XBox One launch).

• On the post: Former Sony CEO Discusses Risks Of Video Game Industry Consolidation And Game Preservation

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2023 @ 02:56pm

  The problem is the one that's always been there - whatever makes money will be preserved. Other art might disappear. Whatever happens now with gaming might mirror what's happened with movies and music - boutique labels putting out limited release editions targeted at niche audiences. But, software compatibility is always an issue - an Amiga 500 game that didn't sell will be more difficult to release legally than a movie that played in some drive-ins in the 50s but can be transferred to disc. I suspect that software preservation will happen, at least for last century's games, but it will be despite the corporations, and we have a real problem with future preservation. But, it's a legal problem not a tech one. Almost everything will be preserved in some way, it's the copyright and connectivity that will present issues - especially where companies deicde they don't wish to let people buy the legal version, but also don't let it go to the public doman.

• On the post: Depressing: Ed Sheeran Films Songwriting Sessions Due To All The Copyright Suits

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2023 @ 06:50pm

  You give me a name and a few days to review their catalogue and I’ll hand you “stolen” music.

  What's strange here is that after an extended time of claiming that Sheeran doesn't matter because he's not popular in the 3% of the population you're aware of, that pop doesn't mean as much as metal, and all the rest of it... you're just agreeing with my original point. The "I never heard of him" would be nonsense either way, I simply found it funny that you said that about one of the best selling artists of the last decade. Let's hope that there's a better way to work out where actual plagiarism happens

• On the post: Depressing: Ed Sheeran Films Songwriting Sessions Due To All The Copyright Suits

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2023 @ 06:40pm

  "Actually, the artist doesn’t matter"

  Exactly! It doesn't matter if the artist is world famous or a guy recording his first song in a garage, the idea that he needs to record his creative process is a massive problem.

  "it was who is this artist that a tech site finally decided to cover the problem that has been stinging musicians for decades"

  I still have no idea how you read articles here but don't understand long-running complaints, but I'm happy you finally caught up on this one. I don't know why you had to argue over the relative popularity of a major star to get to the point that it's a problem that the entire creative process is now under duress, but the idea that all artists from Cattle Decapitation to Taylor Swift are affected by this issue even if you don't like Ed Sheeren should have been clear a while ago.

• On the post: Hey Ricky Schroder: Porn Is Protected By The 1st Amendment

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2023 @ 06:31pm

  It's always interesting that when you make this sort of claim, you never provide evidence. Not a hint of an attempt of trying to oppose what's said in the article itself, but plenty of wild accusations against the character of the author, with zero reason why the casual reader should accept your claims. Why is that?

• On the post: Depressing: Ed Sheeran Films Songwriting Sessions Due To All The Copyright Suits

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 03:28pm

  I asked a simple question expecting someone to give me something more concise than a long Wikipedia article.

  Yes, I know you're lazy. Well, in some aspects. You'd rather make pithy remarks about something instead of checking your facts, but when your assumptions are proven incorrect you'll literally spend months arguing about it. We've had similar discussions before, and it's very strange how you'll spend so much time arguing when a simple fact check or concession would be more educational.

  You invented some theory about my thoughts on the subject matter based on not knowing who some artist is.

  No, I noted how the relative fame of the artist didn't matter. I just found it funny that you didn't know such a successful artist, or bothered to look before implying that they didn't matter because of your lack of knowledge of their work. Then, your flailing attempts to pretend that you're really right because only a subset of success in one country really counts was laughable, especially as it drifted away from the actual point - which again, wouldn't change on my end if I was talking about some pub band who were just starting out vs a major artist I'm not a big fan of but is difficult to avoid in much of the world.

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 03:12pm

  I only care about the rights of my political and ideological allies, and the amassing and exercising of power in our favor

  So, you're a fascist. Not surprising.

• On the post: A Gentle Reminder That Censoring Books Is Never A ‘Reasonable’ Solution

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 03:11pm

  "required" There's a lot of words that indicate that you don't understand the arguments, but I think that's the most obvious one

• On the post: Curtain Call: Microsoft, Activsion Blizzard Announce Completion Of Acquisition

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 02:50pm

  While I agree to an extent, you seem focussed mainly on the non-gaming parts of Microsoft and not on the market they're going for. That part has actually done well from a consumer perspective. Since the disastrous XBox One launch, they've done a lot to set up everything from backward compatibility (which they explicitly said they wouldn't do before) to allowing people to play XBox games on mobile and non-Windows PCs. I get the concerns, but while one can play Starfield without owning a device with a Microsoft OS, while Sony have explicit agreements not to port some games to XBox and offer no way to play most of their first party titles on non-Sony devices, I don't share them. We'll see how this plays out long-term, but AI and Skype/Teams/whatever are different business units and the stated goal is not to just sell more consoles.

• On the post: Curtain Call: Microsoft, Activsion Blizzard Announce Completion Of Acquisition

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 02:43pm

  "in the US" Oh, and the fact that the UK regulator was the last place to fall in place should be a clue as to why this isn't the bigger issue.

• On the post: Curtain Call: Microsoft, Activsion Blizzard Announce Completion Of Acquisition

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2023 @ 02:42pm

  it all came down to “Sony can’t make a successful FPS” and “Cloud gaming is 100% pinkie swear the future¹”

  Not really. They agreed to sell off their cloud rights, and the majority of properties they bought didn't have anything to do with FPS. if you fell for those arguments, you're listening to the company whose strategy is blocking developers from offering cross-platform titles and not allowing others to use their. cloud platforms.

Next >>