cc's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
This week’s favorite posts come courtesy of cc, who’s been having fun doing battle in the comments
Do you ever get the feeling that Techdirt has just way too many departments? Yes? Well, it’s thanks to that abundance thing Mike is always on about… And it looks like today I’m adding my own: I think I’ll call it the DHS, short for “Department of Han Solo”. Just because I can.
So on with my highlights for this week.
ICE are living up to their name, trying to create a chilling effect on people linking to stuff they don’t like. As Mike noted, they are skating on very thin ice, and hopefully the courts will put them in their place pretty quick. If not, the US gov’t will be getting some cool new internet censorship toys soon.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren has come forward with blistering criticism of the lack of due process in ICE’s domain seizures, and has given IP Czar Victoria Espinel a thorough grilling about their legality. Lofgren later suggested that the 84,000 websites slandered as child pornographers in the botched mooo.com seizure should turn up the heat on ICE, and made one thing clear: speak up! If you want your Representatives to listen to you, write them physical letters and you might get some attention.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t ICE who responded to Lofgren’s comments, but the RIAA. Not surprisingly, a response written by industry lobbyists is full of lies and deception, which Techdirt kindly took the time to debunk.
In other important news, a US proposal for the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement), the sequel to ACTA, has been leaked. As those paying attention have come to expect, it’s just a list of the things they wanted but didn’t get in ACTA. At the same time, we get the news that a major ‘piracy’ report has concluded that more enforcement is not the right solution — thus bringing all of US foreign IP policy into question. Hey, now even WIPO has said copyright has been pushed too far.
Of interest may also be that the US Supreme Court have agreed to look at the Golan v. Holder case, and specifically whether it’s constitutional to yank public domain works back into copyright. Fingers crossed the supremes will come to the right decision.
On the trademark insanity front, Zynga is trying to trademark most of France, Apple is trying to trademark ‘app’, and the Twilight vampires are on the prowl for anything with the word ‘twilight’ in it.
And while we’re speaking of insanity, I might as well mention how the consumer rights organisations were treated during the joke hearings about the Special 301 report. Keep it classy, boys.
And that’s it for now. May the force… well, you know.
You know how the Japanese judge ruled on the case, right?
"The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Coka_Tadasuke#Famous_cases
http://sendthemyourmoney.com/
A drawing of a spider may also suffice!
I love the fact that Reddit is putting together an anti-Lamar Smith PAC. Apparently, they already have enough to put up a billboard.
If you are an American voter, help them out:
http://testpacpleaseignore.org/
Also:
250. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-plot-thickens-was-woman-drinking-with-captain--or-an-innocent-aboard-6292246.html
251. http://www.piedmont-digital-graphics.com/
If they're so sorry, surely they'll be happy to give their ill-gained profits to charity, RIGHT?
Mind you, the connection to Notch isn't accidental!
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-07-doublefine-tim-and-markus-are-talking-about-psychonauts-2
Re:
"The MPAA re---sents artists."
Ah, that's where things started going wrong!
Re: Re: Bitch Boys
I'm not really criticising the quality of his art (though personally I think it's horrible), I'm pointing out that his art wasn't just inspired by the songs, some of it actually contains copyrighted lyrics.
That doesn't justify Parks's reaction, of course (I think he's being a prick), but at least there may be legal grounds for it.
Bitch Boys
The artist's name sounds Dutch, so US fair use may not apply. Also, this is what his art looks like, apparently: he wrote the songs' lyrics on a piece of canvas using trippy colours...
Re:
They should call it the Immunising Necessary Technological Entrepreneurship by Reinforcing our Networks against External Threats bill.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think I have a fair understanding.
What I'm saying is that the data shows that only one of the main originators of subprime loans was subject to that regulation, while the rest were exempt but did it of their own accord.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The idea that just because you take a job away from the Federal Government that it just stops getting done is ridiculous, naive and plain stupid.
There are LOTS of NGOs that do WAY better than their federal counterparts at doing almost everything, they just dont get funding because 'the government already does that'."
What's the point of taking jobs out of the government if your goal is not to increase efficiency (ie., "doing it way better" like you say)? Newsflash: increasing efficiency means doing the same thing with fewer jobs. What's more, many (if not most) government jobs exist to keep the government's own bureaucracy running.
"Using starvation as an attack Libertarianism is a straw man argument of the worst variety."
It's not a strawman, you just have no counterargument because it's true: if there are no safety nets, some unlucky people WILL make mistakes and end up in absolute poverty. There is no way to dispute that.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are wrong. The bad loans originated almost entirely from banks that were NOT subject to those regulations. The problem was lack of regulation, plain and simple. Fact:
The Community Reinvestment Act is the law you say "forced" the banks to make subprime loans.Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/charts-facts-economic-crisis/
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I think you'd be surprised how easy it would be to get a job if the tax rates were near zero."
I'd definitely be surprised. If you reduce the size of government, will the sacked government workers not need new jobs? Tell me, where will those come from? And also, by reducing those people's purchasing power, you are effectively cutting jobs in other areas. The overall result would be even more unemployment.
"I think you'd be surprised how easy it would be to get an education - a whole education, not a McEducation - without the DOE."
It's a matter of supply and demand. If your libertarian fantasy-land were to happen and there was a "truly free jobs market", then the supply of educated people would strive to meet the demand. No more and no less.
The DOE was giving loans so more people could get complete educations than there was demand -- in other words, cutting it would make it harder to get an education.
"The think one of the things people miss about the libertarian philosophy is how spectacularly motivating it is to be without so many safety nets."
People starving in the streets would be very motivating indeed, huh?
"this appears to be a major miscalculation on the part of Democratic party leadership -- potentially losing an entire younger generation of voters to the Republicans"
If the discussions I've been seeing all over the internet are in any way representative of the bigger picture, many younger Americans are completely fed up with the Donkey vs Elephant politics.
The Democrats may have lost the younger generation, but I don't think the younger generation went to the Republicans...
Christian Engstrom, Pirate MEP, kind of disagrees:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchristianengstrom.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F01%2F19%2Flankar-om-eus-svar-pa-sopapipa%2F
(Google translate from Swedish)
Re: Re:
Are you playing chess or battleship?
Re: Re: Re:
It doesn't work? Well it depends on what its goals are, doesn't it?
The War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, the War on Piracy all have something in common: they can't be won, but they can still turn a country into a police state.
Re: Congratulations Freetards, You've Let The Copyterrorists Win
"the price of vigilance is eternal liberty"
You, sir, win two internets.
Re: Re: Re: time to put a stop to this
Instead we're all speaking English. Traded one evil empire for another. Whoop dee doo.