Baldaur Regis 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: FCC Boss: Broadband Caps Are Good… No, Bad… No, Good… Wait, Who Am I Talking To Again?

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2012 @ 08:36am

    Leapfrogging Infrastructure

    IIRC, the US is burdened with a legacy telco infrastrucure, with the majority of homes wired for Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) - twisted pairs of copper wire. There's a physical limitation to how much data can be stuffed down these skinny pipes. Cable provides a fatter pipe, but the problem is cablecos are content providers, so there is little incentive for them to provide access to competing content from that Internet thingy.

    The infrastructure in the US is perfectly set up for what is was designed for - low-bandwidth speech via copper, one-way video via cable. In essence, internet access is being piggy-backed on systems not designed for it. And, again, there is little incentive for these companies to upgrade their hardware so their content competitors can use their pipes.

    In contrast, developing nations can bypass this old technology and go directly to fiber and/or tower transmission, with the toothless legacy players unable to block the buildout.

  • On the post: The 'Hey Jude' Replacement Ref Protest Plan: Turning Copyright Maximalism Against Itself

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 03:27pm

    The Big Takeaway

    The great thing about maximalism is its self-defined ability to approach infinite absurdity. Case in point: a sportswriter - a sportswriter - understands copyright maximalism well enough to use it satirically.

    This trend will reach infinity when hookers will tell anyone involved in IP "Sorry, there's some things I just won't do" and coke dealers will tell them "Get lost. I got a reputation to protect", at which point Hollywood will slip beyond the event horizon and southern California will be just another nice, semi-arid place to live.

  • On the post: DHS Boss, In Charge Of Cybersecurity, Doesn't Use Email Or Any Online Services

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 12:38pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Wait....you're saying that jumper cables have other uses BESIDES getting funky? LOL next you'll be saying that jack thingy has something to do with a car too.

  • On the post: DHS Boss, In Charge Of Cybersecurity, Doesn't Use Email Or Any Online Services

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 12:06pm

    on the bright side

    At least she doesn't have an address like 'janetboobear8234@aol.com' or publicly says things like "The Information Superhighway".

  • On the post: Google's Copyright Crackdown Punishes Author For Torrenting His Own Book

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2012 @ 12:06pm

    It's very obvious....

    ....that after 14 years and countless billions of dollars, Google has perfected a machine intelligence that cannot be destroyed by logical contradictions - the LawyerBot.

  • On the post: Former Copyright Boss: New Technology Should Be Presumed Illegal Until Congress Says Otherwise

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2012 @ 11:29am

    Indisputably, Congress drafted the Copyright Act to prevent the creative efforts of authors from being usurped by new technologies.
    Regardless if those new technologies further the exposure of the author to a larger public, which is the point where copyright maximalists and I part company.

    I understand the obligation of lawyers to assert the most preposterous ideas of their masters, with the only metric of success being how many people the lawyer can convince that the sky is, indeed, purple. But there must be a special sense of cynical obtuseness that copyright lawyers have to attain in order to say copyright promotes progress.

  • On the post: Partisan Piracy: Conservative Filmmakers Accuse Obama Supporters Of Uploading Their Film To Youtube

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2012 @ 10:34am

    back the truck up...

    While such a drop isn't unusual for a movie during the course of a week -- especially when the theater count dropped from 1,876 to 1,216....
    So this political documentary filmmaker is claiming a current theater count of 1,216 after ten weeks....according to box office data, that's more theaters than most studio releases. Does his definition of 'theater' include basements and high school gyms?

  • On the post: NZ Gets New 'Homeland' Episodes Less Than 4 Hours After US

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2012 @ 09:08am

    After reading the latest on Dotcom over on TF, this seemed at first glance to be a "Good doggie, New Zealand, here's a biscuit!" gesture, a partial payment from the US for raiding Mega. Commenters have pointed out this trend in other regions, however, so I say good on ya networks for only taking 10 years to figure it out.

    With media execs using their brains for more than dustcatchers, what will all those nasty torrenters do?

    Won't somebody think of the pirates?

  • On the post: Sweden Failed To License Photographs On New Currency

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2012 @ 02:44pm

    Re: Heh. Gotta love the irony of the biter bit.

    The only time you move forward by backing up is when something is biting you square in the ass.

    -- old Maine proverb

  • On the post: Author Cries Trademark Infringment On Book Reviews Of A Different Book

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 12:00pm

    Crazy is a good thing!

    I'm sure after their recent dealings with the DOJ that the Harper Collins lawyers needed a good laugh.

  • On the post: First HADOPI Victim Convicted, Not For His Own Infringement, But Because His Wife Downloaded Songs

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 11:13am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    And he's never, to my knowledge, acknowledged or explained his hypocrisy in using that particular, copyrighted image. That just makes him another fucking troll.

    And, being a troll, his pleasure comes from pushing peoples' buttons. Trolls have no emotional or intellectual investment in their comments. They post just to get a reaction.

    Fuck 'em.

  • On the post: Major Labels Claim Copyright Over Public Domain Songs; YouTube Punishes Musician

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 02:42pm

    Re: Only Slightly Relevant

    I imagine morose studio executives staring into their scotch-and-waters, seeing their career termination lights winking towards them, thinking about how reasonable the RIAA sounded back then, thinking the two saddest words in the world: If only...

    Well done!

  • On the post: Fan Fiction: A Revisionist History And Future

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 01:57pm

    Gah!

    It's telling that a number of people (myself included) had to look up just who the hell Ewan Morrison is.

    And this quote from the original article:

    ...the point where fans become the creators, and a derivative work becomes the new original is also the point at which the culture industries stop needing to create anything new.
    tells exactly what Morrison is: a card-carrying copyright maximalist who wants to lock everything down.

    But I'll tell you something, Morrison: keep your fucking "culture industry"; I find all the culture I enjoy, all the stories I love best, just by listening to and watching the people passing by my doorstoop.

  • On the post: GOP Platform May Include Internet Freedom Language… But Also Wants Crackdown On Internet Porn

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 08:42am

    Pffft.

    So they have a pornography plank. Dantes's Dungeon has had those in stock for years.

    ....

    Not that I would know anything about it.

  • On the post: MPAA Pretends 'Offering Something' Is The Same Thing As 'Offering What People Want'

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2012 @ 02:25pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    That's a Harvard comma to you, my good man.

  • On the post: MPAA Pretends 'Offering Something' Is The Same Thing As 'Offering What People Want'

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2012 @ 01:37pm

    Re:

    Maybe I should sign up for a dozen different video services...
    This is one of the greatest difficulties the studios and other content creators are having with the direct-to-consumer distribution model: market fragmentation. The 'piratical' distribution is source-neutral; like the video stores of old, where the content comes from is less important than the quantity of the content. And yes, the pirates are all evil freetards who will burn in hell forever, but what they offer on this mortal coil is convenience.

  • On the post: New Documents Show That Feds Share License Plate Scanning Data With Insurance Firms

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2012 @ 08:32am

    Re: Goal: Profit; Means: Deny Claims

    Insurance companies have one goal, and that is to make a profit. The easiest way to do that is to deny claims.
    The second easiest way is to add (and charge for) hilariously implausible scenarios. For instance, I can't drive through "radioactive areas" or transport "explosive or potentially explosive materials". This totally ruined my plan to fund my vacation to visit Chernobyl by selling hairspray. Damn you AllState!

  • On the post: Showtime Spoils Dexter Finale During Unskippable Pre-Menu Promo

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2012 @ 08:38am

    Re:

    A thought occurs to me reading this thread. Making a quality rip is a very demanding technical process which requires a good deal of knowledge; you really can't just run something through a ripper and expect it to be good. What's to stop a studio from DLing an excellent rip of one of their own properties and marketing it as a value-added product? I'd pay good money for a good rip w/o any "features"; I'd pay even more for a good rip from a studio with, say, "ScOrp" overlaid in the lower right hand corner. Now that's quality!

  • On the post: Musician Chris Randall: Music Has No Monetary Value But The Connections It Forms Are Priceless

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2012 @ 08:45am

    The funny thing about music is that people can tie a certain song to a specific event in their life...
    This is so true. The first memory I have with "Back In Black" was handing a wad of cash over the counter to a man wearing a red vest.

  • On the post: Next TPP Negotiation Session Has Only 3 Hours Allotted For Negotiators To Talk To Public Interest Advocates

    Baldaur Regis ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2012 @ 12:02pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    "rented": lol well played sir! I don't think you can do ANYTHING in Silicon Valley without being involved in some way with Google. I don't agree with your previous comment but I must give you +1 for your wit here.

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