Boojum 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Popular GameStick Project Briefly Deleted From Kickstarter Over DMCA Takedown

    Boojum ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2013 @ 12:50pm

    Re: Re: I can see copyright infringement

    Brand Confusion has to do with Trademark, not Copyright. Copyright has to do with who has the right to make copy's of a particular work. We have exceptions for fair use, but I'm not sure that applies to this case. I also don't feel that the use here was transformative. Indeed, I feel they were using peoples enjoyment of the games displayed on their console to better their chances of getting money.
    Also, I don't agree you can use a screenshot of mario to sell game controllers without permission from the copyright holder. Until the copyright laws are changed, I believe that is the case. What you CAN do is screenshot (or copy the cover or many other things) mario if your selling the Mario game you bought before, because you have a right to provide an example of a work as part of selling it.

  • On the post: Popular GameStick Project Briefly Deleted From Kickstarter Over DMCA Takedown

    Boojum ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2013 @ 12:22pm

    I can see copyright infringement

    I suspect that if I were to take screenshots of a video game and then used them to advertise my own product that has nothing to do with that video game then there would be a copyright violation for the artwork that appears inside the video game (leaving aside trademark for a moment, which would be a different matter).

    Remember, the graphics inside of a game are also copyrighted. While you could draw your own plumber, if you screenshot Mario and put him on a poster to sell tampons you have performed a copyright violation.

  • On the post: Obama Signs 'Whistleblower Protection Act' The Same Day That Whistleblower Bradley Manning Is In Court

    Boojum ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 05:37pm

    That's right, the government makes the laws that do or do not protect people from revealing their corruption.. and the citizens elect the politicians who make these laws and keep sending them back to washington. Remember, while the citizens respect for congress in general is poor, they are normally quite for their own congressmen.. It's the REST of those guys who are the problem. :D

    Boojum

  • On the post: Obama Signs 'Whistleblower Protection Act' The Same Day That Whistleblower Bradley Manning Is In Court

    Boojum ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 05:01pm

    Re: Re: Ex-post-facto....maybe not, but something I need to say...

    He had no choice to do what he did through the channels he chose. The reason behind this is simply that nobody in the Government would listen to him or believe him. In an agency where ethics are supposed to be upheld at the highest level, he saw numerous ethics violations beimg committed. He quite possibly used up all his resources before using the last ditch effort to get the message out that is the internet.

    None of which is protected under the whistle blower law, which is what this article was about. The whistleblower law, and in this case the more important military whistleblower law, clearly delineate what they protect and neither the civilian nor the military laws protect someone giving information to a foreign national.

    As the details of the case come out we may well see arguments as to what other options he had available. It won't stop the destruction of his military career... because he definitely violated the USMJ no matter how well intentioned he was or how few choices he felt he had.

    And, of course, this raises another issue. It states that Bradly Manning clearly thought he was informing on illegal actions of the government. But what about the rest of the thousands of documents that didn't contain information on illegal actions of the government?

    Let us say the chief of police in a city commits murder and covers it up.. and the documents are inside a computer at the police station. I can still get in trouble if I grab ALL the information in the police computer (including private information about officers and citizens) and give it to someone else instead of just what is needed to reveal what happened. Of the documents that Bradley leaked, many were embarrassing without showing illegal activity.

    He had choices on how he released the information.. some of them might have seen less of a chance that the information gets out (such as reporting it to the inspector general or a congressman he trusted) but even if he did he chose to give ALL the documents to a foreign national. That's sort of the definition of espionage even if we feel that he was justified about telling someone about specific actions.

    And Mesonoxian, please point to the part of the USMJ that says it's unlawful to order someone not to release classified documents to the public? You will find it allows you to reveal unlawful activities to Congress, your chain of command, and to the inspector general. I think you'll find that the people charging him DO know the USMJ... you just don't like what the USMJ says.

    Boojum

  • On the post: Obama Signs 'Whistleblower Protection Act' The Same Day That Whistleblower Bradley Manning Is In Court

    Boojum ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 03:24pm

    Re: Re: Court Martial is not the same as Federal Court

    If Manning believed that information he passed contained constitutional violations by the government, wouldn't it follow that the orders to keep the information secret would be unlawful? And if that was the case, wouldn't Manning be obliged to disobey that order, since following an unlawful order is also a court martial offense?

    It depends on the order. If the order is not to tell the inspector general, congress, or someone in his chain of command then it would be an unlawful order. If the order is to not give the secret to a foreign government or foreign national, then it would be a lawful order. You can't just stop at ordered to keep it secret. You have to include keep it secret from whom.

    Under the uniform code of military justice, an order is lawful unless there is an exception written into the UCMJ. My understanding is that there is no exception allowing military personnel to leak classified documents of our governments constitutional violations to a foreign national or government.
    Boojum

    Boojum

  • On the post: Obama Signs 'Whistleblower Protection Act' The Same Day That Whistleblower Bradley Manning Is In Court

    Boojum ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 03:01pm

    Re: Re: Court Martial is not the same as Federal Court

    The answer is never. The Uniform Code of Justice always applys. This is also the rules that allow a superior officer to shoot you for dereliction of duty or failure to obey a command during a time of war.

    Honestly, I'm rather surprised that Mr. Manning wasn't charged with Espionage given that he stole classified documents and passed them to a foreign national. Given how many documents there were I doubt he had time to read them all and make sure they didn't have any military secrets or anything that would endanger troops.

    But here is the thing.. If I choose to break the law because my moral code says it needs to be broken, then I expect I will also be charged with a crime. We do not normally allow an individuals moral code to allow them to break the law, there are to many variances to consider that a good way to promote justice.

    If my moral code says it's ok to driver faster than the speed limit it doesn't get me out of a traffic ticket. If my moral code says it's ok to shoot a girl for going to school on a bus it doesn't get me out of murder charges. If my moral code says it's ok to use harsh capital punishment on my child it doesn't get me out of child protection laws being used to put me in jail.

    At some point, I.. like every other human being.. has to decide where it's important to take a stand and where it's not. Bradley Manning found his point and chose to make his stand there. This doesn't get him out of punishment for how he went about doing it.

    I know that I don't want political parties sifting through classified documents and deciding what to whistleblow on to best get their candidate into office.

    To me, the best answer is to change how we classify documents and make government more open. But under the laws now I can't see how Bradley Manning can avoid some level of punishment to prevent worse results later on.

    Boojum

  • On the post: Obama Signs 'Whistleblower Protection Act' The Same Day That Whistleblower Bradley Manning Is In Court

    Boojum ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 02:01pm

    Court Martial is not the same as Federal Court

    Ok folks, a Court Martial is not the same thing as a federal court. Bradly Manning is being court martialed and may, indeed, end up in jail for the rest of his life... but the president would have to change the Uniform Code of Justice to affect that case.

    To the best I can find out, the law that covers Bradly Manning is 10 USC ? 1034 ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1034 ) Please note that this doesn't let you talk to whomever you want to, it limits you to the chain of command, the inspector general, and congress.

    You can see more information on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Whistleblower_Protection_Act and browse through the references. It's interesting reading.

    Boojum

  • On the post: Lord McAlpine, Wronged By BBC, Demands 10,000 People On Twitter Pay Up

    Boojum ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2012 @ 02:02pm

    Reverse Streisand Effect

    You know, I can think of no faster way for him to clear his name with his voters than to go after 10,000 tweeters and let the Streisand effect tell everyone that he's not a pedophile. Remember, he's not trying to remove the tweets or squash a website.. he's wanting everyone to know and (more importantly) remember that these people were wrong about him.

    Sueing them and letting everyone talk about it is probably cheaper than taking out ads all over the place to try and convince people it wasnt' him.

  • On the post: The Latest Entrant In 'How Not To Do Marketing' In An Online World: Ocean Marketing Fail

    Boojum ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2011 @ 05:16pm

    Nevermind

    Nevermind, I went to the wrong website. *laugh*

  • On the post: The Latest Entrant In 'How Not To Do Marketing' In An Online World: Ocean Marketing Fail

    Boojum ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2011 @ 05:14pm

    Anyone notice that http://avengercontroller.co takes you to an unbuilt Godaddy webpage? It looks like they are scrambling to get a new point of contact for people.

    Boojum the brown bunny

  • On the post: Sharing Behind-The-Scenes Photos For A Movie On Twitter: Good Marketing Or Criminal Behavior?

    Boojum ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2011 @ 09:25am

    Expectation of Privacy?

    I love the behind the scenes footage of movies and almost always buy the expanded DVD/BlueRay disks that include it... but in this case I have to wonder if Summit Entertainment might not have a point.

    Forget, for a moment, about if the behind the scenes pictures secretly taken would hurt the movie. I'd be more worried if it would hurt the actors. Do they have an expectation of privacy while on the set? For example.. Actress A has a tasteful nude scene, a back shot where she's wading into the water. No true naughty bits are shown, but very sensual. But someone secretly takes full frontal nudes of her from another angle and puts them out on the internet. To me, that would be a definite invasion of privacy.

    If it's an official behind the scenes, they can make sure it is editted so that things the actors/actresses don't want out there don't get shown. But someone who goes onto a private set and secretly takes pictures and reposts them? Particularly if they have signed an NDA of some sort? Then I really don't have a lot of sympathy for them and think they should at least be prosecuted in civil court.

    Criminal seems a bit much unless it was something like my example above.

    Boojum the brown bunny

  • On the post: California Wants To Put Jurors In Jail For Tweeting About Trial

    Boojum ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 02:26pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Titles a bit innacurate

    I agree that increasing the fee for causing a mistrial by tweeting/talking about it could also have the desired effect of reducing people tweeting from the Jury provided there already isn't a stiff penalty.

    Of course, by my reading of whats going on the law doesn't mandate jail time, it allows the court to impose jail time if it things it's appropriate. Then again, I'm not sure I'd want a pissed off judge who just had 3 weeks of trial time wasted because someone couldn't keep their fingers in their pocket making the decision as to appropriate penalties for the offender.

  • On the post: California Wants To Put Jurors In Jail For Tweeting About Trial

    Boojum ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 01:26pm

    Re: Re: Titles a bit innacurate

    I don't see the correlation between taking people who pay taxes and putting them in jail where they don't pay taxes as a way to improve the economy in California. For the prisons to get more money, they have to get it from the government. For the government to get more money, they have to get it from taxes.. which they are unable to increase in California (as the past few years have shown.) or by cutting costs in other places.

    Sorry, your point is unconvincing.

  • On the post: California Wants To Put Jurors In Jail For Tweeting About Trial

    Boojum ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 01:08pm

    Re: Re: Titles a bit innacurate

    Sorry, I don't agree. Things are crimes because someone (government/business/population) wants someone to stop doing something. While the prison system in California may be big business for the company that runs it, they don't have much input into what laws are made.

    All of which has no bearing on this particular article. It's already against the law in California to ignore a judges order to not talk about a case. This adds a penalty of jailtime.

    If people are ignoring court orders to not tweet, and this is resulting in mistrials, then I don't see they have a lot of options on how to stop it. Either they increase the penalties for doing it, enforce it through confiscation and monitoring, or make it lawful for jurors to talk with others about the trial. that last I don't see happening since it is standard throughout the country that jurors can't talk about cases.

  • On the post: California Wants To Put Jurors In Jail For Tweeting About Trial

    Boojum ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 12:35pm

    Recent Tweet related Mistrials

    A quick google search on "jury mistrial tweet" reveals the following on the first two pages:

    March 2009, Arkansas court overturns 12.6 million dollar judgement because a juror used Twitter to send updates.
    March 2009, Defense lawers in Vincent Fumo's corruption trial demanded mistrial because juror posted updates to Twitter and Facebook about the case.
    January 2011, Murder trial of Lamont Cherry declared mistrial because a juror tweeted about the case.
    May 2011, Murder trial of Casey Anthony ruled mistrial because a juror tweeted about the case.

    I suspect other states will begin increasing penalties or taking away devices.

  • On the post: California Wants To Put Jurors In Jail For Tweeting About Trial

    Boojum ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 12:13pm

    Titles a bit innacurate

    Something I've noticed for a while is how prejudicial the titles are for these articles. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say:
    "California wants to stop jurors from tweeting about Trials."
    or even
    "California adds jailtime to Jury Tweeters penalties"

    Honestly, with our current prison population, you can bet California doesn't want to put people in jail... not when the jails are so full that they are letting people go early. What California does want, however, is for people to not break the law... and sometimes that does mean putting people in Jail.