Tim Cushing 's Techdirt Comments

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

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2012 @ 02:26pm

    Re:

    cabin boy tim

    I've been called worse, including "fancy lad." (BTW, I would like to buy a monkey.)

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Destroys/Saves Musicians; Chances Of 'Hitting It Big' As An Artist Remain Unchanged

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2012 @ 04:21pm

    Re: Re: Re: unpaid work

    Amanda was asking professionals to forego payment for the "chance" to rub shoulders with her, and after getting a shit load of cash to run the tour, it looks more like she is cheaping out.

    The key word here is "asking." Everyone could have decided she had enough of their money and told her to "Fuck off." (And from the looks of comments left elsewhere, many did.) The others who decided to take up her offer didn't seem nearly as hung up on her being technically a millionaire.

    Sorry, but if this was a label act, you would be all over them like shit about it. I know you love Amanda dearly, but call her out when she is being a greedy ass.

    I'm not sure about that. For one thing, a label artist asking for people to play a few tracks with them onstage would still be a cool experience for those who took up the offer. If a LABEL (no artist, etc.) asked for volunteers to lay down tracks (as session musicians) for $0, it might be an issue. Then again, it might not. There's always exposure and experience to be gained from a situation like that.

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Destroys/Saves Musicians; Chances Of 'Hitting It Big' As An Artist Remain Unchanged

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2012 @ 04:15pm

    Re: unpaid work

    I'd admire the lengths you went to justify Amanda's attempt to get some free workers but you haven't touched on the morality of it (which stinks).

    I'm interested in hearing about the "morality." Considering Amanda Palmer has always worked this way (with volunteer musicians, etc.), does it suddenly become "immoral" at a certain dollar amount? If so, where's the cutoff? Or, as someone felt compelled to mention below, she's got a rich husband? Should she have been paying every artist involved with her since Day 1 simply because Neil could have written a check for it?

    No different to a shop or factory asking for unpaid 'volunteers' to stack the shelves. This wasn't for charity and no amount of previous charity justifies it.

    Except when a shop/factory asks for unpaid volunteers, the line is much, much shorter. No one's going to form lifelong memories hauling boxes for free. But getting onstage with one of their favorite artists in front of hundreds of people? That leaves an impression.

  • On the post: LAPD Joins Feds In Skirting Fourth Amendment With Cell Phone Tracking Devices

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2012 @ 07:16pm

    Re: More bars

    Precisely.

  • On the post: LAPD Joins Feds In Skirting Fourth Amendment With Cell Phone Tracking Devices

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2012 @ 04:02pm

    Re:

    That's probably more accurate. Or "until they find themselves on the receiving end of a pricey lawsuit..."

  • On the post: Dutch Phone Book Publisher Uses Trademark Bullying In Attempt To Shut Down Critic

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2012 @ 03:32pm

    Re: Unanticipated joys

    I have no land-line and I still get three. Of course, time travels slower here in the Midwest...

  • On the post: RFID Tagging Students Is All About The Money

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2012 @ 04:14pm

    Frogs, meet heating water

    The most chilling part about that article were the last two sentences:

    Gonzalez said John Jay High has 200 surveillance cameras and Anson Jones Middle School, about 90.

    ?The kids,? he said, ?are used to being monitored.?

    Oh. Then that's fine. They're used to being treated like inmates rather than students. I guess we'll move along and allow the encroachment of surveillance and removal of rights, whether it's in school, or the airport or on the internet ...

  • On the post: RFID Tagging Students Is All About The Money

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2012 @ 02:08pm

    Found some footage of that RFID student tracking system in use. The administrators seem a little on edge.

  • On the post: Joke's On You, Facebook – That's A Testicle Tree

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 04:35pm

    Re: Re: Nipplegate

    A policy as stupid as this deserves the word "stupider."

  • On the post: Joke's On You, Facebook – That's A Testicle Tree

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 02:13pm

    Nipplegate

    The "no nipple" policy gets stupider and stupider. A FB friend of mine was just banned for three days for uploading some female nipples. The fact that these nipples were uploaded over a year ago (it was album art for something released on his netlabel) either means that Facebook's Nipple Prevention Team is working through some serious backlog or that nipples are back to being Priority No. 1, possibly due to shareholder pressure.

    In response, this picture began appearing on many people's profile as a sign of solidarity.

    NOTE: PICTURE COMPLETELY SAFE FOR WORK.

  • On the post: Far Beyond Filtering: Is The GOP Looking To Shut Down Porn Producers?

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 12:30pm

    Re: You imagine?

    I'm not sure who's reputation it is that I'm supposedly ruining, seeing as this post is largely a hypothetical discussion of how current obscenity laws might be enforced.

    But, I don't think there's so much a "factual" basis for my very hedged claim as much as there is a very slim distance separating requiring filtering software in every computer (which the purchaser may decide not to install -- which puts us right back to "filtering software exists IF someone wants it") to requiring the filtering be done at the ISPs to make it a little less "optional."

    If things were to go this far, I can see how pre-installed filtering software that can be activated or deactivated by the end user won't be enough to protect children from porn, etc.

    Volokh's second scenario pretty much comes to the same conclusion, so I'm not alone in besmirching the GOP and UK ISPs:

    So they unveil the solution, in fact pretty much the only solution that will work: Nationwide filtering.

    It?s true: Going after cyberporn isn?t really that tough ? if you require every service provider in the nation to block access to all sites that are on a constantly updated government-run ?Forbidden Off-Shore Site? list.

    That's in the post above. It deals with foreign porn sites but you really don't have to worry about them until you've already filtered out the stateside offerings.

  • On the post: Copyright Killbots Strike Again: Official DNC Livestream Taken Down By Just About Every Copyright Holder

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 02:49pm

    Re:

    On the "whitelist" suggestion:

    At long last, hours past when anyone cared, I'm here to offer some clarification on what I meant by "whitelisting" certain accounts. This will hopefully clear things up a bit, as I offered no real specifics in the post itself. (Not to mention that spending a day mulling this over occasionally has brought me to the point that I'm not entirely sure I agree with my original statement, even with clarification.)

    The thought I had is that certain entities could be whitelisted almost as "presumed fair use" (as mentioned by other commenters below). This would include streams/accounts whose offerings were deemed to be "in the public interest." Something like the DNC broadcast could be considered to fall under that heading. All political leanings aside, it's an integral part of the election process.

    Other entities/accounts to be considered would be those operated by universities/schools/etc. Possibly some charities/non-profits would fit the bill. Vaguely speaking (and yeah, I know I'm doing a lot of that), something that would be of benefit to the public should be routed around, possibly with some sort of exclusionary code.

    Obviously, there is no way content holders would agree to this, as assuming something is "fair use" is pretty much antithetical to their normal M.O. Fair use is usually determined in a courtroom (when push comes to shove) and I imagine that suits them just fine.

    Another aspect pointed out below is the "unfairness" of whitelisting certain accounts, thus granting more rights to certain entities. That's a perfectly valid argument. As much as I'd like to wholeheartedly believe my assertion in the article, I don't see any way that implementing this wouldn't result in tons of abuse and actually make the situation worse.

    In no way was I suggesting that content holders should grant themselves whitelist status. They'd be the first to institute and the first to abuse it. If any sort of whitelisting was implemented, the selection process would need to be independent of all parties involved, which would pretty much be impossible.

    It was a very idealistic statement. My original thought was that this stream/video (and others like it) should not be stifled by outside agents. Hence, a whitelist. But beyond that, there's no realistic way to implement this without further breaking a broken system.

    More than anything, it was an expression of frustration at the "triumph" of copyright protection over something that benefited the common good.

    But after a lot of hindsight and some really excellent comments, I'm very much inclined to agree with the First Word, as stated by Travis Miller:

    If I was Google, I would just sit back, let this happen, and smile. What better way to highlight this mess? They walked in front of the gun that they forced Google to set up. It's poetic justice.

    I don't particularly see this provoking any change, but it does feel good to watch the maximalists shoot themselves in the face.

  • On the post: 4Chan Reroutes Promotional Contest, Lines Taylor Swift Up For A Concert At The Horace Mann School For The Deaf

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 04:51pm

    Re:

    Fapple was a great suggestion. Honestly, I don't think PepsiCo realizes how many cases of "Fapple" or "Methamphetagreen" non-Dew drinkers would have purchased simply to have sitting around the fridge or unopened as collectors' items. And then there's the Dew drinkers, who would be buying even more simply to lol while they rush.

    There's piles of money laying all over the table here.

  • On the post: 4Chan Reroutes Promotional Contest, Lines Taylor Swift Up For A Concert At The Horace Mann School For The Deaf

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 03:23pm

    Re: Re: SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

    It has no relevance at all. Other than I wrote this story and it's my 200th. Beyond that, not a thing.

  • On the post: 4Chan Reroutes Promotional Contest, Lines Taylor Swift Up For A Concert At The Horace Mann School For The Deaf

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 03:00pm

    SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

    This is my 200th post for Techdirt. Somewhat of a milestone and I'd be even more self-promotional and celebratory if I wasn't altogether too aware of the fact that I trail Mike by approximately 40,000 posts. (To be fair, he had about a 13 year headstart.)

    Anyway, this is less about me than it is about you, the readers and commenters at Techdirt, who have resisted the urge (time and time again) to demand that I be relieved of my privileges and replaced with someone less prone to using multiple adjectives when clearly one would do the job just as well. (I also appreciate that the "but there's already a Tim posting here, and we like him better" comments have been kept to a minimum.)

    Here's to the next indefinite number of posts, full of retractions, misspellings, misplaced apostrophes, broken links and extraneous line breaks.

  • On the post: Dear Sir, I Am A Nigerian Prince And If You Believe That There's A Bridge I'd Like To Sell You…

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 02:36pm

    They're strangely fun to "talk" to

    Back in the day (ca. 2010 -- when I had more time to entertain myself), I managed to keep one on the line for a couple of days, despite my constantly changing the security question and informing him that I was having trouble converting the local (Greenland) currency (elk hides) into American dollars before making my trip to Western Union.

    He must have really, really, really wanted that $145.

  • On the post: Crime Inc. Produces Thoughtful, Nuanced Episode About Piracy (Haha, Just Kidding! Cue Scary Music)

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2012 @ 02:27pm

    Re: What possible reason would they have to tell the truth?

    "We have always been at war with piracy."

  • On the post: Hall & Oates Convince Super PAC Named After Them To Shut Down

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2012 @ 02:24pm

    Re:

    Oates & Messina. Additional information available in the cassette rack at your local carwash.

  • On the post: We Ask The Supreme Court To Clarify If It's Legal For Virginia To Bar Techdirt From Filing Freedom Of Information Requests

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2012 @ 04:46pm

    Exempt

    However, Virginia's is the only state that allows a partial exemption for some media players, but not for others.

    The exemption is for media players who do NOT file Freedom of Information Act requests.

  • On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2012 @ 06:16pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    You may want to bone up on punctuation comprehension when you're able to take a break from consoling Google's paid shill.

    There's no punctuation misunderstanding in Zach's recasting of a direct quote.

    Go bone yourself.

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