Tim Cushing 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Family Trying To Claim Ownership Of 'Urban Homesteading' Caught Plagiarizing After Moralizing On Plagiarism

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 04:15pm

    God bless the Dervaes

    Anyone who shuts down the comments until things return to "civility" is alright in my book. If you don't like what you're hearing, just jam a finger in each ear.

    At least they got their message out first. "We are vindictive, selfish assholes. But we garden. So that probably evens everything out, eh Internet?"

  • On the post: Sony Music Hires CEO Who Has Admitted He Doesn't Know How To Run A Modern Record Label

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 04:12pm

    Sony explained their decision

    by quoting Morris: "We didn't know who to hire!"

  • On the post: ICE Arrests Operator Of Seized Domain; Charges Him With Criminal Copyright Infringement

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 12:36pm

    Re: Greetings, AC Trolls!

    By the way, here's my calling card.

  • On the post: ICE Arrests Operator Of Seized Domain; Charges Him With Criminal Copyright Infringement

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 11:55am

    Greetings, AC Trolls!

    This missive is sent to inform you that while you were tied up here typing logical rings around yourself, I was over at your site helping myself to your music. (The front door was open, so I let myself in.)

    I dug around in there until I found what I was looking for and took it ALL. I took everything. I took the mp3s. I took the WAVs. I even took the unreleased and uncompressed stuff that was hidden at the way back of the drawer labeled "/index."

    Anything I could find, I was taking. I even took the wallpaper and the cute "Hang in there. It's almost Friday!" poster I found hanging on the wall. I checked the back room as well.

    I downloaded it all right into my bag (the white, roundish one with the music note printed on it) and sped away to Pirate Headquarters.

    Once there, I spread out my take. Me and the other pirates cranked up the new tunes on the computer speakers and had a few drinks. We danced around a little and giggled a bit at the distraught kitten on the poster. The pirate management was happy and promoted me to Pirate-Second Class. There's no pay raise and it'll still be six months before I'm allowed to upload, but at least I don't have to clean the bathrooms anymore.

    Long story short: we've got your music. You don't have it anymore. It's cleaned out. I don't even know why you'd bother getting out of bed tomorrow. Your career is over. How're you going to sell music when you're all out of stock?

    Not only that, but if I'm understanding half of what you say, I also took an assload of your intellectual property as well. If it wasn't nailed down, I took it.

    Better cancel those upcoming gigs. I've got part of your intellect now. Good luck playing the harpsichord or mouth harp or whatever it is that you used to know how to do. It's not going to be much fun standing in front of an expectant crowd watching your fingers trying to awkwardly interact with your favorite instrument. It'll be like watching two co-workers who slept with each other the night before.

    Like I said, I was all over the place grabbing stuff. Hopefully, I didn't take too much of your IP, otherwise you may have trouble interacting with the public or forming coherent thoughts.

    Good news, though. I can give it all back to you. Cheap. If you're willing to negotiate, you can have all your music and intellectual property back intact within mere hours.

    However, if you don't want to cooperate, things will nasty very quickly. Do you recognize this?

    0110011100001100111000110010

    I thought so. If you don't act fast, I'm going to start pruning this stuff down to teeny, tiny stems and distribute them to every remixer and mashup artist on the planet. They'll be more than happy to build on this grab bag of IP and turn it into something enjoyable.

    I'll be in touch.

    Smooches!
    CLT
    Pirate - 2nd Class
    Loosely-Confederated Pirates of America
    A Division of Pirating Pirates Worldwide, LLC

    P.S. ASCAP is hassling me about some sort of "public performance" royalties on behalf of you. I told them you had neither the evidence nor the skill to make that claim. They're headed your way now.

  • On the post: UK Publishers: Fair Use Would Put A 'Chokehold On Innovation'

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 10:52am

    Re:

    And it's already been returned.

    "Thank you for your input. However, if we were interested in your opinion, we would have asked for it, ignored it and passed legislation against it. The public has no business expressing an interest in the laws that may affect them."

  • On the post: Courtney Love Settles Twitter Defamation Lawsuit; Pays Up

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 07:48am

    Re:

    Someone uncouth could easily switch out "money" with "legs" in this particular case, but I'm above that sort of childish behavior.

  • On the post: Courtney Love Settles Twitter Defamation Lawsuit; Pays Up

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 07:46am

    Re: I wouldn't mind...

    The payout per goes way down when divided by the number of times Ms. Love has gotten naked with little to no provocation. If she uses that formula, she'll probably sleep a little better (and presumably, naked).

  • On the post: Music Companies In Korea Guilty Of Price Fixing, Collusion For Boycotting DRM-Free Music Retailers

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 07:45am

    Well, I guess you've got to price fix...

    when you're dealing with an infinite supply and a limited demand. Otherwise the price heads swiftly towards $FREE.

    This is where "competitive pricing" simply means staying within a few cents of your competitors. The only thing stopping it from being near or at zero is the introduction of an artificial floor. Over here in the US, we have lots of senators and Congressmen who do a little floor carpentry on the side.

  • On the post: The Artificially High Price Of Academic Journals And How It Impacts Everyone

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 04:59am

    Re:

    Please. The universities are too busy ramping up tuition fees and fudging their numbers for the yearly US News and World Report Top Colleges articles. They don't have an infinite amount of time to be doing something that might benefit humanity in general, much less their over-extended students.

  • On the post: Why Is A Treaty For Letting The Blind Have Access To Books Too Difficult, But ACTA Is Fine?

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 04:56am

    Re:

    How's copyright benefiting you these days, Anon? Obviously, it's leaving you plenty of free time to copy and paste your usual thoughts. Perhaps your time would be better spent elsewhere, promoting your presumably "original" thoughts and ideas, rather than slumming it with the "kool aid drinkers."

    Or do you just grab three nails every morning and "get your Jesus on," dying over and over on the cross of technology?

  • On the post: Groupon Sued For Having Short Expirations On Coupons

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 02:43am

    Yeah, every time I'm out 50 bucks...

    I think "lawsuit."

    I'm thinking that someone with that mentality isn't really going to "get" Whirlyball, no matter what the price is. Their concepts of "fun" and "fair play" are hopelessly skewed.

    Odd set of ideals over at the Whirlyball site: You apparently can't play while intoxicated but they do recommend Whirlyball for "cocktail parties" and "St. Patrick's Day." Maybe the rules bend when you're getting drunk on their dime.

    http://www.whirlyball.com/what/cantplay.php
    http://www.whirlyball.com/who/

    Another fun fact: Intoxication is a "condition" on par with cardiac disease and pregnancy.

    Which leads to another theory: perhaps if the complainant had been able to sober up by the expiration date, the situation could have been avoided. Or hit their due date. Whatever.

  • On the post: Music Is Not A Product, And You'll Never Adapt If You Think It Is

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 06:56pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do What you Want

    As long as the contract is "implicit," I'll go ahead and "follow" it. We could probably throw quotes around "contract" as well. I'll go ahead and throw quotes around my "respect" for your opinions.

  • On the post: Guy Sues Facebook For His Failure To Be Elected To Congress

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 04:41pm

    It may be a new millenium...

    but the "Like" button is not exactly the same thing as voting. It'll get there eventually, but Moughni learned the hard way, like all true pioneers do, that sometimes you have to wait for the future to catch up with you.

    And like all pioneers, he'll have his forward-thinking lawsuit tossed out of court so fast, he won't even have a chance to die of dysentery first.

  • On the post: Moby Says The Major Record Labels 'Should Die'

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 04:38pm

    I don't mind the industry dying...

    but I'm with Moby: could it at least do it quietly, instead of kicking and screaming and trying to drag everybody else down with it?

  • On the post: Homeland Security Was Interested In Doing 'Covert' Pedestrian 'Scans' From 30 Feet Away

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 01:10pm

    And yet...

    When I offer to get naked in the street, people seem to have a problem with that.

  • On the post: European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 01:06pm

    Re: Re: Attention AC trolls/shills...

    You've got my permission. Thanks for the repost!

  • On the post: European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 07:40am

    Re: ???

    "That doesn't matter - if we wanted our books read by blind people, we would publish a braille edition."

    Jesus. That's so self-centeredly ignorant he might as well have said, "The blind can't read, idiot. They don't have eyes!"

  • On the post: European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 07:38am

    Re: Re: Attention AC trolls/shills...

    It was kind of off-topic but:

    1. It's been brewing for awhile.
    2. It was only a matter of time before the trolls rolled in. Mike's opening paragraph alone has enough "false statements" in it to feed a hungry pack of trolls. And I just once wanted to have the small and mostly imaginary satisfaction of visualizing a shilling AC rushing in to correct Mike and his kool-aid drinkers, only to have whatever thought bubbled up from the shallows of his mind die on his fingertips as he ran face-first into this, like someone who's mistaken a PULL door for a PUSH door. Just once.

    (I realize the thrill is small and imaginary. And I'm cool with that. That's why I did this on TEH INTERNET.)

  • On the post: European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 05:02am

    Attention AC trolls/shills...

    I just want to step in here before we're knee deep in argumentative trolls and issue somewhat of a preemptive strike. Listen up:

    You seem to want the government, in conjunction with your pet industries, to craft a new set of laws to deal with what is continually referred to incorrectly as "piracy."

    First off, what gives you the idea that any of this will be handled rationally, rather than just another legislative gangbang that prides itself on overreach rather than prudent oversight? What previous government action are you basing this on?

    The closest comparison I can find is the so-called Drug War which, despite billions of dollars and decades of action has failed to make any sort of tangible dent in the drug trade. What it HAS managed to do is erode civil rights and privacy. It's also given various drug enforcement teams to rewrite rules on the fly.

    Is this your ideal? Some sort of internet SWAT team that will finally lay the smackdown on "freetards" or, failing that, at least shoot them right in the family pet? Is that what you want? Freeloaders doing jail time for victimless "crimes"?

    The Drug War is the perfect comparison for your windmill tilting. It's an autonomous but disorganized force taking on an enemy with no real head to kill off. There's no CEO to topple. No President of Illicit Drugs, Inc. to take down. There's just a bunch of cannon fodder and replaceable pawns disguised as "triumphs" and "photo ops."

    And when they do have a discernible target, they still can't bring it down. 90% of all heroin comes from Turkey and yet, there's still plenty of smack to go around. Is this the force of justice you want backing up your vindictive legislation? They can't find a field full of poppies in a field full of poppies.

    Consequently, like the sore losers they are, they take out their failure on their citizens, throwing the book at weekend pot dealers and street runners with a half-gram of crack in their pockets.

    But still you push on, as though you were just one badly written and randomly enforced law away from finally building your wormhole to 1991. Do you really want to give THIS government the authority to paw through all your online activity just to punish the unwashed masses who are apparently virtually shoplifting from you 24/7? Do you really want to give self-interested industries the right to root around in your hard drive in hopes of finding a lawsuit hidden under all the socks and porn at the back of the partition?

    Let's try a little theoretical exercise. Your laws are in place and usa.gov.mpaa.riaa.lawyer is tracking my downloading. Three strikes is in play. They can't actually see all the data I'm downloading but they're just looking for patterns.

    Here we go.

    True story from last time I hung the "Gone Downloadin'" sign up: I head over to Beko Records and download 8 or 9 comps and eps (witch house, electronica, space rock). Then I'm off to The Hood Internet to download their last 3 mix albums. Then off to the Kleptones for a couple of albums. (I heartily recommend "A Night at the Hip Hopera" and "Uptime/Downtime." Everything listed above is being given away absolutely FREE by these labels and artists. No harm, no foul. Right?

    Not so fast. The tracking software doesn't like my spike in usage. So it kicks my info to a g-man or whoever's the admin. Hmmm. Let's look deeper.

    "Beko Records? Never heard of them. However, I took this job as the tool of the industry so chances are I haven't heard of much. Better wake up the boss."

    The boss doesn't know them either but sends out a DMCA "just in case." Their hosting freaks out and shuts them down because they don't want to end up in court. Stupidity 1, Indie Artists 0.

    More sniffing. Holy hell, those other two are mashup artists! Infringement galore! Bonuses for everyone! DMCAs all around! Bang. Bang. Two more down.

    And my connection dies, followed by a tersely worded email that I have to read at the library. No one involved has done anything illegal and yet everyone gets punished. Even if all the parties are reinstated, it will still be several months and several thousand dollars of fines or legal fees.

    If you think that's outlandish, you haven't been paying attention. And if you think this will be handled better than this by a combination of short-sighted industry heads and their back-pocketed representatives, then you're obviously having trouble typing without your lips moving.

    The government is woefully unequipped to deal with millions of people on a case-by-case basis, so they end up casting the net wide and hoping they at least drag in some actual criminals along with the innocent bystanders. And in their unsettling exuberance to please their benefactors, they'll be willing to throw liberty and privacy under the bus. After all, this is the same government that panics if you try to carry more than 3 oz. of any fluid onto a plane. This is the same mindset that actually believes laws need to be written to prevent people from texting while walking.

    The other aspect that gets lost in your endless shilling is that there are millions of people who wouldn't touch your shoddy, masjor label product with a 10-foot torrent. But they'll get swept up all the same because of their tendency to use the same tools as those "pirating" major label product. We already know that the RIAA and the MPAA don't have the faintest idea how new technology works. This they've proved over the last decade. We also know our elected officials are equally clueless. Combining ignorance with tremendous power will ALWAYS end badly.

    And what if I was downloading major label music? If I spent a week doing nothing but filling a 500 GB hard drive with copy after copy of Nickelback's latest, does Chad Kroeger wake up one morning to find his wallet empty? He's out nothing. His "support group" of managers, label execs, A&R reps and other members of this bloated faux entourage may start whining about "lost sales," but the fact of the matter is, I'd never buy their lousy product in the first place. Their music is still for sale at hundreds of venues. I haven't done a goddamn thing to the amount of available product and yet, people like you view this as "theft."

    If you want to entertain the last wishes of dying industries, knock yourself out. But don't drag the rest of us into your desperate cash grabs on behalf of your benefactors, who have slipped into a severe dementia. Don't make the world a worse place to live by sacrificing the liberty and privacy of millions just so the major label/major studio life support machine can run for a few more years.

    You may now resume your ignorant trolling, most likely already in progress.

    [Plus, the RIAA and the MPAA hate the blind. That rules.]

    [Plus +: My apologies, Mike. You may have your blog back now.]

  • On the post: BSA Claims Open Standards Will Increase Costs

    Tim Cushing ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2011 @ 06:38pm

    Re: Fucking public interest

    Well, when a self-interested alliance loves money VERY MUCH (and are married!), they have ways of expressing that love (married love, that is!) physically. Unlike the way that your mom and me express it, theirs is more of an "outward" expression which tends to surprise the public interest, which hadn't really expressed any sort of affection for either the alliance or its money.

    This outward expression of this love (not till you're married!) is called "fucking public interest." I know it sounds confusing and possibly a little gross, but when you grow up (and move out, etc.), you'll understand as well.

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