carlb 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Owner Of Harry Caray's Restaurants Finds You Can't Just Trademark A Widely Used Hashtag

    carlb ( profile ), 12 Feb, 2019 @ 07:41pm

    Re: IP Law

    No, you're not allowed to use the dictionary word "monopoly" as it's subject to a Hasbro trademark. See you in court.

  • On the post: Report Shows ICE Almost Never Punishes Contractors Housing Detainees No Matter How Many Violations They Rack Up

    carlb ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2019 @ 06:29pm

    what? who? they all sound the same

    I remember seeing something on the news about some extremist group, I think they said they were ISIL, or ICE, or ISIS or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention closely at first until they described these extremists as a terrorist front which takes little kids away from their mummies and daddies. I thought we bombed bad countries where people do things like that?

  • On the post: Lack Of Internet Access Threatens 2020 Census Success And The Future Latino Voting Power

    carlb ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2019 @ 07:51pm

    illegal immigration?

    We've run the US census again, but this time excluding all of the illegal immigrants. The total lawful population of the US is 2,423,531 including 281069 Cherokee, 269202 Navajo, 108272 Sioux and 105907 Chippewa but excluding all of the illegal immigrants and their descendants, who will be herded back onto the Mayflower and shipped back to wherever they came from. Hope that helps. :)

  • On the post: Russian Site-Blocking Leads To An Explosion In 'Pirate' Sites, Tiny Dip In Piracy

    carlb ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2019 @ 06:32pm

    There's a list of what Russia is blocking at https://api.reserve-rbl.ru/api/current which runs about eighteen megabytes (so don't try to open this directly in your browser, it's too large).

    The régime is prone to add sites to that list for any reason or no reason; one of my sites is listed because a user made a joke about a fictional cartoon character being gay, for instance.

  • On the post: Another Pre-Super Bowl 'Sex Trafficking Sting' Busts A Bunch Of People Trying To Buy Sex From Cops Pretending To Be Teens

    carlb ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2019 @ 12:19pm

    rescued?

    "In a press conference outlining Super Bowl LIII safety measures, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the arrests, adding four victims have been rescued."

    That depends. What does a police officer mean by "rescued"? Arrested? Imprisoned? Deported? Branded with a criminal record for life? A government which hunts prostitutes as criminals would have to be pretty arrogant to claim to be "rescuing" these women as they are most often part of the problem.

    If these women are "working" because they need the money, they've only been "rescued" once the underlying issue (poverty) is resolved on a permanent basis. That usually does not happen.

  • On the post: Canada's Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations

    carlb ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2019 @ 07:04am

    Re: Instead, ban infrastructure providers from owning ISPs, TV

    There used to be a ban on Canadian broadcasting distribution undertakings (ie: cable TV and direct-broadcast satellite companies) owning broadcast stations. That ban (and the limit of one station per band owned by the same company in the same market) should never have been repealed. The rules were changed because Bell wanted to own CTV, the largest private terrestrial network broadcaster. What Bell wants, Bell gets, even though the public interest is inevitably harmed time and time again. I have no idea why these people are still licenced to broadcast.

  • On the post: Authors Guild Attacks Libraries For Lending Digital Books

    carlb ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2019 @ 12:15am

    publishers are gouging libraries on e-book pricing

    E-books are a great scam perpetrated by publishers; their cost is getting annoyingly close to printed books, while the marginal cost to the publisher to deliver one more copy of a popular title is just about nada. They're also a nightmare of DRM and arbitrary restrictions, such as locking content to one specific device.

    There's a "doctrine of first sale" which was long-established - someone who buys a tangible book or media can then lend that item, or rent it, or sell it, or donate it, or use it to prop up a wobbly table leg - or whatever. They paid for it, that copy is theirs. The online download model is completely undermining this principle, in what is basically theft from the consumer... who pays to buy the item but ends up with restrictions akin to renting it.

    The Canadian Urban Libraries Council (www.culc.ca) has raised serious concerns about the availability and cost of e-books to public libraries. Many popular titles aren't available as library e-books at all; those that are available are often priced a few times higher than the printed book or restricted to limit the number of times they may be read. Some, instead of being sold, are merely being rented to libraries at some excessive price; hit an arbitrary limit in time or usage and the book magically vanishes.

    Perhaps www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-public-libraries-call-for-more-access-and-better-prices-for-e-books-1.4947637 or www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/17/ebooks-audiobooks-libraries_a_23620237/ would make the picture clearer.

    The issue is not merely academic; without the doctrine of first sale, there would be no lending libraries, no used bookstores, no video rentals, maybe even no independent bookstores. That's directly contrary to the public interest. Perhaps governments need to require publishers respect these principles as a condition of issuing copyright, much like governments already require auto makers to keep parts available after a motorcar is discontinued.

  • On the post: Human Rights Groups Plead With The EU Not To Pass Its Awful 'Terrorist Content' Regulation

    carlb ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2019 @ 10:53pm

    Re: terrorists?

    As far as His Royal Highness George III of the United Kingdom is concerned, the rebellious thirteen colonies are the terrorists. We shall have none of this nonsense here in United Empire Loyalist country. God save the King!

  • On the post: Trump Hotel Fracas Highlights How T-Mobile's Consumer-Friendly Brand Schtick Is Wearing A Little Thin

    carlb ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 10:26am

    Re: Gasp

    "Ya really truly think that billionaire Trump can be bribed by booking a few hotel rooms? Bizarre take on the situation."

    Yup, because this isn't about him needing the money; this guy has an ego and pandering to that ego is an effective tactic. Ask any of the dictators to whom he panders...

  • On the post: Naperville, IL Development Project Forced To Drop Name To Avoid Public Confusing It With City 1.7K Miles Away

    carlb ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2019 @ 09:32pm

    an effective dihydrogen monoxide ban would have prevented this

    “The letter asserted that the use of that phrase by the city of Naperville and by the Water Street property owner is unauthorized and violates the city of Henderson Redevelopment Agency’s trademark rights...”

    ...which never should have been issued as everyone knows that Water Street is the main street of St. John's, Newfoundland and any other city using the same or deceptively similar names for one of its streets is likely to create public confusion. There's no water in Nevada, it's desert and thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

  • On the post: Irony Alert: Wikileaks Sends Reporters A List Of 140 Things Not To Say About Julian Assange; Tells Them Not To Publish

    carlb ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2019 @ 09:34am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Actually, no. The Swedish allegations have some serious issues, including that his accusers colluded with each other and were seeking media attention, that means they have no real prospect of standing up in court. Australian media at one point was honestly reporting this much - although most other mainstream media won't touch the question with a barge pole as calling someone out on a spurious allegation lessens the chances of real victims of sexual assault speaking out in future. (Evidently, this was before all of the other tactics used by the real abusers and their lawyers - from NDA's to catch-and-kill tabloids to having victims followed - became infamous in the #MeToo era. Some of the people in power now, or at the time, have no moral right to lecture!)

    Assange fell out of favour with the left when, cut off from Western funding sources by US control of payment processors like Visa/MC/Amex, he was left dependent on Russia - who used him to release the product of a break-in of the DNC (or its computers) worthy of a certain infamous third-rate burglary of the Watergate era.

    At some point, there are no good guys in this.

  • On the post: Photographer Licenses Photo To Shutterstock, Is Shocked When It Plays Out Exactly How Everyone Would Imagine

    carlb ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2019 @ 08:57pm

    Re: It gets even better

    I shutter at the image of an aperture opening to expose us to any more bad photography puns...

  • On the post: Pooey Puitton Proactively Sues The Shit Out Of Louis Vuitton

    carlb ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2019 @ 05:34pm

    Re: shinola?

    Shinola was originally a brand of shoe polish.

    The use of the name for an assembled-in-Détroit wristwatch is a relative neologism.

  • On the post: Photographer Licenses Photo To Shutterstock, Is Shocked When It Plays Out Exactly How Everyone Would Imagine

    carlb ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2019 @ 08:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Depends...

    Most likely "royalty-free" only means that there isn't a charge per item or per impression - a client pays for the image once and can then print as many copies as they choose.

    Not the same beast as public domain, which actually is free.

  • On the post: Saudi Arabia Discovers The Streisand Effect; Gets Netflix To Take Down Hasan Minhaj's Show About MBS's Atrocities

    carlb ( profile ), 02 Jan, 2019 @ 08:05pm

    Re: Thanks you, MBS

    "Mr. Bone Saw"

  • On the post: Dangerous Court Ruling Says Colleges May Be Required To Block Access To Certain Websites

    carlb ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2018 @ 10:21am

    Re: a modest proposal

    Better yet, just turn their internet connection to an intranet connection, so students can only access systems they have 100% control over!

    Yes, that is how it was back in my day. In 1984, three kids at Queen's U managed to use whatever passed for a packet-switched network back then to get from the university mainframe to an RCMP computer. All three were expelled and all undergrads were denied access to any outside network connections from university computers, by order of the university Senate, for the next five years. This ended in 1989, the same year they removed the last of the party line telephones from the dormitory rooms (they had been one line per two students). Tell the kids that these days...?

  • On the post: Dangerous Court Ruling Says Colleges May Be Required To Block Access To Certain Websites

    carlb ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2018 @ 12:57pm

    Re: Work Arounds

    You wouldn't even need to do that. VPN, anyone?

    Of course no one in the People's Republic of China would consider such a thing as that country is a glorious workers' paradise, but when dealing with capitalist imperialist oppressors... oh, wait a minute?

    In any case, it's odd that a pay phone (remember those?) installed by a telco monopoly in an on-campus location would be recognised as a common-carrier facility but wi-fi is not.

    It's also disappointing that universities give lip service to freedom of expression when it serves the faculty's own interests (such as an excuse to justify tenure and non-accountability for a lifetime) but these same universities are actually hotbeds of censorship and political correctness. The responsibility for the content of the message rests with whomever wrote it, not with the academy.

  • On the post: Game Developer Admits It Filed Bogus Copyright Claims, But Says It Had No Other Way To Silence A Critic

    carlb ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2018 @ 09:37pm

    Re: a defamation suit?

    Yes, this is what a defamation suit is for but Battlestate should be the ones being sued, as making a false accusation of illegal activity (in this case, copyvios) and sending that accusation to a third party (in this case, Youtube) is libel.

    I wonder what it would cost to file such a suit?

    (and yes, IANAL and YMMV)

  • On the post: The Intelligence Community's Official Whistleblower Channel Is Going To Start Hunting Down Leakers

    carlb ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2018 @ 08:05am

    leaks? I thought this had already been taken care of...

    The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established July 24, 1971. Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media.

    The White House's Special Investigation Unit, nicknamed the "Plumbers," had been established by John Ehrlichman to prevent information leaks from the White House and were also involved in various activities perpetrated against Democrats and antiwar protesters.

    The Plumbers had their own hierarchy, separate from that of CREEP - the Committee to Re-elect the President.

    Sound familiar?

  • On the post: FCC Commissioner Accuses Her Own Agency Of A Net Neutrality Cover Up

    carlb ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2018 @ 10:30am

    Re: The suit...

    "Bureaucrats don't publicly denounce their bosses unless they know the boss is on his way out and they're positioning themselves to take that chair."

    I don't think this is how this works. The FCC is a commission, led by five commissioners. Three of the current five were selected by the party in power, two were selected by the opposition party.

    If Jessica Rosenworcel is one of the two minority commissioners, she is just doing her job. This is to be expected. Pity this article doesn't explain this - it may be obvious to someone who's read other posts about the FCC and its inner workings, but otherwise it's not obvious.

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