Cdaragorn 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Supporters Of Article 13, After Denying It's About Filters, Now Say It's About Regulating Filters Which They Admit Don't Work

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2019 @ 09:00am

    Re: Re:

    Why even bring this argument up? No one here is disagreeing with you on this, although even copyright is not nearly as one sided as you present here. Fighting piracy is not more important than maintaining freedom to speak and express ourselves. You don't imprison the entire world just because there are a few people that won't respect reasonable laws.

  • On the post: Supporters Of Article 13, After Denying It's About Filters, Now Say It's About Regulating Filters Which They Admit Don't Work

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2019 @ 08:55am

    Re: Re:

    And yet literally millions of people continue to actually BUY books every year. Bringing up the fallacy that no one will pay for something they can get for free yet again only demonstrates your own unwillingness to be honest in this discussion, or at least to learn what's actually happening out in the world and instead stick to your false narrative despite the mountains of evidence against it. Yes piracy exists. No it cannot be stopped, but more importantly no it isn't what's destroying these industries. They're own unwillingness to adapt to new technologies and other changes in the marketplace is what's bringing them down. That's a normal process that has been going on since the dawn of civilization. The dying industries whining about it is also nothing new. Their complaints are no more legitimate today than they've ever been.

  • On the post: CBP Still Arresting Immigrants Trying To Stay In The Country By Furthering Their Education

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2019 @ 10:18am

    Re: accreditation

    It was accredited, but the accreditation was fake because the school didn't actually pass any of the requirements needed to obtain it. The accreditation board just handed it out because the government said to. Even though it looks real on the surface, there was nothing real about it.
    This is the kind of thing that should result in whatever accrediting organization issued it being dropped by every school in the nation.

  • On the post: Auto Finance Company Sues Massachusetts City Over Its Unconstitutional Sale Of Seized Vehicles

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2019 @ 02:50pm

    Re: It isn't just the city of Revere

    This is the part that really raised my eyebrows. The state willingly RETITLED the car and intentionally did not include the legitimate lien on it? That's very literally a criminal violation. This is not going to go well for them in court.

  • On the post: More Copyright Policy Should Be As Boring As This Supreme Court Decision

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2019 @ 02:14pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Except that you're ignoring the other half of what the 1976 act did. It didn't just make everything automatically copyrighted. It massively expanded what could be covered by copyright. That's the part that causes trouble for the average joe.

  • On the post: More Copyright Policy Should Be As Boring As This Supreme Court Decision

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2019 @ 02:07pm

    Re:

    Your comment perfectly demonstrates one of the biggest problems with what has happened to copyright over the last few decades. People have moved away from understanding what copyright is meant for and moved to an incredibly selfish and completely incorrect view of what it's supposed to be about. No, copyright is NOT about protecting anyone's hard work, content creator or otherwise. In fact it's not about the content creator at all. It's about encouraging people to create new works so that the public can use them. The temporary monopoly copyright gives was originally correctly understood to be highly costly to the public and therefore carefully kept small. It was only tolerated as it was seen as providing a strong incentive to create without being too onerous on the public's interests.

  • On the post: Elizabeth Warren Wants To Break Up Amazon, Google And Facebook; But Does Her Plan Make Any Sense?

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2019 @ 02:02pm

    Re: Re: Monopolies

    That's certainly a concern, but it doesn't make this an anti-trust or a monopoly issue. The fact that they can affect a lot of businesses is not enough to trigger anti-trust. It needs to show that they are actively doing something to block/harass/prevent competitors from coming in or these companies from going to competition. So far no such evidence exists. The fact that Amazon/Facebook/Google are big is not a problem. Yes it affects a lot of people but that doesn't make it a problem. As long as competition is free to come in and try to compete then the market is free and open to disruption. If those companies are still doing things better enough than their competitors that consumers don't want to go anywhere else then they deserve to stay as large as they are.

  • On the post: Steven Spielberg Demands Netflix Get Off His Damn Lawn

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2019 @ 02:03pm

    Re: Re:

    Argh, yep. Sorry :)

  • On the post: Steven Spielberg Demands Netflix Get Off His Damn Lawn

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2019 @ 01:43pm

    You make a lot of statements without giving any evidence to support what you're claiming is true. Techdirt has addressed many of the points you're trying to make so many times that I find it hard to believe someone who has clearly been around here as long as your comment history suggests isn't aware of them.

    would have been just 'TV-movies"...and there's just something so wrong about that idea -- This is the exact same problem that's being complained about with Spielberg. You act like there's something sanctimonious about this, then give no evidence as to why this would be a terrible thing. You not liking it does not make it bad.

    demanding changes to the status quo that they haven't even EARNED the right to ask for -- They have to earn some non-existent "right" to pat themselves on the back with everyone else that creates artistic content of the same form as the movie producers? What kind of selfish nonsense are you talking about? If their "TV-movie" is honestly better than anything that was produced for the theater then why shouldn't they be recognized for that?

    Your entire paragraph about why smaller theaters need release windows completely ignores the real issue at hand. If those theaters honestly cannot create a better experience than I can get on my home TV system at a price that enough people can afford then they are clearly not contributing to this great theatrical experience you hold so dear. If they're not contributing to that then they need to be allowed to go out of business and let someone else come in and do better.

    From there you move on to insist that because jobs will be lost we can't allow innovation to move at a rapid pace. That's again more nonsense. History has proven that innovation ALWAYS results in NET job creation. Yes some employees will lose their jobs, but trying to force the system to keep those jobs will mean fewer jobs for everyone else in both the short and long runs. That's not good for anyone and definitely not healthy for the economy.

    Most people here share your love for the theatrical experience. I wish I could afford to go more often. I don't however see any evidence that allowing us to watch well-made content in our homes is detracting from that at all. This article even linked you to supporting evidence that those who use more streaming services GO TO THE THEATER MORE OFTEN AS WELL.

    In short, stop pretending that how you personally feel about people watching things at home instead of the theater is representative of reality. Go look at the numbers and you'll see that theater attendance is only increased by these services.

  • On the post: How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2019 @ 10:50am

    Re: Re: Re:

    So because you assume they must be helping.

    In other words, no. Not a single one.

  • On the post: Attorney General Nominee Seems Willing To Let The DOJ Jail Journalists Over Published Leaks

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2019 @ 10:36am

    Re: Amendments

    Proposing a change to the law that disrespects the values upheld by the law you wish to change is absolutely disrespect for that law. The fact that you're following the legal process for changing the law doesn't remove the disrespect for the law from your actions.

  • On the post: Indian Government Wants Tech Companies To Give Law Enforcement 24-Hour Access To User Data And Broken Encryption

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2018 @ 11:54am

    Re:

    "Compelling state interests" have nothing to do with the rights defined in the constitution. They have to do with the general law-making process. If a law violates a constitutional right, no "compelling state interest" is ever high enough to justify that law.

    Even your attempt to give examples falls flat when you actually walk through them. The DUI example is dead the minute you recognize that an officer must have observed you driving in a manner that leaves reason to suspect you may be drunk. This gives the officer probable cause which allows them to move past some of your rights. This is you giving up your rights, not the state being given freedom to take them from you.

    Your second example doesn't even deal with any constitutional right and is therefore not worth discussing.

  • On the post: London Metropolitan Police Deploy Facial Recognition Tech Sporting A 100% Failure Rate

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2018 @ 07:56am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You're trying to apply moral wrongs as if they were legal wrongs.

    Of course you wouldn't want someone filming your daughters. Too bad there's nothing you could legally do to make them stop. The cops aren't special because what you're implying with this example is untrue.

  • On the post: London Metropolitan Police Deploy Facial Recognition Tech Sporting A 100% Failure Rate

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2018 @ 07:47am

    Re: Re:

    It's long established fact that watching private property from somewhere you're legally allowed to be is never a violation of the 4th and is within your legal right to do.

    Intruding upon someone's privacy is not the same thing as someone opening their private areas up for full display to the public. The only possible issue for the government is that it's not allowed to keep those images for very long unless except for any it has probably cause to connect to some actual crime.

  • On the post: Good For The World, But Not Good For Us: The Really Damning Bits Of The Facebook Revelations

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2018 @ 06:17am

    Re: It's called "stealing"

    All you've done here is demonstrate the fundamental flaw in the reasoning behind those who want to find a scandal in all of this.

    Sure, Facebook doesn't "own" that information. Neither does the person those facts are about, though. No one "owns" it. It's just a series of facts about a person. You don't get to own the factual information about when you were born or what you like and don't like or who your friends are. Those are facts, not IP.

    What Facebook does have is access to those facts because that person chose to share them with it. Other companies don't have that and would like to. Facebook has every right to choose to share access to any information they've gathered under a monetary agreement as long as it's following privacy laws.

  • On the post: Australian Parliament Moves Copyright Amendment Out Of Committee and Into Law

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2018 @ 07:37am

    "The Government has zero tolerance for"

    The instant anyone says "zero tolerance" I'm convinced that they've tossed any concept of justice out the window in favor of their own personal biases on whatever subject they're talking about. It's always used as an attempt to sound "hard" on some "bad" subject but only demonstrates complete lack of care for the nuances that always exist.

  • On the post: Blockchain Voting: Solves None Of The Actual Problems Of Online Voting; Leverages None Of The Benefits Of Blockchain

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2018 @ 11:08am

    Re: enforced secrecy, individual verifiability, global verifiability

    You are treating them as if they are binary concepts. We can only either have them completely or not have them at all. The problem is far from that simple.

    Yes it would be best if we could have them completely. Unfortunately we've never found a way to do that. Thankfully the paper system we have in place now does have them to a decently strong degree. While it does have it's problems it largely does accomplish what we need it to well enough that what corruption does exist around it is not able to completely change the end results.

    We should certainly keep trying to find better ways, but the point of this article seemed to be that this proposal is completely incapable of even meeting the current standards, much less making them better.

  • On the post: Judge Lets NRA's 1st Amendment Lawsuit Against Andrew Cuomo Move Forward

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2018 @ 12:33pm

    Re: Re: put an end to gun violence in New York once and for all

    There is literally no way you can possibly prove that statement. You're assuming that because tougher gun laws were made during that period they therefore must have had some part in the result. That kind of assumption only leads to bad laws seated firmly in the certainty that you've proven something you haven't even begun to explore.

  • On the post: New York Lawmakers Want Social Media History To Be Included In Gun Background Checks

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 02:09pm

    Re: Re: SCOTUS and appeals courts say it isn't so.

    You scream morality but fail to explain how your position is somehow moral.
    Only allowing governments ownership of anything is immoral to me. Refusing to let anyone have something because they MIGHT do something bad with it is equally immoral to me. That's a stupid reason to restrict freedom.
    And where exactly is your "obvious harm" evidence from? Gun ownership literally represents a tiny blip in cause of deaths compared to so many other things. The fact that you don't like guns doesn't make them harmful to own.

  • On the post: New York Lawmakers Want Social Media History To Be Included In Gun Background Checks

    Cdaragorn ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 02:05pm

    Re: Re: Re: Wow, a twofer!

    Historical records suggest no such thing. Plenty of records by key founders make it very clear their intent was that each individual be free to own guns equal to that of the government specifically so they could act on their own against criminal force or in a worst case against government overreach. The construction of the sentence is very clear and follows that intent perfectly.

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