ChrisH 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Sticking It To The (Camera) Man: Inventor Develops License Plate Frame That Defeats Red Light Cameras

    ChrisH ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2012 @ 09:49pm

    I've been waiting for more products like this to come out.

    We had red light cameras here in Houston, TX. Instead of a photo, it recorded about 5 seconds worth of video which they send you as part of the ticket. I'm sure you could have the video reviewed by the court if you wanted to contest it. Maybe it doesn't work this way everywhere but an officer reviews the videos and decides whether or not to send a ticket. The cameras were eventually removed by a ballot initiative.

    Statistics are tricky things. People read that the cameras have increased accidents and conclude that they're reducing safety. But are all accidents equal? If you only look at those accidents involving injury, the cameras have actually reduced those accidents. It's pretty obvious what's happening. People are stopping quickly to avoid the tickets which is increasing the number of rear-end collisions. At the same time, the number of T-bone collisions have gone down since people are more aware of the lights, leading to less serious injuries.

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2012 @ 09:04pm

    Re: Privacy

    please correct me (in a non-longwinded fashion) if I'm wrong

    You're wrong.

    A MAC can be changed, but Amazon has no idea what yours is. The account is most likely tied to a combination of your email, name, credit card, and postal address. Change enough of those and they won't know it's you.

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2012 @ 08:41pm

    Re: Re: Re: You probably don't OWN .....

    With free software, you only agree to the license if you want to redistribute. If your just downloading it to use, you own it (that copy anyway). It's not licensed.

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2012 @ 08:01am

    Re: You probably don't OWN .....

    gave up your rights when you hit the "accept" button

    So it would follow that you had those rights (ownership) before you hit the "accept" button. Then what are you gaining by accepting? If nothing, then it's not a valid agreement. That's one of many reasons why an honest reading of the law says EULAs are bull#&*%, but the argument continues to be they must be enforceable or the economy will collapse and so judges enforce them, well many of them anyway.

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2012 @ 07:41am

    Re: Re:

    Less literally, it means that actually finding and forcibly erasing backed-up media in someone's home is so difficult that for most practical purposes, you do own them.

    To me it also means that within the huge legal fog that is digital media rights, a party ought to act in their own best interest to the fullest extent practically possible. You can be sure that any media company interprets the law in their own interest, operating as close to the edge as possible and sometimes over (Sony rootkits).

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2012 @ 02:59pm

    Re: Re:

    won't stop you

  • On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

    ChrisH ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2012 @ 01:03pm

    Techdirt has been warning people for several years that they don't really own the ebooks they have on their Amazon Kindles.

    You do if you back them up. Possession is 9/10 of the law.

  • On the post: Italian Scientists Convicted Of Manslaughter, Sentenced To 6 Years In Jail, Over Earthquake They Failed To Predict Properly

    ChrisH ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2012 @ 01:00pm

    I'd like to see this same legal theory applied to weatherman. Talk about creating new jobs...

  • On the post: Italian Scientists Convicted Of Manslaughter, Sentenced To 6 Years In Jail, Over Earthquake They Failed To Predict Properly

    ChrisH ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2012 @ 12:52pm

    All this will do is create a disincentive for people considering the field of earthquake prediction. If that happens it will really help protect people from earthquakes! Great idea Italy.

  • On the post: Greenpeace Parody Site Censored Using Copyright Infringement Claim

    ChrisH ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2012 @ 04:50pm

    Did Greenpeace submit a counter notification? If not, it's kind of an admission of guilt.

  • On the post: Zillow Busted In Arizona For Not Having An Appraiser License

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 10:37am

    Re: Re: Licensing is NOT protectionist

    Certifications are different because you can choose to ignore them. Yeah, there are some cases where the licenses are so easy to obtain, they are nearly worthless, for example I'd be all for the elimination of driver licensing requirements. Although the fact that it can be revoked if you end up sucking at driving can be handy.

    A business license is a vehicle for enforcing regulations. Is everyone here in favor or eliminating regulations on businesses?

  • On the post: Zillow Busted In Arizona For Not Having An Appraiser License

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 10:23am

    Re: Re: Licensing is NOT protectionist

    I'm pretty sure there are several licenses involved in selling you that gallon of milk :)

    So you'd be totally cool with people opening their own medical practice without having attended med school?

    Licensing is another form of regulation (think drivers license). Whether or not it's fair depends on the licensing requirements. If the license is based on a state exam, the costs are small, and they are issued to anyone, then I think it's fair. If the license is restricted to members of a private organization or guild, then I think that's unfair and it becomes protectionist. I think we can all agree that offering free advise should not require a license. However, at least with the Ziinet, they were charging a fee, and the advise was customized for each client. This was not a blog site, and it only came up because the paying client was unhappy with the advise they were given (it was wrong).

  • On the post: Professional Unions And The Labor Struggles Of The 21st Century

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 10:00am

    I think it helps to break it down into two types of unions, the difference being the nature of the employer.

    For most jobs there are far fewer companies than there are workers. This means that a company has a much stronger negotiating power than an individual employee (try negotiating the terms of your next cell-phone contract). The purpose of a traditional union is to even out this relationship so that the employees as a whole have the same negotiating power as the employee. This is the logical thing to do from the employee's perspective.

    The second type of "union" would be one where the members are self-employed such as real estate agents, plumbers, etc. Since these workers are hired by individuals instead of a large company, they aren't needed to ensure fair pay or other negotiated items.

    It's unfortunate that some unions are able to use their power to create laws barring non-union workers, or do other things that harm society as a whole, but this kind of abuse of power is a feature of any large company or organization.

  • On the post: North Carolina Tells Blogger That Providing Dietary Advice Is Illegal, Blogger Tells NC To Read The 1st Amendment

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 09:53am

    Re: Re: Equal treatment...

    Can't go after all the people doing xxxx...just not possible.

    That never seems to stop them from making xxxx illegal :)

    The point about jurisdiction reminds me of something I was going to add earlier. Does the blog owner reside in NC? If not, I would tell them to go pound sand, which he may have already done, based on the article's title. He is under no obligation to abide by the laws of another state.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 09:38am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Generally, few people have the rights to distribute content legally. A music video? I know who has the rights. Songs from a band's album with "lyrics added" by Paul92838393, I am pretty sure he doesn't have the rights. It's not hard.

    Actually, on a site designed for home-made videos, I bet a heck of a lot of people have rights to distribute content. With the music video example, how do you know the video wasn't released under creative commons or the public domain. If you determine such-and-such studio is the copyright holder, how do you know who their authorized agents are, any of whom might have legally uploaded the video? We haven't even talked about fair-use which even allows for whole copying of the work in some cases.

    Actually, in naked hosting, there would a URL to see the file, and nothing more. That Youtube indexes content, displays it on pre-made pages, surrounds it with advertising, and so on is something much more than just hosting.

    A lot of CMS do the same thing. This isn't the 90's where every web page is a static file. There's databases which automatically index content. That the CMS and page theme have already been chosen simply reflects the fact that this is a video hosting service, not a straight web-hosting one. The difference is with a hosting company (Youtube), everything that's done with the content is completely automated and evenly applied whereas a publisher is looking at each work and making creative decisions about how to handle them.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    ChrisH ( profile ), 31 May, 2012 @ 09:15am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Umm, the work is copyright. Was it the copyright holder uploading it, yes or no?

    If your answer is anything other than CERTAINLY YES, then you don't put it online until you know.

    Sure, but the question you're asking is obviously a question for the Youtube account holder since they are in a much better position to make this call. Youtube the company has no way to know if the person uploading is the copyright holder or was otherwise authorized by the copyright holder. Youtube handles this the way you would expect them to. They tell you in the terms of service not to upload without authorization. If you choose to ignore this rule, Youtube could cancel your account or even go after you for breach of contract. I don't know what else you can reasonably expect them to do.

  • On the post: Professional Unions And The Labor Struggles Of The 21st Century

    ChrisH ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 10:14pm

    Re: I have to side with Milton Friedman.

    ....and government worker unions should be strictly against the law.

    Regardless of its effect on the economy, this would violate the first amendment's right to free association.

  • On the post: North Carolina Tells Blogger That Providing Dietary Advice Is Illegal, Blogger Tells NC To Read The 1st Amendment

    ChrisH ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 08:15pm

    Re:

    Any personal blog could potentially make money from ads so this test would cover too many people, anyone who says anything which overlaps with a licensed field. The test should be whether or not the site requires money from visitors in order to view the contents.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    ChrisH ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 07:37pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The DMCA procedure is for the removal of allegedly infringing material. Determining if said material is actually infringing can only be done by a court.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    ChrisH ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 07:26pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    The point is there is no such thing as "obviously offending material". I'm assuming you and some others are thinking that if it looks like a Hollywood movie then it's infringing, otherwise it's not. However you need to account for cases where the account owner was authorized to upload the film clip by the studio. Conversely, how do you know that a home movie was actually uploaded by it's copyright holder and hasn't been illegally copied?

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