Chris-Mouse 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (538)

• On the post: Lawyer Whose Main Claim To Fame Is Suing A News Org To Get It Shut Down, Now Complains About 'Cancel Culture'

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2021 @ 09:57am

  Re:

  Also, fuck Charles Harder.

  No, thanks. I might catch something.

• On the post: Documents Show Hundreds Of Cops Have Run Clearview Searches, Often Without Their Employers' Knowledge Or Permission

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2021 @ 03:04pm

  It would be interesting to see what would happen if the police department were to run photographs of all their officers through the Clearview search. I suspect the result would be a lot less enthusiasm for facial recognition afterwards.

• On the post: US Press Continues To Pretend The 'Digital Divide' Just Mysteriously Appeared One Day

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2021 @ 08:45am

  Re:

  I can't see it because I can't afford to pay Comcast for access to Google.

• On the post: US Press Continues To Pretend The 'Digital Divide' Just Mysteriously Appeared One Day

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2021 @ 05:53am

  How much of the media is owned by the same people that own the telecom giants? I suspect that that might be enough of a reason for the silence on the subject.

• On the post: After Years Of Litigation, AT&T Customers Get A Measly $22 For Being Lied To Over 'Throttling'

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2021 @ 07:42am

  A class action lawsuit is a good means of getting a company to change it's behavior, but only the lawyers will ever get a big payout.

  Start with a penalty that won't bankrupt the company, subtract the legal fees, and then divide what's left by the number of people in the class. The result is always going to be way, way less than the amount needed to properly compensate for the damage the company did.

• On the post: Senator Tillis Releases Massive Unconstitutional Plan To Reshape The Internet In Hollywood's Image

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2020 @ 02:39pm

  I wonder how Hollywood is going to feel when ISPs start to implement notice and staydown policies. Once they've been told about an infringing file, they block ALL copies of that file passing across their network. Including copies streamed or purchased from the legal sites.

• On the post: Good News: Academics Can Make Their Articles Published In Top Journal Nature Freely Available As Open Access. Bad News: They Must Pay $11,000 For Each One

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2020 @ 05:40am

  A big part of the problem is academia itself. As long as the progress of your career depends more on where your works have been published than what is in your works, then this situation will continue. Right now, an academic career depends on getting the approval of one of the gatekeepers, so the gatekeepers are free to charge as much as they want. Researchers are willing to pay those sorts of outrageous fees because they are buying a boost to their career more than anything else.

• On the post: UK Politician Demands The Impossible: Social Media Companies Must Not Take Down Political Speech, But Must Block Disinformation

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2020 @ 09:51am

  He is forgetting that anything a politician says is, by definition, political speech. This applies even when the speech consists mostly of lies being spread by a president...

  ...or a member of the UK parliament.

• On the post: Appeals Court Strips Immunity From Detectives Who Turned A Rape Report Into 18 Hours Of Terror For The Victim

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2020 @ 03:23pm

  Re: Police as the Cavalry in fiction

  I suspect there’s one or two police forces that could manage to scramble a gunship

• On the post: Happy 20th Birthday To 'No One Lives Forever', The Classic PC Game That Can't Be Sold Today Thanks To IP

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2020 @ 05:57am

  Re: Re: Bait

  Wouldn't anyone bringing a lawsuit first have to show that they have standing to bring the suit in the first place? The only one who would have standing is the copyright holder, so, they have to produce the proof they hold the copyright, or the suit gets tossed really quickly.

• On the post: Gun-Toting Couple Sues Photographer For Privacy Violation Over Photo They Used As Christmas Cards, After He Billed Them

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2020 @ 01:37pm

  Re:

  The photographer is not charging them for taking their picture. What he is charging them for is the use of a picture that he took. The fact that they are the subjects of the picture is irrelevant. The photographer has every right to ask for a license fee for the use of one of his photos, just as he would be expected to be paid for the use of picture of the sunset. Normally, if you want to use someone's photograph, you negotiate the license fee in advance. In this case, they didn't, so now they are in a situation where they are negotiating in a position where if they don't reach an agreement with the photographer, they could be sued for $150,000 for copyright infringement. Personally, I'd rather avoid getting into this situation, but if I did, I'd probably choose the $1500 bill instead of $150K plus legal fees.

• On the post: Zuckerberg And Facebook Throw The Open Internet Under The Bus; Support Section 230 Reform

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2020 @ 04:54pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  As a person, you have the right to hop up on your soapbox and start talking about anything you please. The first amendment prevents the government from punishing you if they don’t like what you say. Nowhere, in the constitution, or in any other law, is there any requirement for twitter to provide you with that soapbox. If you use Twitter’s soapbox, Twitter still can’t punish you, but they can refuse to let you use their soapbox.

• On the post: Stop Pretending The Trump GOP Genuinely Cares About Monopoly Power

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2020 @ 06:45am

  The GOP does indeed care about monopoly power.

  It's just that their only care is to make certain that they, or their supporters, are the ones to hold that power.

• On the post: Court Says Trump's Plan To Block TikTok Can't Go Into Effect Yet

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2020 @ 10:37am

  What are the chances that all of this will be dropped Nov 4th? If Trump loses, he won't be in any position to keep pushing for it. If Trump wins, he won't need it as a distraction anymore, so will quietly forget about it.

• On the post: Josh Hawley Isn't 'Helping' When It Comes To TikTok

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2020 @ 07:35am

  if they are doing something they think needs to be stopped why don't they ban the action?

  Probably because any ban on privacy invading actions taken by TikTok would also affect privacy invading actions taken by big Trump supporters like AT&T.

• On the post: Over At Politico, The AT&T Monopoly Gives Tips On Fixing A Broadband Problem It Spent Thirty Years Creating

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2020 @ 07:13am

  Re:

  Every time a rural community threatens to create a public broadband utility, the private sector companies come running to establish their own.

  Umm no, they don't. It's simply far more cost effective for them to lobby at the state level to make creating the public broadband utility illegal.

• On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2020 @ 08:17am

  How long before...

  Sooner or later, someone is going to see one of these 'arrests' as a kidnapping attempt and react violently. How long before there's an open firefight between one of these arrest teams and their 'victim'? How many DHS agents are going to get shot in the process?

• On the post: John Oliver Says What Needs To Be Said About Why Defunding The Police Is The Right Thing Right Now

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2020 @ 02:21pm

  Just watch it:

  I'd love to watch it, but it seems the video is geoblocked to anyone outside the USA

• On the post: Clearview Says Section 230 Immunizes It From Vermont's Lawsuit Over Alleged Privacy Violations

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2020 @ 04:55pm

  Re: How is this not copyright a violation for every picture?

  That depends on what they do with it.
  If Clearview scrapes the pictures and then only feeds them into the facial recognition AI, then that would be a transformative use, similar to the Google Books usage that was found to be legal. But if Clearview included a copy of my picture in the report they send to a client, then that would be different. Would it be infringement? I suspect not, but only a court could decide. If you feel like taking them to court, good luck proving that your picture was not only scraped, but also sent onward to a Clearview client.

• On the post: Bill Would Ban Broadband Shutoffs Until COVID-19 Pandemic Eases

  

  Chris-Mouse ( profile ), 14 May, 2020 @ 07:50am

  (barring instances of network abuse)

  Of course, to the ISP, failing to pay every penny you have is obviously abuse of the network. So is attempting to use the service you've paid for.

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