James Burkhardt 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2642)

• On the post: Google Nixes ‘Downloader’ App From Store After DMCA Says Its Browser Can Get To Piracy Sites

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 31 May, 2023 @ 07:11am

  "or face liability" being the crux of the question. Google in fact does deny dmca claims as baseless or or on the basis of fair use - not often, but we see it in youtube on occation. The answer is scale. not all claims can be reviewed, and so even baseless claims will not necessarily see human review. Admittedly, I interpret the word "ignore" to include "deny the request", since that seems to be what the op was actually suggesting.

• On the post: Perhaps GPT Is Not Ready For The Supreme Court

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 30 May, 2023 @ 10:41am

  Ai-generative tools can be very useful as initial drafts. Tools specifically for the legal profession exist, but they aren't intended to be final submissions. Nor would I call this a travesty of justice. I'd call this a travesty of the legal profession, Justice functioned as intended. This is no different than any other bad faith private actor coming in from the perspective of a travesty of justice. And we blame the bad faith actors, not justice itself.

• On the post: Twitter Keeps Breaking In Dangerous Ways: Deleted Tweets Reappearing

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 26 May, 2023 @ 07:29am

  THat Techdirt evaluates RTBF requests and chooses to reject some after evaluating their legal value and accepts the potential liability that entails has no effect on the liability Twitter incurs if a user deletes a tweet due to a RTBF request, or in response to a court order, or as part of a legal settlement or contract dispute and than Twitter restores those tweets. This raises both direct liability (twitter having restored tweets it removed in response to legal process) and indirect liability (Twitter's actions creating legal liability for users) Even if reasonable (its not), your comparison focuses on an example, one posisble avenue of liability, and ignores the wider point on liability.

• On the post: Netflix’s Dumb Password Sharing Crackdown Will Cost You $8 Per Moocher

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 25 May, 2023 @ 09:41am

  I've said it before here. I've gotten noted for saying this before - I used to pay for 4 simultaneous streams. I needed 3. My only options were 2 and 4. If Netflix needs more money for me to use 4 streams instead of 3, they should be charging me more upfront. It costs them no more if that 4th stream is in my home or at my work or across the country. If I had 4 computers running Netflix 24/7 they could charge me nothing more than they already charge me, and that shouldn't change when I go into the office. They announced this change on top of a price increase last year. They lost my business then. After paying a premium for 4 streams, they want to also charge me more to use those streams? I love Glass Onion and want to share it with people, but not that much.

• On the post: Supreme Court Leaves 230 Alone For Now, But Justice Thomas Gives A Pretty Good Explanation For Why It Exists In The First Place

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 10:21am

  Or billionares that own social media want section 230 protections.

• On the post: Supreme Court Leaves 230 Alone For Now, But Justice Thomas Gives A Pretty Good Explanation For Why It Exists In The First Place

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 10:18am

  If your proposition is that Justice Thomas is beholden to the billionare class, please stop a moment and consider who owns social media sites and would be impacted by the death of 230 making social media far less profitable. This ruling is not against billionare interests. That it benefits our interests is a happy coincidence.

• On the post: TV Industry’s Idea Of Innovation: A Free TV With A Second Small TV That Constantly Shows You Ads

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 06:43am

  My only responce would be that its also notably, not a TV. You’ve introduced a whole new slew of confounding variables TVs don’t face.

• On the post: TV Industry’s Idea Of Innovation: A Free TV With A Second Small TV That Constantly Shows You Ads

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 06:40am

  Its also notably, not a TV. You've introduced a whole new slew of confounding variables TV's don't face.

• On the post: Taco Bell Seeks To Liberate ‘Taco Tuesday’ For Itself, The Masses

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 08:38am

  Taco Johns can still have taco tuesdays. The removal of the trademark doesn’t mean taco johnson can’t have taco tuesdays. It’s a mark tgat should never have been granted, and even if it was a valid mark, Taco Johns peacefully coexisted with other Taco Tuesdays for years. If taco johns is better than other local options, i’m sure it’s taco tuesday will win out in the marketplace.

• On the post: Worried About Backlash, Netflix Delays Password Sharing Crackdown In U.S.

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 06:20am

  I still think market segmentation is the biggest problem streaming faces, i never wanted only netflix. I wanted competition to prevent price gouging and see invocation in pricing and format.

• On the post: Twitter Launches Not-Actually-Encrypted Encrypted DMs

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 12 May, 2023 @ 07:04am

  ....Diffie-Hellman key exchange is a foundational process to modern encryption and one of the first public key protocols. Consisting of a private and public key, It allows a public key to be sent in the open and maintain the secrecy of the underlying message. It was first proposed in 1976. If you don't know about public/private key exchange schemes, you know nothing about E2E encryption.

• On the post: Microsoft Wisely Gets On The Right Side Of History And ‘Right To Repair’

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 08:02am

  Microsofts strategy for decades has been embrace, extend, extinguish. It doesn't always work, but it always starts with embrace. Microsofts success has been when its been willing to embrace and try to take over from within. Sometimes they do it outright. Sometimes they just influence and end up at the front. Its no different here.

• On the post: Netflix Loses A Million Subscribers In Spain After Greedy Password Sharing Crackdown

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 02 May, 2023 @ 10:41am

  Due to my nuerodivergent roommate, Disney+ or Hulu is almost always running in the background with a content selection that dwarfs my ripped digital media collection, often in better quality.

• On the post: Netflix Loses A Million Subscribers In Spain After Greedy Password Sharing Crackdown

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 02 May, 2023 @ 07:11am

  **Saved me a ton of money over a Cable package.

• On the post: Netflix Loses A Million Subscribers In Spain After Greedy Password Sharing Crackdown

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 02 May, 2023 @ 07:09am

  To be fair a Disney+ with hulu bundle saved me a ton of money, and almost isnt ever not on in my home.

• On the post: Republicans Keep Taking Credit For Billions In Broadband Subsidies Only Made Possible By The COVID Relief And Infrastructure Bills They Vehemently Opposed

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2023 @ 08:12am

  Truth was always negotiable in politics. Citizens United wasnt the catalyst for that. That you think influencers replaced role models tell me you think role models were just walking bilboards and you had no idea what a role model was. Due process has always been tied to wealth. the access to justice issue isn't new. Thats a pillar of how the post civil war south kept the freed blacks in check, and it echos similar problems centuries earlier. Outside your justice is revenge bit, which i can't parse, These are deep systemic problems presenting in new ways, but they aren't new problems.

• On the post: Elon Musk Is Full Of Shit, Again. No, Federal Agencies Did Not Have ‘Full Access’ To DMs

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2023 @ 09:40am

  I've been noting this a lot on twitter. Elon Musk also claimed Twitter files Journalists had "full access", only for twitter to backpedal and note the journalists definitely didn't have full access, but only access through an intermediary. It is entirely consistent for Musk to ignorantly claim that the ability to request data through any process, no matter the controls or limitations, as "full access".

• On the post: Parler’s New Owner Shuts Down Site: ‘No Reasonable Person Believes Twitter For Conservatives Is A Viable Business Model’

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2023 @ 07:38am

  Twitter already existed as a subsidiary of X. X1 holdings and X2 holdings were the companies that bought twitter in a reverse triangle merger to maintain contracts for Twitter Inc. The onlyy thing I know musk to have done is legally rebrand the company from Twitter, Inc. His ownership and liability haven't changed.

• On the post: Arkansas Governor Signs Social Media Bill Into Law, Even As Bill’s Own Sponsor Appears Confused About Who It Covers

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2023 @ 10:26am

  Given that the language comes from a clause that exempts companies, the law explicitly doesnt ban tik tok. It exempts tik tok.

• On the post: Mehdi Hasan Dismantles The Entire Foundation Of The Twitter Files As Matt Taibbi Stumbles To Defend It

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2023 @ 12:21pm

  Even one tweet or post ‘flagged’ by any government official

  Absolutes can be tricky, you might want to be careful

  for deletion is too much.

  Ah. see, I could accept your framing and discuss cases where such an absolute was invalid, but you've helpfully not understood the assignment, so I can simply point out we are thankfully discussing flagging tweets for review, not deletion. so its not even on topic.

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