Deirdre 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (72)

• On the post: Copyright Troll Claims Sanctions Against Him Are 'Bulls**t' And He's Going To Keep Sending Questionable Subpoenas

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2012 @ 12:14pm

  I've known a few attorneys who were sanctioned and it was very unusual with a little contrition for the sanctions to not be reduced on appeal. Maybe Stone didn't know about the contrition part of appealing sanctions.

• On the post: Irish Rail Uses Twitter To Help Reunite Lost Dog With Owner

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2012 @ 05:12am

  My Jack Russells loved to travel and occasionally would jump in a stranger's car if a door was open. I would have to retrieve them with apologies. I could see one wanting a train ride. Love the airplane ears in the picture with his owner. He did not want to be held right then.

• On the post: Former Righthaven CEO Secretly Hires Lawyers For The Company He No Longer Has Anything To Do With

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2012 @ 02:52pm

  Gibson reminds me of the last boss I had. The joke in the office was that he didn't pass the bar. he sneaked under it.

• On the post: Does It Makes Sense To Charge Kids & Their Parents With Libel For Online Bullying?

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 01 May, 2012 @ 12:44pm

  At least they didn't try to charge the other kids with identity theft. Shame the teen and parents had to go this far to get the page taken down. I would be as much disturbed by the imputation of racist beliefs in the Youtube video as anything. That's something that could turn around and bite the kid a few years later when she is looking for a job.
  
  If the kids who did this are minors then parents are responsible for their actions in Georgia, at least up to $10,000 damage. That's how the parents got in there.

• On the post: Harry Potter And The Missing Middlemen: Where The Pottermore Store Goes Wrong

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 02:05pm

  The faq is interesting. I liked the bit about being allowed (ney, encouraged) to share your copy of the books with your kids under the age of 18. When the kids turn 18 though they have to buy their own copy. Wha?

• On the post: UK Trying To Censor Parody Video About The 2012 Olympics

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 29 Feb, 2012 @ 12:27pm

  Why are Olympic mascots always so creepy? Considering the amount of money spent on everything you'd think they could hire some kick ass design work.

• On the post: Getting Past The Uncanny Valley In Targeted Advertising

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2012 @ 05:14am

  I was trying to figure out why our office was sent a complimentary box of newborn diapers. If they thought anyone was about to give birth they were really off the mark. However we do go to the local Target to buy unscented soap for the washrooms, big bottles of hand sanitizer for the staff and to set out for the clients and big bags of cotton balls that we to clean the office dogs' ears out with.
  
  One mystery explained. We donated the diapers to a local children's charity.

• On the post: Ownership Mentality: Art Gallery Prohibits Sketching

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2012 @ 06:17am

  I can understand no flash because some kinds of light can damage items. Lots of historical exhibits have special indirect lighting for this reason. But this is the first time I have seen a no sketching sign.

• On the post: Are There Any Legal Issues If Amazon Accidentally Gives Away Thousands Of Your Ebooks For Free?

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2011 @ 07:31am

  So Amazon will not allow self published authors to price their book below 99 cents. (Ebooks that show a publisher may offer books for free.) However, some authors who want to make their books free for a short period of time puts the books up on Smashwords or some other site for free. Amazon's spider finds it and reduces the Amazon book price to free. When the promotion is over then the price of the book is raised to the old price on the old site, the spider finds that and sales go on as before. I've seen this done deliberately by self published authors several times since authors figured out they could do it.
  
  I don't know what happened in this case because I have not seen a screen capture of the B&N offering but I'm think there is a good chance the author failed to put Sample or some other language to distinguish his free sample from his actual book in the title on B&N.
  
  Kristine Katheryn Rusch blogged about this. While she starts out talking about the reporting on the Galley Cat site, she does get to the author and his issues.

• On the post: Applying Apple's Design Sense To Other Items… Like The Thermostat

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2011 @ 04:29am

  I have a 7 day programmable thermostat. Cost about $100 and it's a bear to program. If this is easy to use as well as attractive I would go for it but not at $250.

• On the post: California Politician Discovers That You Can't Ban Specific Type Of Music; Admits 'I Didn't Know What Was Going On'

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2011 @ 08:23am

  Re: Police Whistles

  *cough*Disco whistles in the 70's *cough*. Things don't change, just go around the world.

• On the post: NY State Senators Say We've Got Too Much Free Speech; Introduce Bill To Fix That

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2011 @ 11:24am

  I was discussing this with a friend. She blames this on giving everyone a trophy whether they won or not.

• On the post: Another Day, Another Story Of Police Lying… Only To Be Found Out Due To Video Of The Incident

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2011 @ 02:06pm

  Re:

  If you mean London the last paragraph of the linked article states "Neighbors said London has moved to North Carolina. A hearing on the criminal charges against her is scheduled for Nov. 8. Her lawyer declined comment."

• On the post: Harlan Ellison Sues Again; Because No One Could Have Possibly Came Up With The Same SciFi Ideas As He Did

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2011 @ 12:18pm

  Re: Due

  You might as well have linked me to TVtropes-- I lost over an hour of work time wondering around the minor characters of Hitchhikers Guide.

• On the post: Copyright Troll Evan Stone Sanctioned For More Than $10k For Sending Subpoenas When Court Said To Wait

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2011 @ 09:46am

  Whether or not he receives sanctions from the state bars where he is licensed depends on state action not federal. Once he is reported to the bars to which he has been admitted then action can begin.
  
  I personally think his license is in hot water and it's starting to boil.

• On the post: You Can Copy Our Articles All You Want… But Please Don't Claim The Copyright Belongs To You

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2011 @ 06:25am

  Re: Re: Re: Wow! Total naiveté

  Public domain work is becoming part of new works all the time currently with such mashup as Pride and Prejudice with Zombies and books of that ilk. The only part a modern author can claim copyright on is the part he or she wrote. The original words of the author remain in public domain.

• On the post: Will TV Providers Finally Realize That People Really Are Cutting The Cord — And Not Just Because Of The Economy

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 03:01pm

  I was a member of the first generation to be babysat by television. I've seen all the television that I need to see in my life. I cut my personal cord in 1997. We still had cable at the office. We got rid of it in 2009.
  
  I've noticed the box with the cable interface is left open at my house about every 6 months. Apparently the sole available cable provider cannot believe that I am not pirating cable and keeps coming by to check after 14 years. I wish he would learn to close the box.

• On the post: CoC's 'Victims Of Internet Piracy' Look More Like 'Victims Of Propagandist Exploitation'

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 03:45pm

  Ah, Deebs AKA Wolff. I see exactly what her problem is. There's been a serious dip in Mass Market Paperback Sales, even romances-- in fact romance readers seemed to have embraced ereaders with passionate abandon. *I honestly tried to work in a reference to burgeoning man lance, but couldn't do think of a way to do it.* Her current publishers appear to be Harlequin-- which has the monopoly on category romances, rarely pays well (their digital royalty rate until recently was 6% of the cover price)-- and NAL whose digital books are wildly over priced.
  
  I went to see if anyone was even pirating her books and was not surprised to see that she had less than a 1000 completed downloads of torrents that were just her books-- not for example all the Harlequin Superromances from 2011 that happen to include one of her books. There were not new torrents either. Most recent was 5/2011, oldest was April 2009.
  
  If she is losing her publishers due to lack of sales, I would submit its not because of piracy.

• On the post: Murdoch Phone Hacking Story Just Gets Worse And Worse

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2011 @ 06:43am

  I was reading a British set mystery this weekend (Elizabeth Corley's Innocent Blood) and thought the reporters portrayed were over the top evil in their actions-- looks like the author had in fact pulled her punches instead.

• On the post: Art Authenticator Sues The New Yorker, Claiming Profile Defamed Him

  

  Deirdre ( profile ), 05 Jul, 2011 @ 07:42am

  Re: Biro

  One can become an involuntary public figure or a public figure in a very narrow area. Public figure is a legal term of art and for someone to be defined as such for legal purposes does not mean he or she needs to be widely known to the entire public.
  
  I assume Biro's lawyer explained all of this to him though.

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