DB 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (653)

• On the post: Hard Pass: Clearview Offers To Help Out With COVID-19 Contact Tracing

  

  DB ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2020 @ 01:48pm

  There does seem to be a huge bubble this week about "contact tracing" apps.

  That ship has long sailed. I'm pretty sure that it was never in port.

  There is solid evidence that two major U.S. "super spreader" events were CES in early January, and New Orleans Mardi Gras in mid-February. CES has 170K out-of-town attendees and Mardi Gras attracts about 1.4 million people, most within a day's drive. Both are so crowded that close personal contact is unavoidable.

• On the post: New Jersey Corrections Officials (Temporarily) Banned Released Prisoners From Talking To Journalists

  

  DB ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2020 @ 03:26pm

  Hmm, I'm don't really see the problem for those with convictions continuing to serve their sentence.

  For federal prisoners the Bureau of Prisons decides how and where they will serve their sentences. They can unilaterally decide that a prisoner's status can be lowered to home detention, but impose prison-like restrictions on that detention. If the norm in prison is that talking to the press requires prior permission, they can presumably continue that restriction.

• On the post: Supreme Court Says Georgia's 'Official Code' Is Public Domain — Including Annotations

  

  DB ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2020 @ 12:57pm

  Hmmm, I foresee bad consequences.

  My initial read is that any work that previously had the copyright assigned to the government might now be argued to be in the public domain, even if they were originally written in a way that conformed to a license such as the GPL. That's going to be messy.

  Plus this does not fix the problem with copyrighted works being incorporated by reference and having the force of law. The obvious case is building codes, but there are more obscure cases such as privately drawn maps used in zoning.

• On the post: NYC Mayor Asks Residents To Snitch On Social Distancing Violators, Gets Dick Pics And Hitler Memes Instead

  

  DB ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2020 @ 09:21pm

  Don't suspect a friend
  Report him

• On the post: Tracfone Made Up "Fictitious" Users To Defraud Taxpayers, FCC

  

  DB ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2020 @ 07:13am

  Re: Obamaphone Fraud

  The fine should be used to audit the other claims. If they found $1.2M of fraud, the true scale is probably much higher.

• On the post: Want To Know Why U.S. Broadband Is A Bad Joke? Take a Close Look at Frontier Communications

  

  DB ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2020 @ 09:20am

  Re: How are the monopolies allowed?

  Most utilities are government-granted monopolies. The argument was that utility infrastructure is so expensive to build that, by eliminating the cost of duplicate infrastructure, a monopoly would be a less expensive choice. Many telecom arguments focus on the 'right' of companies to pursue a profit unfettered by government limits and oversight, ignoring that they are protected from competition by the government-granted monopoly that is the opposite of a capitalistic open market.

• On the post: As Record Labels Still Are Demanding Mandated Filters; Facebook's Copyright Filter Takes Down A Guy Playing Bach

  

  DB ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2020 @ 11:26am

  Re: To the filters, it's all the same, tone deaf and without con

  That's an excellent idea. We should have joint and several liability for the performer(s) and all of their instructors (and instructors' families and estates).
  With increasingly large copyright violation awards, doing this will also assure that IP rights holders get paid at least a fraction of the vast damages that are incurred whenever any music, no matter how old, is played.
  This might help, in some small way, to rectify the historic injustice of instructors using copyrighted music in their classes (thus commercially). Even if students butcher the music so horribly that it's unrecognizable, it must still be a copyright violation. If their mis-playing sounds makes it sound like a different song, it's a double violation.

• On the post: Patent Troll Runs To Court To Whine About Mean People Online, Insists They Must All Secretly Be From Company It's Suing

  

  DB ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2020 @ 05:04pm

  Is this a dice roll that the judge doesn't understand the web or sites such as reddit ?
  That's a gamble that had a good chance a decade ago. It seems unlikely that federal judge would be clueless today.

• On the post: Anti-Vaxxer Sues Facebook, In The Middle Of A Pandemic, For 'In Excess' Of $5 Billion For Shutting Down His Account

  

  DB ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2020 @ 08:22am

  Re: Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...

  Is the plaintiff's attorney being paid? Then it is likely a case of a scummy lawyer taking advantage of a client, rather than dual Dunning-Kruger. It's telling that this attorney is a Grisham-style ambulance chaser, dabbling in personal injury and divorce cases. Real-estate law can be legitimate business, but I suspect that here it actually means evictions and arguing over security deposits.

• On the post: Awful, Awful People Keep Trying To Trademark COVID And Coronavirus

  

  DB ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2020 @ 10:53am

  It is a license to sue!

  Threatening a bogus lawsuit is almost as effective as actually having a valid claim. It's sometimes more effective if you have a history of causing innocent defendants lots of money.

  In a slightly better world an attempt to file invalid trademarks would simply result in a presumption of invalidity for all future filing for both the law firm and the client.

• On the post: Police Department Shells Out $50,000 To Man After His Camera Catches Cops Fabricating Criminal Charges Against Him

  

  DB ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2020 @ 11:12am

  A quick search reveals that the officers were 'exonerated' by their own department, with the decision happening in late 2017.

  A state police internal affairs investigator concluded there was "no evidence" to support an activist's claim that three troopers conspired to concoct charges against him during a contentious interaction at a DUI checkpoint in 2015.

  They appear to have ignored that criminal charges were filed against the activist, only to be later dropped as unsupported.

  It took over four years of legal action before a trial was scheduled. It is very likely that cost more than $50K of legal effort, with part of it handled by the ACLU.

  They were only caught because they were unlucky. Without the accidental recording no one in the justice system would have believed Michael Picard. Even with the recording the department claimed that they saw nothing wrong with what happened. This is hardly a happy-ending story.

• On the post: PetNet 'Smart' Pet Feeders Go Offline For A Week, Customer Service Completely Breaks Down

  

  DB ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2020 @ 02:48am

  Re: Too busy to feed your pet?

  There are lots of circumstances where you normally feed your pet personally, but something unexpected happens. I've been caught in a 5 hour road closure (3 hours of stopped traffic and turning around, 2 hours for the now-jammed alternate route). That's exactly where an internet-controlled pet feeder would be useful. It doesn't make you a bad pet owner. Many people also go on business and personal travel where it's impractical to take a pet but not long enough to justify a pet sitter or pet "hotel". There a simpler timer based feeder would work, but an internet connected one would provide peace of mind that it was working.

• On the post: Devin Nunes' Lawyer Continues To Use Unrelated Case To Try To Unearth Satirical Internet Cow Account

  

  DB ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2020 @ 11:06pm

  The assumption is that Biss is working largely unpaid, with the expectation that his notoriety will result in a profitable client base. Or perhaps with the hope that a profitable settlement might be reached.
  This is supported by his delayed eviction last year for non-payment of rent.
  A sanction from the court that is required to be paid by Biss personally might be a significant problem for him, and I don't see Nunes being especially happy or ready to pay Twitter's legal bills.

• On the post: Trouble At The Law Firm Filing Patently Ridiculous Lawsuits On Behalf Of Tulsi Gabbard

  

  DB ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2020 @ 10:48am

  Re: Haters Are Going To Hate

  I'm pretty sure that this is a troll.. Michael Avenatti was convicted only a day ago. Since his name came up, "Ken, is Michael Avenatti a good lawyer?"

• On the post: The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth… And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away…

  

  DB ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2020 @ 11:56am

  Lemon law buy-back and subsequent sale

  A key missing detail is that this vehicle was apparently a 'lemon law' buy-back.

  That might change the analysis, both morally and legally.

  For me it moves the transaction away from a 'first sale' doctrine limit, where the manufacturer has no control after an item is sold. In this case the original sale was effectively reversed by a requirement of a state law. This was a subsequent sale, where the original window sticker and invoice might not be relevant.

• On the post: Utah State Rep Unveils Bill To Force Porn To Come With A Warning Label

  

  DB ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2020 @ 11:19am

  Within a few seconds you can come up with several ways to mis-use the proposed law.

  A private right of action with no objective standard means that you could sue anyone and they would have to prove that their speech wasn't pornography. Even if the speech had no prurient content, it shifts the burden and is going to cost the defendant much more than the plaintiff.

• On the post: Disney's Licensing Dogs Charge Underserved School District A Third Of Fundraiser Money For Playing 'Lion King' DVD

  

  DB ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2020 @ 06:00pm

  Re: Re: Dangit, who let those weasels in here?!

  To make it clear, the Prop 13 "loophole" is that business properties are now commonly owned by a single-purpose corporation. Rather than sell the property, which resets tax basis to the selling price, the corporation is sold. That retains the original tax basis. Because of the mortgage interest deduction and various other laws (including zoning), individual homeowners can't do this. The result is that over time commercial properties have ended up paying a far lower share of property taxes than they did before.

• On the post: Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism

  

  DB ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 03:36pm

  "They're not government entities, but they can still violate someone's First Amendment rights."

  I'm don't believe that is correct.

  That said, the first amendment does influence what the courts will enforce. The more a HOA acts as a quasi-governmental agency, the closer the courts will examine its actions. When it purports to be able to regulate the speech of its members, it is going far beyond a limited cooperative of property owners for the purpose of maintaining community assets.

  While this situation is likely to never reach trial because the board apparently never passed the resolution and provided notice of the new rules, even if they had properly passed a rule it goes so far beyond the purpose of a HOA it's difficult to see a court accepting it as legitimate.

• On the post: Verizon's 5G Superbowl Ads Will Hype Nonexistent Firefighter Tech And A Barely Available Network

  

  DB ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 11:52am

  Companies don't spend the millions it takes for a superbowl ad to tell the truth. They are either introducing a new product, reminding you to drink beer and eat junk food, or telling a Big Lie.

• On the post: Turns Out Oracle Copied Amazon's S3 APIs; When Confronted, Pretends That's Different (Spoiler Alert: It's Not)

  

  DB ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2020 @ 10:21am

  Threading the needle

  Oracle is twisting to distinguish this specific unlicensed API use from very similar use that they sued others over.

  I can't see it working. They might be able to thread the needle on this one very specific use case. But every statement they make to claim that their use is different will complicate their options for the dozens or hundred other situations that are going to be pointed out in the coming years.

  If API copyright is upheld by the US Supreme Court, there will be an avalanche of filings. Most of them be an injustice, but I'll cheer for every one filed against Oracle.

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