DB 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Austrian Hotel Drops Libel Lawsuit Against Guest Who Complained About Pictures Of Nazis In The Lobby

    DB ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2019 @ 05:43pm

    It's disappointing that the ruling on the Nazi-or-not-Nazi fact.

    Putting up the picture was the issue. In the U.S. that so-called libel would be an opinion based on disclosed facts.

    But, just like the U.S., the lawsuit was the punishment. They didn't think that anyone would risk the cost of the research, even if 75% sure that the conclusion would be "yup, Nazi". But, unlike the U.S., 'loser pays' kept the injustice from being greater.

  • On the post: NYTimes Predicted San Francisco Would 'Drown In Millionaires' Post IPO Boom; Now Whines That It Never Happened

    DB ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2019 @ 08:28am

    There are plenty of people in the SF bay area making good money, but there is a strong element of 'winning the lottery' in the area. A handful win big, but the average payout is less than the perception.

    You frequently hear about the few mid-level employees that made millions on their stock. You don't hear from the much larger proportion that worked long hours for modest pay with the expectation that their stock would be the big payday, only to end up with stock options or RSUs that are 'in the money' just enough to keep them from leaving the job until they finish vesting.
    From what I've seen, the path to an IPO or being bought out is usually preceded by a year of practically cooking the books to grow, gain customers with one-off discounts, and attract employees with luxurious workplace amenities. Just before the IPO the stock is shuffled to make the regular employee shares and options worth significantly less. Just after the IPO the amenities are cut.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Revisits Its Terrible New Orleans Protest Decision, Changes Nothing About Its Rejection Of First Amendment Protections

    DB ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2019 @ 02:10pm

    A good reference is the 1965 'March on Selma'.

    It was reasonably foreseeable that there would be an injury on the police side. Should the organizers have been legally responsible for that injury?

    For background, during a previous march three weeks earlier police had attacked the unarmed, peaceful protesters and killed one of them. During the same march two press photographers were clubbed by police and a TV reporter was badly beaten by police. It was very likely that police would be violently attacking any march in support of civil rights.

    Now, again, should protest organizers be legally responsible for police injuries? How would that have changed organized civil rights demonstrations?

  • On the post: NC, Or Not NC: Why Suing The Sons Of Confederate Veterans In N.D.Cal For Violating The DMCA Makes Sense

    DB ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2019 @ 09:03am

    I'm sure they will get lots of sympathetic press from headlines claiming that they are being sued in California, and likely a bunch of donations.

    I was initially confused how California was remotely related. I expected that it was somehow like Virginia, which apparently is an overlap of California and Iowa for Devin Nunes. But looking at where the notice was sent, it is actually the most logical venue for the legal action. Dropbox is the nexus for the activity -- it is the district the plaintiffs and defendants have in common, and it is where the action happened.

  • On the post: Disney's Decision Not To Renew SecuROM License Bricks 'Tron: Evolution'

    DB ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2019 @ 02:21pm

    Re:

    I argue that binary code shouldn't receive direct copyright protection. Only source code, with the resulting binary covered as a derivative work. The bargain with society is that you are given a limited government-enforced period where you have the exclusive rights to publish a work. If you aren't revealing the complete work e.g. by registering the work with the Library of Congress, then you shouldn't get the government benefit of copyright protection.

  • On the post: Devin Nunes' Virginia SLAPP Suits Causing Virginia Legislators To Consider A New Anti-SLAPP Law

    DB ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2019 @ 03:25pm

    Re: Re: Re: Ah those silver linings...

    Look, he wasn't in Vienna.
    And he has never heard of Vienna.
    And if you have a picture of him there, it might have been someone else using his body. And we'll have to check that out, since you can't possibly expect him to remember where he has been.

  • On the post: Devin Nunes Follows Through And Sues CNN In Laughably Dumb SLAPP Suit

    DB ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2019 @ 09:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's normal procedure...

    There are certainly some limits, but this doesn't appear to come close to those limits. CNN can't search for some uninvolved person willing to make outrageous claims, and then report a quote as if it has validity. But this is quoting the lawyers for a major figure directly involved in the situation and, as it turns out, a person that has provably been in communication with Devin Nunes. It's absolutely newsworthy. I don't see their reporting as even being in a grey area, let alone coming close to the line.

  • On the post: Devin Nunes Follows Through And Sues CNN In Laughably Dumb SLAPP Suit

    DB ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2019 @ 02:58pm

    Re: What's normal procedure...

    The only obviously lie that we have right now is that Nunes was untruthful when he said that he didn't talk to Lev. Nunes didn't expect that there would be phone billing records. My guess is that Nunes missed many other details. The paper trail has already tripped him up just a few days into his lawsuit. You can deny everything and spread manure on TV talk shows, but once you get into court your claims and comments aren't forgotten by the next news cycle.

  • On the post: Author Tries To Trademark The Word 'Dark' For All Of Literary Fiction

    DB ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2019 @ 10:12pm

    We should be awed that Greg Mavronicolas is involved in this trademark filing.
    He is on the 2018 'New York Metro Super Lawyers Rising Stars' list.

    The last time I heard about the Super Lawyer list was one of the Prenda appeals, where one of the judge noted that the lawyer was "Super", and clearly gave him the respect that designation deserved.

    https://youtu.be/ObZDipKRH0c?t=1944

    Greg appears to be remarkably talented, as he specializes in everything. That ranges from commercial real estate transactions to FTC compliance, including commercial litigation and international arbitration. Unlike those large stodgy firms that limit themselves to narrower areas of expertise, he apparently knows everything.

  • On the post: Devin Nunes Follows Through And Sues CNN In Laughably Dumb SLAPP Suit

    DB ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2019 @ 10:53am

    I understand that these lawsuits are all about harassment, and that they are usually very effective.

    But I fail to see how this one can accomplish its goal. He's not suing a cow, which presumably has very modest resources to hire lawyers, risks losing its life savings, and doesn't have thumbs. He is suing CNN, which has staff lawyers, makes money over big headlines, and certainly looks forward to the prospect of forcing this plaintiff into discovery.

  • On the post: As Devin Nunes Threatens More SLAPP Suits, He May Have To Explain Why Cows Can Type In His First SLAPP Suit

    DB ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2019 @ 12:58pm

    Re: Re:

    You can be certain that Nunes understands first amendment law quite well. He also understands the legal system, and how it can used to unjustly bludgeon his opponents. Just like a military defense, it costs far more to defend against every possible attack than it costs to launch an attack.

  • On the post: Elsevier Gets Sci-Hub And LibGen Blocked In Austria, Thereby Promoting The Use Of VPNs And Tor In The Country

    DB ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2019 @ 05:09am

    Our dystopian far-future world of pirate scientists...

  • On the post: Report Suggests Rampant Negligence In Uber Self Driving Car Fatality

    DB ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2019 @ 04:15pm

    They picked that specific vehicle because Volvo has a class-leading safety system. And then they disabled it.

    NTSB reports generally doesn't lay blame on specific parties. Doing so would impair their ability to work with companies in future incidents, and their reports are usually clear enough that you don't have to guess. It will be interesting to see how they conclude this investigation.

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    DB ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2019 @ 07:50pm

    I draw a distinction between a lie and a falsehood....

    Yes, that was a statement that stood out for me as well. The lawyer had a tough case to argue. But I wonder if he really thought that statement was going to fly. Perhaps it sounded good in the middle of the night after putting in long hours trying to figure out how to spin the situation. Or perhaps that is his go-to statement when any client is caught in a lie, uhmm, falsehood. Except that in this case it was a signed report agreed upon by multiple officers that was later proven to made up. Once again I'm amazed at the audacity of police falsehoods. In the past I certainly would have believed the police claims were substantially correct. Video evidence that proves their claims wildly untruthful throws doubt on every police report.

  • On the post: Adobe Announces Plan To Essentially Steal Money From Venezuelans Because It 'Has To' Due To US Sanctions

    DB ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2019 @ 07:49pm

    Analogy with nationalizing the oil fields

    One of the major disputes between the U.S. and Venezuela was that Venezuela nationalized the oil fields. The government took over the oil fields, paying the major oil companies that 'owned' them (had exploitation rights, had risked the exploration costs, and had paid for and built the infrastructure) far less than the projected profits or market value.

    There is lots of room to argue about the investment value, market value, eminent domain, etc. But the action was nominally legal if you stood far enough away.

    It's hard to see how this action passes even standard.

  • On the post: New Mexico City Starts Crowdfunding Effort To Pay For Its Stupid Defense Of Constitutional Violations

    DB ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2019 @ 07:11am

    Re:

    The judge was pointing out that the 10 year renewal period was a pretense. The monument was built and intended to be a permanent fixture.

  • On the post: Intra-Family Trademark Violence: SR Sues JR For Using His Own Name In Law Firm Marketing

    DB ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2019 @ 08:56pm

    Shouldn't Sink Sr. be suing the entity that created the naming conflict in the first place? Rather than waiting for decades. When was he first made aware of the name conflict? Wasn't that an appropriate time to notify the defendant?

  • On the post: After Missing Cord Cutting Trend, Nielsen Falls Apart

    DB ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2019 @ 11:13am

    We can be pretty certain they have not been oblivious to their own demise.

    The phrase "the company is saddled with debt" means that the upper management and board of directors has already decided to cash out of the business. The net income is likely just barely enough to service the debt, making the company's net worth close to zero. Perhaps even less. Anyone group buying should expect losses, and have profit elsewhere that it needs to offset. Or expect to be really efficient at running the business and extracting all value from the reputation (which usually involves destroying it).

  • On the post: Gibson Guitar Formalizes Its Hands-Off IP Enforcement Approach With Authorized Partnership Program

    DB ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2019 @ 10:19am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Here we go again.

    The defense filings show that some of these designs have been produced by others for about a half century. If they thought that they had "IP Rights" in the design, they should have asserted them long ago. A court would have ruled on the issue. The validity and bounds of their rights would have been known. Of course back then they would likely have been laughed out of the courtroom.

  • On the post: Gibson Guitar Formalizes Its Hands-Off IP Enforcement Approach With Authorized Partnership Program

    DB ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2019 @ 07:52pm

    From the ongoing lawsuit we've seen that they likely don't have an enforceable claim on the guitar shape. This seems like an attempt to get makers to agree to a license fee that would be enforceable even if the court decides that Gibson has no otherwise enforceable rights.

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