Hulser 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (811) comment rss

  • On the post: ISP Sued For Revealing Info On US-Based Critic Of Thai Laws

    Hulser ( profile ), 01 Sep, 2011 @ 07:38am

    Dangling?

    He was also repeatedly questioned in the United States, with prosecutors using the threat of prosecution, and dangling and threatened with prosecution.

    I'm guessing this might be a typo or result of the awkward sentence structure, but I read the above as US prosecuters threatened to dangle this guy. Is that even a thing?

  • On the post: Federal Court Invents A New Intellectual Property Right: The Money Makes It So Exclusive Right To Record

    Hulser ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2011 @ 12:27pm

    Wait, what?

    Gannett?s argument would require the conclusion that the students have no right to engage in the common practice of packaging their performance and selling it to raise money for school trips.

    Uh...no it wouldn't. It wouldn't mean that the students couldn't package and sell copies of their performances. It would simply mean that they couldn't prevent others from packaging and selling copies of their performances. This is not a petty distinction. It's two completely different things. It's mind boggling that the court would conflate the two scenarios.

  • On the post: NYC Arrests Stop Dead Chinese From Infringing

    Hulser ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 01:57pm

    Re: Be an honor

    It should be an honor, if anything, for those companies, that cardboard facsimiles of such items are being burned in honor of the deceased person.

    Louis Vuitton: What is this "honor" of which you speak? And more importantly, how do we monetize it?

  • On the post: NYC Arrests Stop Dead Chinese From Infringing

    Hulser ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 09:59am

    Re: Re: Confusion over use of trademark, not over real or fake

    Seeing a cardboard cutout of a LV handbag at a Chinese funeral supply store, it would never occur to me that Luis Vuitton had anything to do with it.

    I don't doubt what you're saying is true. My point is that there are plenty of other people out there that would think so, most probably people who aren't aware of the extremes that companies go to to "protect" their brand. It'd be interesting to see some real polling on this.

  • On the post: NYC Arrests Stop Dead Chinese From Infringing

    Hulser ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 09:55am

    Re: Re: Confusion over use of trademark, not over real or fake

    I would be inclined to think more highly of LV and Burberry for filling a niche demand

    You might think that way, but to the kind of hyper-brand-aware executive who supports insane IP maximalism, any association with your product to death would be -- no pun intented -- brand suicide.

  • On the post: NYC Arrests Stop Dead Chinese From Infringing

    Hulser ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2011 @ 09:27am

    Confusion over use of trademark, not over real or fake

    So here's a simple question: how are these luxury companies being "harmed" here.

    I'm not saying that I agree with the tactics being used, but I can think of a way that the Luis Vuitton is being harmed. One could argue that even a moron in a hurry, seeing a cardboard cutout of a LV handbag, might reasonably assume that LV had authorized that product. "Don't be silly! LV would never sell cardboard cutouts to be used in funerals!" Exactly. And that's the harm to LV. They could be perceived as being part of an odd, if not morbid business practice.

    So, the fact that a cardboard cutout of a LV handbag is a kind of counterfeit is irrelevent. It's not about people being confused into thinking that a cutout is a real handbag. It's about people being confused about the use of a company trademark on a product in such a way as to imply endorsement by the company.

    Again, I don't think that any time should have gone into arresting funeral home employees. I'm just saying that on the Batshit-Crazy-Things-Done-By-Big-Companies-To-Protect-IP scale, this one ranks on the lower end.

  • On the post: Legally Bought Some Books Abroad? Sell Them In The US And You Could Owe $150k Per Book For Infringement

    Hulser ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2011 @ 09:59am

    Re: Re: It's a commercial venture against a US publisher, and...

    Actually, he's circumventing import restrictions

    What import restrictions would those be? I personally don't see anything wrong with what he did, so I'd be curious if there were some law or regulation in place which expressly prohibited it.

  • On the post: Waffle House Says Rap Song Called Waffle House Violates Its Trademark

    Hulser ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2011 @ 09:18am

    "Advertising is content is advertising" pitfall

    There's no "likelihood of confusion" here, and any argument for "dilution" is simply ridiculous.

    I agree, however...it's interesting to relate this to other stories on Techdirt about the business model of companies sponsoring musical artists. Before I read about this possible business model, if I would have heard a rap song that included a reference to the Waffle House, I would have just thought it was a song about some dude going to the Waffle House. But after...there might actually have been some doubt in my mind as to whether the artist was being paid by the Waffle House.


    a chain of restaurants called Waffle House, where (one assumes) waffles are served

    You assume? Mike, you haven't lived until you've been in a Waffle House at 3 AM on a Satuday night.

  • On the post: Police Say They Can Detain Photographers If Their Photographs Have 'No Apparent Esthetic Value'

    Hulser ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 10:35am

    new line to an old joke

    "In Heaven...
    the French are the cooks
    the Germans are the engineers
    the British are the police
    the Swiss are the managers
    the Italians are the lovers

    In Hell...
    the British are the cooks
    the French are the managers
    the Italians are the engineers
    the Germans are the police
    the Swiss are the lovers"

    ...and the art critics are the Long Beach police.

  • On the post: Police Say They Can Detain Photographers If Their Photographs Have 'No Apparent Esthetic Value'

    Hulser ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 09:47am

    Chat-downs

    This reminds me a bit of the new "chat-downs" being performed by the TSA where they use "behavioral profiling" to determine if someone is acting suspicious.

    http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/139643652/next-in-line-for-the-tsa-a-thorough-chat-down

    In both cases, the authorities are using a person's observed behavior rather than (or in addition to) some kind of intrusive scan or physical pat down. The key differences though is that the police don't have any formal training on esthetic value and they're doing this in public (rather than the relatively constrained environment of air travel.)

    I can see where you'd want to have the police look for suspicious behavior, but at least give them some formal training. And don't base it solely on the individual's idea of "esthetic value". That's just asking for trouble.

  • On the post: Some Old Guy Can't Come Up With Any New Ideas; So He Says There Are No New Ideas & It's Twitter's Fault

    Hulser ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 12:18pm

    Re: 14 year old girls always think that their interests are vital.

    "You're not the first to think that everything has been thought before."

    - Something For Kate

  • On the post: Some Old Guy Can't Come Up With Any New Ideas; So He Says There Are No New Ideas & It's Twitter's Fault

    Hulser ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 12:14pm

    He's right

    Hmmm, maybe he's right. If there really were enough big ideas today, the New York Times wouldn't have had enough space to publish his drivel.

    "Things ain't what they used to be and never were."
    - Will Rogers

  • On the post: The Latest Entrant Into The Economically Clueless, Luddite 'Internet Is Evil' Book Category

    Hulser ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 11:43am

    Re: Re: One thing I object to

    Gracious wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe a reply that focuses, albeit in a polite way, on a relatively small point at the expense of all of the other big points. I would much rather have seen Mr Levine actually address some of the issues brought up by Mike rather than just a blanket "I disagree".

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 10:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Too fine of a line

    In my experience in the IT field, I've seen just as many people type searches into the address bar as I have seen people type URL's into google.com

    Yep. I've seen the same thing. It completely mystifies me that people don't grasp such a simple concept, but I too have seen people entering in a URL into the Google search field. None the less, my point stands: there is a clear distinction between doing a search and entering in a URL, even if the concept has been intermingled over the years.

    To modify their behavior without informing the end user like "Do you want us to help you get to pages you may mis-spell? Yes or No, Remember my choice" is irresponsible.

    Too bad the "Yes or No, Remember my choice" functionality wasn't built into the web from the start. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 09:03am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't sound like searches

    Nope is because of TOR.

    Cool. And on a completely unrelated note, every time I read your name, I do so in the Inspector Clouseau voice from the Does Your Dog Bite? scene in The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 08:52am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Too fine of a line

    There is no fine line: I was trying to access a perfectly legitimate URL over VPN. My ISP takes my request and, in violation of networking standards, takes me to another destination completely. That is hijacking.

    I would agree that this is hijacking. (And really fucking annoying.) My original point was that this isn't search hijacking. I can see where many people might actually find some value in this service. To a novice computer user, a 404 page is confusing or at least not very user freindly. But to computer savvy people, it's just annoying. Don't assume that because you don't recognize the URL I typed in, I automatically want you to do a search. As you point out, it could be a site on your Internal network and you're just not connected via the VPN. I don't want an internal address to go into someone's log files. My point is that while I can see the value of invalid URL redirection, I think it should be either opt-in or at the very least very easy opt-out

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 08:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Too fine of a line

    My phone searches the numbers it has as I type one so yes that can be a search.

    Right, your phone searches for the number, not you. This may be splitting hairs, but I think in the minds of most people who are entering a known phone number into their phone, they're not doing a search, they're simply entering in a phone number. Besides, I'd describe this behavior as more of an auto-complete feature rather than a search.

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 08:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Too fine of a line

    2. If it is _NOT_ a properly formatted address, it sends the string to whatever search engine your browser has as a default search engine.

    This is not necesarilly the case with every browswer out there. It may be that these days, it's quite common for an ISP or a browser to include functionality that will redirect an invalid URL to a proprietary page, but this hasn't alwasy been so and it's not part of the standards. My quibble with your statement is not the morality or legality of redirecting an invalid URL; it's with the use of "search" in reference to this behavior.

    When your average person enters in a URL into a browser, they don't think of this as a "search". In spite of the fact that this may result in a search depending on their ISP or browser, they think of this as what it is, a command to navigate to a certain page. Looking at this another way, if did a survey and asked people to describe a web search, I'd bet that the vast majority would describe going to www.google.com or some other specific site and typing in a search term, not entering a URL into the address field of a browser.

    You are either stupid, paid to have this opinion, or both.

    Well, this is a first. I've never been called a shill here before. I think you do a disservice to the Techdirt community with your assumption that I'm being paid for my posts. I don't doubt that there are shills who post comments here, but reacting to an opinion that happens to differ from yours with this kind of accusation brings down the entire conversation. I am not being paid for my posts. Besides, if you read my comments carefully, I am not defending what Paxfire is doing. I'm merely making the distinction between a search and redirecting an invalid URL.

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 07:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Doesn't sound like searches

    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    Nope you don't need to put up with it, just use encryption.

    So, is this why your icon appears differently with every post? I just assumed some jackass was using the same alias as existing posts to grief the conversation.

  • On the post: Paxfire Responds: Says It Doesn't Hijack Searches, Will Seek Sanctions Against Lawyers

    Hulser ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2011 @ 07:20am

    Re: Too fine of a line

    Hijacking ANY search, even if it is a typo search, is hijacking.

    Your statement would make sense if entering a URL into the address field of a browser qualified as a "search". But it doesn't. When you enter someone's phone number into your mobile phone, is that a "search"? No. You already know exactly who you want to talk to and how to reach them; you're just telling the phone to actually make the call. Similarly, when you enter a URL into a browser, you're just telling the browser to actually navigate to the page. There is not search.

Next >>