Leah Abram 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (4925)

• On the post: Finally: Danish Supreme Court Overrules Lower Courts On Newspaper’s Little Mermaid Cartoons

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 04:54am

  Envy Denmark's Supreme Court

  I am so jealous that Denmark's Supreme Court makes reasonable decisions whilst the Supreme Court of the United States' seldom ever does anymore.

• On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 12:12pm

  DMCA §1201 disagrees with you.

• On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 06:39am

  Considering what I read out of Cory Doctorow, and how DMCA Section 1201 leads to what he calls "Felony contempt of business model", I think BMW and Mercedes are taking advantage of it in the most insidious of ways possible.

• On the post: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s ‘Punishment’ For Disastrous Megamerger? $39 Million.

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 03:18am

  Good point. What saved the recording industry was not stronger anti-piracy laws but the switch of people’s listening habits from downloads to streaming.

• On the post: Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 16 May, 2023 @ 06:00pm

  Thanks! Followed! They're even on my instance!

• On the post: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s ‘Punishment’ For Disastrous Megamerger? $39 Million.

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 16 May, 2023 @ 11:44am

  Fair point, and fair enough. Basically, just fair all around.

• On the post: Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 16 May, 2023 @ 11:43am

  Hopefully Bellingcat will be able to sue and get the account restored.

  Section 230 (and moreover, the first amendment) says Elon can moderate as he sees fit, even if based on the whims of his ego. And yes, I do think §230 should protect titanic, immature douchebags like Elon as much as it should protect the rest of us.

• On the post: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s ‘Punishment’ For Disastrous Megamerger? $39 Million.

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 16 May, 2023 @ 10:31am

  factoring in that their society is built on a foundation of shaming yourself and martyring yourself for the sake of the organization’s function and reputation…

  I fail to see the downside…

• On the post: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s ‘Punishment’ For Disastrous Megamerger? $39 Million.

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 16 May, 2023 @ 05:27am

  So after Zaslav failed to make WB/D perform better, he got a bigger paycheck? You know, I'm reminded of how in Japan, CEOs who don't perform to expectations receive pay cuts (Say what you want about Nintendo (and I have even boycotted them due to the stories I hear about in Techdirt), but if they underperform, their CEOs receive pay cuts instead of pay increases). Yet here in "the greatest country on earth" CEOs get paid more for doing a worse job. Is there any wonder the writers are on strike?

• On the post: Small Cafe Changes Its Name Due To Having Spanish Word For ‘Coffee’ In Its Name

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 15 May, 2023 @ 05:23pm

  Or "Café au" (or "Café à la" or "Café à l'" or "Café Aux". French is hard.).

• On the post: The Writers’ Strike Makes Sense; Their Demands About AI, However, Do Not

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 14 May, 2023 @ 04:18pm

  ChatGPT has, and it's on the side of the WGA.

• On the post: The Writers’ Strike Makes Sense; Their Demands About AI, However, Do Not

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 14 May, 2023 @ 01:42pm

  As someone else who is on the spectrum, me three.

• On the post: The Writers’ Strike Makes Sense; Their Demands About AI, However, Do Not

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 14 May, 2023 @ 01:30pm

  Not to mention that the Oscar Winner was Everything, Everywhere, All At Once which was one of the most original movies ever made.

• On the post: Iron Maiden Opposes Women’s Lingerie Company For Using The Word ‘Maiden’

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 14 May, 2023 @ 05:43am

  It is? I've lived in New York City for all my life and I didn't know that. I guess I learn something new every day!

• On the post: Harpo Settles With ‘Oprahdemics’ Podcast, Gets Name Change That’s Silly

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 10 May, 2023 @ 02:13am

  "Harpo" has something to do with "Oprah"? I honestly would have never noticed that "Harpo" was "Oprah" spelled backwards; I would have thought it was a reference to the silent Marx Brother.

• On the post: Ed Sheeran, Once Again, Demonstrates How Modern Copyright Is Destroying, Rather Than Helping Musicians

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 09 May, 2023 @ 03:11am

  Whichever megacorp spotted him doesn’t give him a record contract, they pay a couple of session musicians starvation wages to record higher-fidelity replicas of his songs, which they then put on Spotify, Youtube, etc.

  They can even do that in the current © system with mechanical licenses. That's how I was able to release my Genesis cover (on the Sega Genesis), Mama: https://ironcurtain.bandcamp.com/album/mama-feat-meiko

• On the post: Ed Sheeran, Once Again, Demonstrates How Modern Copyright Is Destroying, Rather Than Helping Musicians

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 07:01pm

  Basically asking to free the musician's toolkit is–shall I say it–asking for a right–to–repair for musicians? It sounds like the same thing for me…

• On the post: Ed Sheeran, Once Again, Demonstrates How Modern Copyright Is Destroying, Rather Than Helping Musicians

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 05:19pm

  Before that, anyone could just copy a circuit, as Ricoh did to create the 2A03 from the 6502 (except that they cut 5 lines to ensure it couldn’t execute patented instructions).

  Ah. Now I know where the NES's sound chip which I used to make a chiptune album comes from!

• On the post: Ed Sheeran, Once Again, Demonstrates How Modern Copyright Is Destroying, Rather Than Helping Musicians

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 05:17pm

  There are key differences, though. -Patents are [still] opt-in; Copyright is opt-out. -Patents last for a maximum of 20 years. Copyrights last for life of the author plus 70 years or 95 years for a corporate work. -Patents could be abandoned earlier than its maximum term. Copyrights could at one point but no longer can. So no, Patents though extremely similar to Copyrights, hasn't been twisted and perverted in the same way Copyright has thanks to the Berne Convention and 20-year retroactive term extensions (though with patents there is evergreening).

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

  

  Leah Abram ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 03:53pm

  Certainly a more reasonable outcome than other companies.

  If you're implying Nintendo, I completely agree with you (Sony also counts, considering what happened to GeoHotz).

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