John Fenderson 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (17316)

• On the post: Burning Man Threatens Quizno's For 'Theft Of Intellectual Property' Because Of A Quizno's Ad Mocking Burning Man

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2015 @ 07:39am

  Re: Chill out people, nobody threatened anybody

  If what you say is true, that makes Burning Man's statements even worse, as they are threatening legal action that they have no intention of taking.

• On the post: Larry Lessig Tells New Zealand Court That DOJ's Case Against Kim Dotcom Is A Sham

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2015 @ 07:27am

  Re: Re: Re: No news here. Lessig the nutter is wrong again.

  " They didn't even have to because they weren't even based in the U.S."
  
  Even inside the US, there is no legal requirement to comply with DMCA takedown notices. Companies do it because they get additional legal protections if they do, but it is not required.

• On the post: Cop Invents Device That Sniffs MAC Addresses To Locate Stolen Devices

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2015 @ 07:16am

  Re: Re: Re:

  Yes

• On the post: Cop Invents Device That Sniffs MAC Addresses To Locate Stolen Devices

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2015 @ 07:14am

  Re: Re: Re: How many know their MAC

  I don't know the MAC addresses of my wireless devices, because they are all randomized and change with every connection.
  
  I track which is which through certs.

• On the post: Cop Invents Device That Sniffs MAC Addresses To Locate Stolen Devices

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2015 @ 07:21am

  The funny thing is

  There is no need to have a special device to do this. Anybody with a smartphone (at least an Android one, but I assume iPhones as well) can start sniffing MAC addresses in a matter of minutes.
  
  The only "value add" the cop could be providing is to run a database of such addresses, but considering that MAC addresses are not guaranteed to be unique and are easily changeable by the user, the value of such a database is very low.

• On the post: Police Drop Case Against Kid Who Made Clock, While Mayor Worries About The Impact… On The Police

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2015 @ 04:58pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  Maybe it's different in Texas, but where I live the people who run the police departments are elected officials.

• On the post: Chicago Sued Over Its Attempted 9% Netflix Tax

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2015 @ 04:52pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Chicago Politics

  It's also insulting and not really true (unless you consider "people" somme sort of monolithic entity, but at that point you're talking about something fictional). I actively work to make government less awful and I vote accordingly. In what sense do I "deserve" the government I have?

• On the post: Texas Police Arrest Kid For Building A Clock

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2015 @ 04:31pm

  Re: Re:

  Yes. I'm half a continent away from Texas, but when my daughter was in middle school, they put the entire school on lockdown once because a kid got his head stuck in a fence.
  
  I only wish I were joking.

• On the post: Police Drop Case Against Kid Who Made Clock, While Mayor Worries About The Impact… On The Police

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2015 @ 04:21pm

  Re:

  A hoax bomb is indeed a thing. So are hoax guns. The differentiator is what they are being represented as being, not what they look like. If you bundle up a few dowels and tell everyone it's a bomb, you've made a "hoax bomb". Legally, hoax weapon perpetrators can be punished as if they were the real thing.
  
  The flip side is that if you made a device that looks like a real bomb and tell everyone it's not a real bomb, then you haven't made a "hoax bomb".
  
  This student made something that didn't look like a bomb, and that he wasn't claiming was a bomb, and so what he made was obviously not a hoax bomb.

• On the post: Police Drop Case Against Kid Who Made Clock, While Mayor Worries About The Impact… On The Police

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2015 @ 04:08pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  I disagree. If he had done that, he would be perpetuating a large part of the harm of these idiotic policies.

• On the post: Big, Confusing Mess Of A Fair Use Decision Over DMCA Takedowns

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2015 @ 06:12am

  Re: Re: Re:

  Do you really believe that people who choose to remain anonymous are behaving like petty criminals, "Whatever"?
  
  Ahem.

• On the post: Burning Man Threatens Quizno's For 'Theft Of Intellectual Property' Because Of A Quizno's Ad Mocking Burning Man

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2015 @ 06:08am

  Re: No sense of humor?

  The ad appears to be entirely fair use to me. If so, then it doesn't matter who owns the copyright. The copyright assignment wouldn't enter into it.

• On the post: One Man Troll Army Arrested For Supporting Terrorists: Where's The Line Between Trolling And Terrorism?

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2015 @ 05:42am

  Re: Re: The purpose of Free Speech is not incitement to violence.

  The 2nd amendment does not do that. It only preserves the right to own firearms, not the right to use them for that particular purpose.

• On the post: DOJ Helping Law Enforcement Agencies Fight Back Against Asset Forfeiture Reform

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2015 @ 05:30am

  Re: Re: Extortion

  There is a very real threat involved: arrest or worse.

• On the post: Early YouTube Musician Explains How Signing Major Label Deal 'Nearly Destroyed My Career'

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2015 @ 01:25pm

  Re: Re: Re: Not just the music industry

  This is so, but most people don't want money. They want to be able to meet their life needs. Money is just a tool to do that.
  
  That this is an important point is demonstrated by the fact that having too much money makes you just as unhappy as having too little. The sweet spot is to have just a bit more than is necessary to pay for your necessities.

• On the post: Burning Man Threatens Quizno's For 'Theft Of Intellectual Property' Because Of A Quizno's Ad Mocking Burning Man

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2015 @ 01:16pm

  Proof

  Their response to this parody (which is hilarious) is ironclad proof that the parody hit the nail right on the head.

• On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: September 6th – 12th

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2015 @ 03:59pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  "Windows 10 for desktops managed not to suck outside the security and privacy issues"
  
  If we ignore the security issues, then "sucks" may be too harsh a term for Windows 10. However, I do think it's fair to say that on the whole Windows 10 is inferior to Windows 7.

• On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2015 @ 07:42am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "You can stream Netflix using the Google Chrome browser -- even on Linux."
  
  So they claim. I have not found this to be acutally true.

• On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2015 @ 07:41am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "It just needs a browser on a computer."
  
  It needs more than that. You also need to be running a supported operating system. I still cannot watch Netflix on Linux machines without doing an awful lot of hacking.

• On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2015 @ 07:39am

  And they may be right

  meaning that Netflix made a judgement call and decided this content was content that its customers can live without.

  
  
  And they may be right, or right enough to reach their profit goals. I am a Netlfix customer and I find their catalog satisfying enough to continue. I am not a customer of any other similar services such as Hulu or Amazon. (Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Prime customer and as such I can technically watch their video offerings. I just don't do it since Netflix has me covered.)
  
  The lack of many recent big name movies doesn't bother me at all, since there are very few recent big name movies that are of any interest to me.

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