Josh in CharlotteNC 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2290)

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2012 @ 04:03am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  But your argument is on the works created in the last 50 years.
  
  How much of that is in the public domain?

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2012 @ 07:57pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  Yet, we have created more in the last 50 years than the 500 years before that. I call that a success, don't you?
  
  I would call it a success if all those works were in the public domain, or at least the things created more than 20 years ago.
  
  Tell me when that happens and I'll say that copyright is benefiting the public.

• On the post: U Of Alabama Wants To Have Its Cake And Sue You Too

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2012 @ 12:39pm

  Systemic problem

  I'm pretty sure that if you want to build up goodwill at all, you shouldn't let any lawyers that are not intimately familiar with your business send out legal nastygrams to anyone.
  
  This sounds more like a systemic problem with the way legal services and the "professionals" involved are acting all around the country/world. How many of the bogus legal threats are coming as a result of lawyers running out of control and threatening/suing anything they conceivably can instead of having someone looking over their shoulder asking if it really makes sense from a business/PR perspective?

• On the post: YouTube Restricts Access To Anti-Islam Movie Trailer In Egypt And Libya

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2012 @ 07:19am

  Re:

  What I find it amusing in the whole thing is that the Islam is living now what the Catholic Church lived in the Middle Ages. As bad as the video might be (haven't watched) it is no reason to get worked up and possibly vent in innocent bystanders as they always do.
  
  Yes, because the Catholic church handled dissent so well during the Middle Ages. How many wars were waged? How many tortured? Was northern Ireland the last gasp of a 600+ year conflict, or am I forgetting somewhere else that is still a warzone between Catholics and Protestants?

• On the post: YouTube Restricts Access To Anti-Islam Movie Trailer In Egypt And Libya

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2012 @ 06:58am

  Re:

  Youtube can and should delete the video. If corporate actors don't act responsibly, how can we expect government to stay out of our free speech rights?
  
  So your idea of corporate responsibility is for corporations to control our free speech rights?
  
  The fact is youtube is private property and if they wanted to make a stand against hatred and bigotry, they could.
  
  Yes, they can do so. If they are going to do it, why only with this video? Why not eliminate all videos that contain bigotry and hateful speech? Should they remove all content which contains derogatory comments towards any religion? What about to any racial or social group? What about any derogatory political speech? Where is the line? Who gets to decide?
  
  Hiding bigotry and hatred does nothing to stop it. It should be viewed and criticized, mocked, and denounced. Only in doing so can it be lessened.

• On the post: House Approves Rep. Lamar Smith's Bill To Keep Spying On Americans

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 08:14am

  Re: I'd vote for him

  I'm voting for him for President this election, whether he's running or not.

• On the post: Yet Another Court Says You're Not 'Negligent' If Someone Uses Your Open WiFi To Infringe

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 06:57am

  Not after X strikes

  Basically, the idea that you're negligent if you leave your WiFi open and someone else uses it to infringe seems dead in the water.
  
  In the courts, sure.
  
  But that's a moot point once the 3/5/6/whatever strikes "agreements" come into play. Why bother with the courts, due process, finding the real person at fault, when you can just ban them extra-judicially?

• On the post: MPAA Sends Five Key Propaganda Points To Politicians

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2012 @ 12:59pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Or:
  Why waste money on them now, when you can get them at firesale prices in a few years?

• On the post: Want To Shake Down Cloud Music & Video Providers? Patent For Sale!

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 02:18pm

  Re:

  We might be able to prevent the spread of malaria on the internet! by suing anyone who dares to use the internet to obtain malaria.

• On the post: Judge Quickly Approves Ebook Pricing Settlement; Says It's In The Public Interest To Stop Price Fixing

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 07:30am

  Re: Re: Re:

  Yeah, I had a longer answer, but couldn't get the phrasing to sound right. Then Mike beat me to it, anyway.

• On the post: Murder Case Upended After Police Read Phone Texts Without A Warrant

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 07:10am

  Re: Re: confused

  That said, reading the article it seems to me like the judge may have gone a bit overboard, and basically tossed all the evidence the police collected, not just the stuff related to the phone,
  
  Not a lawyer, but my guess would be that because all of the evidence that developed as a result of the search of the phone must also be thrown out if the search of the phone is ruled illegal.

• On the post: EA: Withholding The Next Great Videogame Franchise For The Next Console Is Good Business

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 06:34am

  Re: Re: Re:

  You can get a respectable gaming PC for $500 - prebuilt from a major OEM - which is likely less than what the next gen consoles will cost - and which will run the most recent titles at medium to high settings quite nicely.
  
  If they can do so much better on the PC, why don't they release their titles there?

• On the post: EA: Withholding The Next Great Videogame Franchise For The Next Console Is Good Business

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 06:25am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Hey, that's an insult to chimps.
  
  And those of us that use pirate chimps as our avatar, too.
  
  *reports DH*

• On the post: Jimmy Wales Threatens To Stymie UK Snooping Plans By Encrypting Wikipedia Connections

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2012 @ 02:30pm

  Re: Re:

  I'm not sure doing random searches and page views would be wise if you're under surveillance - unless everyone is doing it:
  
  http://xkcd.com/576/

• On the post: Judge Quickly Approves Ebook Pricing Settlement; Says It's In The Public Interest To Stop Price Fixing

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2012 @ 12:53pm

  Re:

  Close enough to zero that the difference is meaningless.

• On the post: The Content Industry Keeps Penalizing The People Who Actually Pay

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2012 @ 10:33am

  Re:

  If you don't like what is on offer, just do without it.
  
  If you honestly think that completely doing without is an alternative to pirating, then I have a counter offer for the studios and publishers:
  
  If you don't like anyone infringing on your copyright, then don't release your work at all. Just do without.

• On the post: Ubisoft Learns Hitting Customers Over The Head And Calling Them Thieves Is Not Good Policy

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2012 @ 06:52am

  lolwhut

  Wait... what? Ubisoft making sense on DRM?
  
  I feel like I'm in crazy land.

• On the post: DailyDirt: That The Blind May See

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2012 @ 06:42am

  These are awesome.
  
  I have a younger sister about to undergo her 2nd eye surgery - she has a detached retina and has lost most of the sight in one eye as a complication from diabetes. In a few years maybe some of these techniques will be able to help her - assuming they don't get patented and do no one any good.

• On the post: Copyright Killbots Strike Again: Official DNC Livestream Taken Down By Just About Every Copyright Holder

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 12:58pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  So, let the aggrieved company sue for damages then.
  
  But the copyright owners don't have to sue for damages - they can just sue for a totally absurd statutory rate where potentially sharing a couple of 99 cent song with at most a dozen people ends in millions of dollars of penalties.

• On the post: Big Banks Finally Punishing Employees For Fraud… Like The Call Center Guy Who Used A Fake Dime 50 Years Ago

  

  Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 12:49pm

  Re:

  where the bank really does have their hands tied.
  
  Well, they do have to report it, but their hands are not completely tied.
  
  They can appeal to the regulators on a case by case basis for common sense to win out.
  
  But that takes effort, and with the current state of the economy, it is easier to replace him than to bother with appealing. If however, it was a high-paid exec who had a similar 10-cent fraud conviction - you bet they would appeal.
  
  (Full disclosure: I work for the bank mentioned in this story. I don't work with customer data, but I am in the information security and access control group and have had to pass similar checks.)

Next >>