Josh in CharlotteNC 's Techdirt Comments

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  • 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 @ 12:45pm

    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.)

  • On the post: Evidence That UK Needs Mandatory Porn Filters? Informal Survey Done At One School

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 12:33pm

    Re:

    They were likely exposed to a sexual image NOT on the internet LONG before they were exposed to one on the internet.

    This. I was exposed to porn in the 10 year old range, before I had a computer or access to the internet - because few knew anything about "the internet" in 1990. I don't have distinct memories of which was first, but either a friend found a stack of his father's magazines, or an older cousin with his magazines were probably first. Depending on how loose your definition is, postcards of women in bikinis and wet t-shirts from the family's annual vacation to the beach might beat the others.

    The objectification of women IS a problem, but it was around long before the internet.

  • 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 @ 08:26am

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

    Takedown is not the punishment.

    Tell that to legitimate companies who are having perfectly legal content taken down, impacting their business, who have little or no recourse on getting that content back up.

    Lets try an analogy, flawed as they always are. A company makes a completely bogus legal threat, that there are uncleared product placements in the next big summer $200 million blockbuster. They threaten to sue every movie theater across the country. Because of the threat, the big theater chains pull the movie on opening night. Instead of having a huge opening and being #1 in the box office, the movie doesn't even appear in the list. Are you okay with this happening, and do you think the studio would consider it an unwarranted punishment for doing nothing wrong?

    Takedowns are done by private companies. So I don't see how this nonsense of "innocent until proven guilty" applies to a non-governmental entity.

    When the private company is compelled to takedown the content by a law, to avoid liability for something they shouldn't be liable for under any sane system of justice, it damn well should apply.

    You know that Google doesn't really want to remove that content - you're the one arguing they're pirates - it is forced to under a draconian law with onerous provisions for finding compeltely innocent third parties liable.

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 10:15pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: "Copyright" = Censorship

    Your ad hominem attacks are old and tired. Yet bizarrely you call yourself responsible. Seriously, grow up. Also - never pirated Avatar. Saw it in the theaters, twice. And the collector's edition is sitting on my shelf. Try again.

    People fought and died for my right to express my opinion, yes. I am grateful to them, and I want to make sure they didn't die in vain. That anyone can post anything to the internet, including copyrighted content, insures that other expression is not being censored. If the government keeps overreaching and taking away individual rights for the benefit of private businesses, there's going to be another revolution, and more people are going to die needlessly. (This is not some threat or manifesto. I'm not stockpiling guns or building a bunker. Just an observation of history.)

  • On the post: FBI Denies That Hacked Apple Info Came From FBI

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 09:47pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Didn't the DEA just drop a case cause they couldn't handle a few terabytes, or less capacity than I have in a box of old drives sitting in my closet?

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 02:39pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The problem is a generation that wants everything now, won't wait for anything, and won't respect anyone's rights to decide when and where to sell their products.

    The problem is a legacy industry that will not adapt to that generation (their customers and the market).

    That generation damn well knows how easy it is to provide the things they want, without waiting, and won't respect stupid reasons for not supplying what they want.

    If two guys writing code in a garage and paying for servers and bandwidth with couch cushion money can destroy your business model, then we know two things: The two guys aren't the problem. And your business model sucks.

    This generation will line up for blocks to get the latest gizmo on release day. This generation will sell out the 12:01 AM showing of the summer blockbuster, and wait at the bookstore at midnight to get the latest book in a beloved series. This generation will pre-order the latest online game or expansion pack and then flood the servers the second they open. This generation is breaking down the doors to get at that content, yet you somehow think you can make money by building walls between them and it. If you cannot make money off a generation this rabid for your product, you are a moron.

  • On the post: Hackers Get Personal Info On 12-Million Apple Users… From An FBI Laptop

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 02:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Cyber-insecurity (Perspective)

    ^ True

  • On the post: Hackers Get Personal Info On 12-Million Apple Users… From An FBI Laptop

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 11:42am

    Re: Re: Cyber-insecurity (Perspective)

    If all 12 million are US citizens (and there are not duplicates), it is information on roughly 4% of the US population.

    Why is that amount of data on a damned laptop in the first place?

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 11:09am

    Re: Re: "Copyright" = Censorship

    Everyone takes the speech and ideas that someone else said and uses them, repeats them, turns them into other ideas and other speech.

    Who are you to determine what is and is not acceptable speech?

  • On the post: Google Follows Apple In Unnecessarily Pulling App That Allowed A Little Girl To Speak

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 10:54am

    Re:

    Wow, you almost had me. I was starting up a civil disobedience rant before I read that all the way through.

  • On the post: Why Does Copyright Last 70 Years After Death… But Licenses Expire At Death?

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 10:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    But at the end of the day, when you take something that's not yours to take, you're no better than a common pickpocket.

    Tired, disproven trope. Don't you have anything new?

    When a pickpocket takes your wallet, you no longer have the wallet, or the money inside. When I pirate something, nothing is stopping the copyright holder from still offering that thing for sale.

  • On the post: Why Does Copyright Last 70 Years After Death… But Licenses Expire At Death?

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 10:36am

    Re: Re: Re:

    The key difference between you and myself: I respect individuals and their rights. You respect authority and their insistence on taking those rights away from individuals.

    I respect the rights of everyone to speak freely, to express themselves freely, even if I disagree with what they say. You want there to be limitations on speech and expressions, so that a few can profit monetarily by those restrictions.

    I respect the right of everyone to freely benefit from ideas and knowledge that are infinitely copyable at no cost. You want that knowledge locked up and restricted until the few can profit at the expense of all others.

    I understand you well enough. You don't seem to have the slightest idea of what I respect.

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 07:22am

    Re:

    There was room for reasonable restrictions and judicial oversight but you decided scorched earth was the better alternative.

    Who's side are you arguing?

    Even some of the maximalists realize they're the ones burning the rainforest. They just don't care.

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 07:13am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Millions of DMCA notices every month, and a few misdirected that get highlighted here

    Can you show definitively that the other millions of notices and takedowns are legit?

    There's no telling how many more are completely bogus, because even the worst are rarely challenged.

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 07:05am

    Re:

    Let's address the real issue,

    Fine with me.

    The real issue is that copyright is batshit insane, as we've been pointing out for years.

    Time to wipe it out completely.

    Since this is a sci-fi themed story, I feel no guilt in using this:

    "Nuke the entire (law) from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 07:01am

    Re:

    Had they gone with the "paid, ad-free, Pro Broadcasting" service they wouldn't have gotten nuked by a DRMbot.

    Can't wait for the copyright maximalists to jump on Ustream now:

    "They're offering a service where someone can pay to bypass the restrictionbots? Load up the choppers with a SWAT team, its time they stopped profiting off our work!"

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Bots Seek And Destroy Hugo Awards

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 06:58am

    Re:

    then why do they claim it is okay to inflict such a process onto the innocent third parties?

    To them, there are no innocent third parties.

    Also, they're third parties, so they don't care what mind boggling batshit insane things someone else has to do to, so long as no one goes within a lightyear of even thinking about possibly using copyrighted content without prior authorization, signed in triplicate by the CEO of a huge multinational conglomerate that owns the content, with an attached copy of a letter from their 2nd grade teacher saying that even when they were 6 they knew what copyright was and would never violate it.

  • On the post: USTR Tells Public Interest Groups They Have 8 Minutes To Talk To TPP Negotiators

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2012 @ 11:14am

    Re:

    Are IP proponents afforded more than 8 minutes?

    I'm relatively sure that the years they've spent with undue influence over USTR is more than 8 minutes.

    Of course, I use real math, not the Hollywood kind.

  • On the post: B-Movie Legends Troma Entertainment Releases 150 Films On YouTube

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2012 @ 07:26am

    Re: Re:

    I don't think anyone thinks that YouTube in and of itself is an enemy.

    You generally don't sue someone for a billion dollars if you don't think they're the enemy.

    The current copies are perfect, often "better" in some people's eyes because parts of the DVD are stripped, such as warnings and copyright notices.

    No one but themselves are stopping the studios from releasing perfect copies without the bogus warnings.

    Combine that with people getting nicer and nicer home theater setups,

    No one but themselves are stopping the studios from helping the theater going experience to be better.

    Technology and a loss of public morals have come together to hurt the industy, and will very likely decimate it in the next few years.

    Public morals are not being lost. The blind and short sighted greed and stubborness of the studios is clashing against public morals. The studios could very easily adapt by giving their customers better options, better experiences, and less bullshit. They have no one but themselves to blame if they do not change.

    So what exactly do you think they can use YouTube to market? T-shirts?

    That's one option among many. Merchandise is a huge part of many blockbusters.

  • On the post: B-Movie Legends Troma Entertainment Releases 150 Films On YouTube

    Josh in CharlotteNC ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2012 @ 07:15am

    Re: Re:

    Free water from the sky? Must be piracy.

    BAN RAIN!

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