Ben S 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (142) comment rss

  • On the post: Your Cynicism About Lobbyists Only Helps The Lobbyists Win

    Ben S ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2012 @ 06:45am

    Re: Electoral votes?

    Found what I was after. National Popular Vote

  • On the post: Your Cynicism About Lobbyists Only Helps The Lobbyists Win

    Ben S ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2012 @ 06:43am

    Re: Electoral votes?

    Try encouraging your local representatives to join the multi-state compact where the electoral votes are given based on the nation's popular vote, instead of merely the state's own. If enough states that more than half the electoral vote is automatically given to the popular vote, it automatically overrides the whole point of the electoral system. Which ever president is the most popular will automatically make it into office. Those people in states where the majority of the vote is always democrat, or always republican, suddenly becomes meaningful.

    Although, it's possible your state has already joined the compact, so check into that first.

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

    Ben S ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 11:20am

    Re: I don't care what anyone says

    Actually, it does happen, and by the intention of the companies trying to sell this stuff. I don't know if it still exists, but when I was a kid, I was hearing about a neighbor of mine who accidentally stumbled across this because he was looking for information on the white house. He went to www.whitehouse.com, the official website ends in .gov. The kid was doing research for school. Yes, you *can* just "stumble across" it while not searching for it.

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

    Ben S ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 11:34am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Didn't "our side" (Ron Wyden) submit an alternative in the form of OPEN, that would require a trial to prove a site was willfully infringing copyrights, and outside US jurisdiction, in order for blocking to be done against it. There was an alternative, your side decided that anything that doesn't work "instantly" and preserved the rights of the accused was not good enough.

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

    Ben S ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 10:48am

    Re: Re:

    They use math that divides by 0, exponentially? This explains a lot.

  • On the post: Life Imitates Conan O'Brien As Samsung 'Opens Apple Store'

    Ben S ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2012 @ 10:16am

    Re:

    My guess is that there weren't any lawsuits involving copying and extremely expensive patents, at the time, or at least, weren't garnering the same kind of attention. I could be wrong though, maybe it simply wasn't noticed by anyone posting to the site.

  • On the post: Apparently The Purpose Of Copyright: Keeping Our Ancestors' Promise To Noah Webster

    Ben S ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2012 @ 09:07am

    Re:

    So, you are suggesting that no more music will ever be made by a group or band beyond a single CD? Never will another CD be released by this artist? Never will another song be added to iTunes? You are also making the assumption that this *IS* all the music the artist has created, which isn't necessarily the case. There could already be stuff not on any CD yet, or other CD's as well.

    Beyond that, in regards to concerts and such, 15 new fans from the first one means 16 that will be vying for tickets. You said 1 or 2 a year, that's 16-32 a year with 16 fans. While not all of them will be the same band, chances are a few of those will be for that artist now that they have now learned about the existence of.

  • On the post: Why People Pirate: The Story Of Avatar

    Ben S ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2012 @ 09:35am

    Re: Why people steal, rape and murder

    Only one problem. The things created by these businesses are actually for the public benefit, not for corporate benefit. Copyright is nothing more than a means to an end, benefitting the public. It is not a moral right for corporations, or artists, to actually own the "intellectual property". It is something created for us, not for them. This is exactly how it was written into the constitution. With how far copyright has gone in the wrong direction, "piracy" is actually a restoring to the public what was rightfully theirs all along.

    This isn't to say that I go about pirating everything, mostly stuff that's no longer around, like old dos games and such. So this isn't some random pirate trying to justify not having to pay for stuff, The 50 some odd games I have on my Steam account testifies to my willingness to fork out money for the stuff I care about. Move copyright back to where it belongs, lessen the extreme and unbalanced power that exists right now, and focus more on the consumer (something a business is supposed to do anyway) and profits will undoubtedly go up.

  • On the post: Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album

    Ben S ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2012 @ 10:56am

    Re: Old browser poo.

    I was going to say the same thing, but it looks like you've got it covered.

  • On the post: From SOPA To Cybersecurity: All About Trying To Control The Internet

    Ben S ( profile ), 11 Aug, 2012 @ 07:07am

    Re:

    Technically, ACTA was illegally made law here in the US, so the wait for one of those laws to be passed is over.

  • On the post: App Developer: Android OS Built For Piracy And Consumer Choice Sucks

    Ben S ( profile ), 03 Aug, 2012 @ 01:44pm

    Re: Lazy

    I hear you there. It is a lot of work, but it gives me a bit more freedom in making sure my computer is what I intend it to be. I'm lazy in a lot of ways, but my minimum requirements for my home computer are far too important to me to rely on a prebuilt machine. It is a gaming computer I use there.

  • On the post: App Developer: Android OS Built For Piracy And Consumer Choice Sucks

    Ben S ( profile ), 03 Aug, 2012 @ 01:19pm

    Re: Re:

    You buy PC's already put together by the manufacturer? Shame on you! :P

    I custom build my computers for the most part. Only prebuilts I get are Laptops, and that's mainly because you can't really just go out and buy laptop parts to put one together. And just in case some one plans to bring up Tablets and Smart Phones, I have neither. I'm mostly a PC guy, using the laptop only when I'm forced to leave my home for longer than a day.

  • On the post: Ubisoft DRM Fiasco: Allows Any Website To Take Control Of Your Computer

    Ben S ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2012 @ 09:39am

    Re:

    Simplest way to do this, is to fine based on the yearly gross. Pick an appropriate percentage, and fine accordingly. This prevents creative accounting methods by not basing it on "net profit", and scales with the size of the company in question.

  • On the post: Google Fiber Is Official; Free Broadband Up To 5 Mbps, Or Pay For Symmetrical 1 Gbps

    Ben S ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2012 @ 09:14pm

    Re: Politician Grandstanding

    That's exactly what's happening here though. Google creates the service, politician's talk about how awesome it is. The point Pjerky was making was that if they make such a big deal about how great this will be, there is no need for concern that they'll step in to stop this from happening.

  • On the post: Pirate Party ALMOST Ejected From Festival For Giving Out Free Waffles After Vendors Selling Waffles Complained (Updated)

    Ben S ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2012 @ 09:40am

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

    Look at the article Mike links, it states in that article that there was a series of tweets done by the guy running things at that booth. First tweet was that people were trying to complain to the manager but he was busy, next the manager ordered them evicted and brought security guards, next Young Pirate called the police, security guards backed off, but waffles were no longer being made, and finally waffles were able to be made again.

  • On the post: Pirate Party ALMOST Ejected From Festival For Giving Out Free Waffles After Vendors Selling Waffles Complained (Updated)

    Ben S ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2012 @ 06:58am

    Re: Fine the bastards

    Read the article that was linked. Apparently the manager attempted to evict them, then the Young Pirate group called the police, and the manager and security guards backed down. Afterwards they went back to making and giving away free waffles.

  • On the post: Anti-Piracy Song Pirated By Anti-Piracy Group; Collection Society Fined For Failing To Get Royalties

    Ben S ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2012 @ 07:35am

    Do we get to call these collections societies "freetard pirates" now?

  • On the post: OUYA: Android Based Game Console Takes Kickstarter And The World By Storm

    Ben S ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2012 @ 08:25am

    Re: "Open" chipset

    I suspect they are referring to the motherboard chipset, but I can't say if that's the case or not, but this is what I think they are referring to.

  • On the post: OUYA: Android Based Game Console Takes Kickstarter And The World By Storm

    Ben S ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2012 @ 08:19am

    Re: Donated

    One of the focuses they are aiming for is low cost, and they are using flash storage, same kind as SSD as well as your general USB drives. This kind of storage is not cheap, so it's hard to include significant amounts of memory and still hit that price point.

    One of the things they've mentioned is that the USB device will allow for external drives to be used. If you want to make sure you have enough space for your games, get yourself a decent external drive and plug it into the USB. It won't be as fast as the native hard drive, but it does give you the storage space you'd need.

  • On the post: Louis CK: Over $1 Million In Sales In Just 12 Days For DRM-Free Download

    Ben S ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2012 @ 02:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: .. and cue the apologists...

    I pay for my content, I don't generally pirate anything. I avoid like the plague anything that looks or smells like DRM. The reason is simple, in almost every case it makes what I'm trying to use, a hassle to use.
    Examples: Internet connection goes down? No more game/movie/etc. Company DRM server has issues? No more product. Go on vacation, use a hotel, doesn't have a robust enough connection for DRM validation? No more product.

    Not to mention how some require registering with multiple services. I spent around 15 minutes just trying to get to the point where I was actually allowed to save my progress on one game, by jumping through hoops like that. I'll be very cautious about buying anything from THQ again.

    I'll continue to buy the stuff I like, but from now on, I'll be doing some online searches to see what kind of DRM exists on the product before I purchase it, to see if it will interfere with using the product. Once I see DRM, that's usually enough to make me move on and live with out what ever it is.

    I'm not a pirate, I pay for my content, I hate DRM with a passion. So don't assume that hating DRM = filthy, dirty pirate, because it doesn't. Some of us just hate the treatment given by DRM locked goods.

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