KevinEHayden 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Appeals Court: Not A Crime To Say A Mayor Should Get His Ass Capped

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2020 @ 05:02pm

    Re: Re: President/cap/ass

    Trump already has a cap in his ass. I'm pretty sure he was wearing a MAGA cap for his latest rectal-cranial inversion.

  • On the post: As Devin Nunes Threatens More SLAPP Suits, He May Have To Explain Why Cows Can Type In His First SLAPP Suit

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2019 @ 12:02pm

    The COWgressman doth protest too much, methinks

    The lawsuits against CNN and Daily Beast look a bit like an attempt at damage control more than anything else. Nunes looks like he's trying to contain knowledge about his Ukraine dealings from getting out to the general public, lest it leads to more investigation. I wonder if the Streisand affect will come into play here. We can only hope.

  • On the post: Universal Music Claims Copyright Over Newly Public Domain 'Yes! We Have No Bananas'

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2019 @ 08:31am

    Wire Fraud?

    Since UMG is effectively collecting the ad revenue generated from viewing of the clip instead of the legitimate poster, could they be guilty of wire fraud? Perhaps the original poster of the video should file a criminal complaint instead of any civil actions, since they are literally being defrauded of money they are entitled to. If such an action succeeds, the resulting fines,etc. might make all these music companies think twice before laying claim to anything and everything on the internet just to make a few bucks more.

  • On the post: Totally In-Touch NH Lawmaker Blocks Device Repair Bill, Tells Constituents To Just Buy New $1k Phones

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2019 @ 06:05am

    Environmental Concerns?

    So, this guy would rather have all of these broken cell phones and other electronics going into landfills and polluting the environment. Maybe someone should bring that issue up alongside the 'right to repair' issue.

    Perhaps there should be an environmental tax on these things that varies based on a 'repairability' scale:
    1) Completely open repair process - close to zero.
    2) Closed or unrepairable process - 25% of cost.
    Dedicate the tax collected to environmental cleanup and/or green/renewable energy research, not general revenue.

    I'm sure it will piss consumers off, but once folks start buying 'repairable' devices from whoever supplies them first (yes, someone will - just to increase market share) instead of unrepairable stuff, the rest of the manufacturers will follow suit.

  • On the post: AT&T Loses Another 1.36 Million Pay TV Subscribers Thanks To Relentless Price Hikes

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2019 @ 10:38am

    CEO was misquoted

    What Randall Stephenson was actually trying to say was it would be a "$50 million per subscriber business by 2025".

  • On the post: More Than 50 Federal Watchdogs Sign Letter Condemning OLC Decision That Allows White House Counsel To Unilaterally Block Whistleblower Reports

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2019 @ 08:18am

    In related news...

    More than 50 federal watchdogs summarily dismissed!

  • On the post: Ridiculous: Judge Says Devin Nunes' SLAPP Suit Against An Internet Cow And Others Can Continue

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2019 @ 11:18am

    Fixed the title for you

    It reads much better without the colon (:);

    "Ridiculous Judge Says Devin Nunes' SLAPP Suit Against an Internet Cow and Others Can Continue"

  • On the post: The FCC Finally Starts Taking America's Shitty Broadband Maps More Seriously

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2019 @ 09:27am

    FCC should be careful what it wishes for!

    So what happens when these new (correct) maps show that broadband availability has decreased substantially since the last few sets were published? Maybe everyone should point fingers at the recent repeal of Net Neutrality as the cause. Would be fun to see how Pai and the ISPs spin that one!

  • On the post: Why A 'Clever Hack' Against Nazis Shows How Upload Filters Have Made Copyright Law Even More Broken

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2019 @ 06:54am

    A way around copyrighted background music

    It's still possible to post the video of the cop and his beatings. Just drop the audio from the recording (and possibly replace it with your own narrative describing what's happening). No nasty copyrighted stuff getting caught by filters then. Of course the neo-nazis might do the same thing as well, just re-add whatever speech they give at their rallies after the fact, thereby eliminating the background music.

  • On the post: The Failure Of Courts/Regulators To Understand The Difference Between Infrastructure Providers And Edge Providers Is Going To Be A Problem

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2019 @ 10:45am

    So what happens to Cloudflare when the sites don't disappear?

    Assuming Cloudflare obeys the Rome court's decision and drops the 'pirate' sites as customers, what happens when they find other CDN providers or simply go it alone without a CDN? They'll still be accessible on the internet,which is really what the court didn't want in the first place. I'm wondering if the court, in its ignorance of how internet infrastructure works, will begin fining Cloudflare anyways. Could make for an interesting case illustrating the difficulties encountered when technically illiterate judges and politicians make decisions regarding technologies they don't fully understand.

  • On the post: Congress Moving Forward With Copyright-For-Censorship 'Small Claims' Act

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2019 @ 07:32pm

    They're just legalizing the Copyright Maximalist Mantra:

    All your money are belong to us!

  • On the post: Killing Net Neutrality Rules Did Far More Harm Than You Probably Realize

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2019 @ 12:54pm

    Count your blessings

    Maybe you should all count your blessings that they haven't found a way to charge you for not subscribing to their service yet, although I'm fairly certain they have an army of MBAs (My Bonus Awaits) working on it.

  • On the post: Tom Brady Attempts To Trademark The Nickname He Doesn't Even Want, That's Already Used By A Famous NY Met With Dementia

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 10:17am

    A possible solution for Brady

    Since Brady is claiming that he's only trademarking the name to prevent others from using it, maybe he should do the honourable thing and trademark it on Tom Seaver's behalf instead. Solves his problem of being referred to as 'Tom Terrific' and also does something nice for Seaver who in most people's opinion is the real 'Tom Terrific'.

  • On the post: ICE Is Cramming Immigrants Into Filthy, Overcrowded Facilities

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 10:05am

    Any possibility of a safety shutdown?

    Could the local fire marshals/health inspectors visit and order that the detention centers be shut down due to overcrowding or safety violations? If anything, the resulting court fights over jurisdiction, etc. might shed more light on ICE/DHS prctices than they want. A side benefit might be that we get to watch Trump's head explode in sheer frustration at being outdone.

  • On the post: Settlement In Tom Brady Photo Case Leaves Issue Of Copyright On Embedded Images Unsettled

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2019 @ 03:03pm

    More dangerous than just copyright infringement!

    How about this scenario:
    1) Some server hosts the image in question, which can be anything, let's say a Creative Commons image for now, in file a.jpg for example.
    2) I embed it (a.jpg) on my website. All well and fine, no infringement.
    3) The server admin at the other end finds a better image (unfortunately it's a copyrighthed image) and replaces the original one with it using the same file name (a.jpg). Because the copyrighted image now appears on my website, I'm suddenly guilty of copyright infringement through no fault or action of my own. Not a huge deal, maybe a civil action and a small payout.
    4) What if the server admin at the other end replaced the contents of a.jpg with a picture of kiddie porn. According to this judge's logic, I'm now guilty of showing child pornography, a criminal offense punishable by jail time, even though I did nothing wrong.

    Judges need to either learn how all this stuff works like Judge Alsup did, or get some trustworthy experts to explain it to them, or else recuse themselves from cases like this on the grounds that they can't make a meaningful ruling because they don't have sufficient knowledge of how the underlying technology works.

  • On the post: Copyright Enforcement Service Claims $600 Billion-Worth Of Images Are 'Stolen' Every Day

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2019 @ 10:44am

    We need a new collection society for this!

    Since it's almost impossible to track all of this infringement, why don't we just create a new worldwide collection society to collect it all. Based on the current worldwide population the $600 billion equates to about $80 per person per day, or $29,200 per year. Get your chequebooks ready folks! It shouldn't be long before the EU creates a new directive mandating that everyone pay up.

  • On the post: EU's Never Ending Quest To Rip The Internet And Free Expression To Shreds Continues With The Terrorist Content Regulation

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2019 @ 01:33pm

    Re: Twitter declares war on France

    So twitter has fired the first shots in its war on France?
    Given France's track record they should be surrendering any time now.

  • On the post: EU's Never Ending Quest To Rip The Internet And Free Expression To Shreds Continues With The Terrorist Content Regulation

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2019 @ 11:46am

    Why would anyone have a web presence in the EU?

    Let me get this straight.

    In the EU we have:

    1) Right to be Forgotten
    2) GDPR
    3) New Copyright Directive.
    4) And now this Terrorist Content Regulation.

    Who in their right mind would want to expose themselves to the potentially bankrupting level of fines and penalties associated with all all of these (and possibly some others I've forgotten or don't know about)?

    GET OUT OF THE EU NOW.
    The tail (EU Parliament) is wagging the dog (the people).
    Put up a geo-block with a web page stating the reasons why your website/service
    isn't available there and tell the people to actually vote for representatives who will look after their intrerests instead of catering to whichever lobbyist happens to be running his mouth the most.

    Seriously EU folks, send that message in the next elections (coming soon), before this crap starts to spread to the rest of the world. There are already politicians and lobbyists pushing for some of these things in Canada and the US now! Make sure they all know that their elected positions are at stake if they continue ignoring the will of the people.

  • On the post: EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger Admits: Sites Need Filters To Comply With Article 13

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2019 @ 08:25am

    The only type of filter that works

    The only type of filter that will work successfully here is location blocking of European countries on the part of all the websites that allow user uploads.

    It will only take a few things to slip through the upload filters to trigger the 4% of global revenue fines that the EU is so fond of. Do that a few times and it will bankrupt whoever is running the website.

    Paying 'protection' money to the copyright maximalists won't help either, as it's
    almost impossible to cover all of them and some stuff will surely slip through anyways. (Kind of reminds me of the old mob shakedown on business owners as well).

    The best course of action would be to geo-block all of the EU, starting now and just thow up a webpage stating that since the new copyright directive is imminent, your site can't afford to take the risk of financial ruin due to the liability it could create.

    The reason I'm suggesting doing it now, is because the EU parliamentary elections are coming up and this should remind voters that they should be voting for people who will look after their interests instead of those of the coptright lobby.

    Alternatively, they could just target France for now as they seem to be chomping at the bit to implement this shit-show ASAP. So, a smaller revenue hit for the websites, but still a strong message to the internet-using public.

    Just my 2 cents.

  • On the post: Major Labels Split On Support For Article 13; As Music Publishers Whine That They Can't Make Money From Parodies

    KevinEHayden ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2019 @ 07:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Google Pullout

    Agreed.
    The best thing Google (and by extension Youtube) can do is pull out of the EU. However, they should do it now and just put up a web page explaining that they can't expose themeselves to the massive liability that Article 13 would create, while also mentioning the link tax, GDPR, RTBF, etc. as other reasons. If Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the rest of them followed suit, the resulting outcry across the EU would be enough to stop article 13 in its tracks and probably force the repeal of all the other things as well.
    Failing that, maybe they should all put up a 'warning page' that shows up before users from the EU get to the main page indicating that they'll be shutting down in the EU if article 13 passes due to uncertanty around the liabilities it will create.

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