Laroquod 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (156) comment rss

  • On the post: Canadian University Association Surrenders Completely By Withdrawing From Copyright Hearings

    Laroquod ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2012 @ 08:06am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    As a fellow Canadian I give you permission to stop feeding the anti-Canadian troll.

  • On the post: Toronto Mayor Wants Residents To Report Graffiti Via iPhone, And Pay For The Privilege

    Laroquod ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2012 @ 07:31am

    Re: Re:

    The would require a disrespect for authority; which is considered tantamount to terrorism. Can't risk being seen as some kind of terrorist!

  • On the post: Copyright Maximalists Just Won't Quit: Pushing New Monopoly Rights For Performers Through Sneaky Treaty Agreement

    Laroquod ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2012 @ 05:31am

    "How can the folks behind this not realize what kind of ridiculous problems this will cause?"

    Oh, they realise. It's called 'culture jamming'. If they could turn off sharing culture they would. Tying it up in liability is the next best thing. Just remember: all the technologies they are breaking? They never wanted those technologies in the first place.

  • On the post: Playmobil Is Upset That Its Pirate Figures Have Been Used To Illustrate The Pirate Party

    Laroquod ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 08:52am

    Re: Re: We should praising Playmobil

    "No they should be mocked, that is the appropriate response for silliness. The fact they didn't yet try to use the courts is immaterial to the actions taken."
    If the public responds with the same ridicule when a company says, 'I don't like that,' as when a different company says, 'I am suing over that,' what incentive does a company concerned with its image have not to sue? We should encourage companies to manage their images via public statements rather than through the courts, even if we disagree with those public statements.

    The perfect is the enemy of the good.

  • On the post: Playmobil Is Upset That Its Pirate Figures Have Been Used To Illustrate The Pirate Party

    Laroquod ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2012 @ 04:52pm

    We should praising Playmobil

    Hasn't Playmobil done the right thing here? They expressed a discomfort with how their products were being used, but didn't escalate that into a legal issue. Ergo, they exercised their free speech rights to complain without actually attempting to legally curtail anyone else's free speech rights. Aren't we in favour of this? Shouldn't we applaud and support this kind of behaviour?

    I am not being sarcastic.

  • On the post: Twitter's Revolutionary Agreement Lets Original Inventors Stop Patent Trolls

    Laroquod ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2012 @ 06:24am

    Re: Follow the money

    Here's what will really happen. Twitter gives its Little Inventor the right to grant licences on its Big Patent. Big Company buys Big Patent from Twitter, offers Little Inventor $1 million not to exercise his right to grant licences so it can sue Medium Company for $100 million. From this point forward one of two thins will happen.

    1. Little Inventor doesn't like patents on principle and refuses the $1 million. Problem solved.

    2. Little Inventor has no principles and sees a chance to cash in. Except $1 million is chump change compared to $100 milion, so instead of taking $1 million from Big Company for withholding a licence, unscrupulous Little Inventor offers Medium Company a licence for $2 million. It makes a lot more sense for both sides to compete for Little Inventor's loyalties than to risk much greater payouts in court. Big Company could probably outbid Medium Company for Little Inventor's loyalties, but the bidding war would in most cases drive the cost of that loyalty to the point that winning that bid is too costly compared to the size of the likely settlement. At that point, Big Company will conclude that its a useless endeavour and will break off negotiations. If he's lucky, Unscrupulous Little Inventor secured a deal with Medium Company before the court threat disappeared; if he's not lucky, he ends up with nothing. Problem still solved, because it turns patent wars into a fool's game.

  • On the post: Why The 'Missing 20th Century' Of Books Is Even Worse Than It Seems

    Laroquod ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2012 @ 05:39pm

    Re:

    An even simpler explanation is that were no books written between 1925 and the first Harry Potter book; obviously since you believe the simplest explanation is correct, you must be forced to believe that then.

  • On the post: Twilight Studio Issues Another Bogus Takedown, But Is Zazzle Partially To Blame?

    Laroquod ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2012 @ 07:21am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BOOooks...

    You are the one who missed the joke.

  • On the post: Cleveland Bus System Joins Over 100 Others In Being Sued For Patent Infringement For Notifying People If A Bus Is Running Late

    Laroquod ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2012 @ 07:57pm

    Re: Re: Solution to patent reform

    No, that will just legitimise those who stake out the silly territory before the public defenders can plant a flag in it. And by throwing the lot 'public domain' in with patent law, that creates an artificial public interest in maintaining a bad law. What we really need is very clear: get rid of patents altogether because they were a ridiculously paradoxical idea in the first place. No one should be surprised that awarding monopolies on ideas has resulted in a runaway train of insanity.

  • On the post: Twitter Suspends Four Accounts Critical of Sarkozy: Is This What He Meant By 'Civilizing' The Net?

    Laroquod ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2012 @ 09:22pm

    Re: You're Wrong and You're Harming Free Speech

    There is an important piece missing in your perception of the way the world works. Just because Twitter ignores Mr. Ed NoName's attempts to have people banned, doesn't mean they are going to ignore the government of France.

    Stop assuming people consistently follow their own rules, and start taking note of how things change depending on who is doing the asking. You will begin to notice an unmistakeable pattern at work.

  • On the post: Iranian Filmmaker Banned From Filmmaking… Makes Documentary Via His iPhone About His Plight

    Laroquod ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2012 @ 09:56am

    Saw this film at TIFF

    Completely aside from the political ramifications of the circumstances under which it was produced, This Is Not a Film is a deep rumination on what it means to even make a film. It's one of the best, if not the the best film I saw at the Toronto Film Festival last year.

    I believe that people who think of this film as something to watch in order to support Iranian dissidents are doing it a disservice. This would be a brilliant film regardless of its sociopolitical context.

  • On the post: RIAA Totally Out Of Touch: Lashes Out At Google, Wikipedia And Everyone Who Protested SOPA/PIPA

    Laroquod ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2012 @ 12:27pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Just because something is an exclusive right does not make it 'property'.

    The government has an exclusive right to make laws, but that does not make the law its 'property' -- in fact, the laws of the United States are automatically Public Domain -- and yet, only the government has the exclusive right to write or change those laws.

    Certain TV networks have licensed exclusive rights to record and broadcast sports games, and yet neither the events of the game, nor the team, nor the field, nor anything independently connected to the event is the network's property.

    I can make a contract with anyone that gives me the exclusive right to mow their lawn for a year. Does that mean that mowing their lawn is my 'property'? That doesn't even make any sense. Mowing a lawn is an action: it can't be owned, it can only be performed or not performed.

    Clearly, exclusive rights and property must be two separate things definitionally, because they can be granted and revoked separately, and have been many times throughout history, and that wouldn't be logically possible if they were synonyms.

    So your defence of the logic of using the word 'property' doesn't fly. Good attempt, though; better than most.

  • On the post: Hollywood Still Doesn't Realize That The Internet Drives Popular Culture Now

    Laroquod ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2012 @ 03:19pm

    This gives Hollywood too much credit

    As if they are well-meaning but they just don't understand. They do understand and they are not well-meaning. RIAA/MPAA types are largely quite aware that there is a popular movement against their interest: they just don't want to admit it, especially when talking to their political monkeydogs. So what do you do when you don't want to admit your enemy's far superior mobilisation? You send out propaganda against the dirtiest, most demonisable possible member of the enemy camp, and this time (and probably many times to come), that was Google.

    Don't worry though: everyone who isn't a copyright industry toady can see perfectly well that this is a false picture they are pushing.

  • On the post: Misguided Twitter Protests… And Why Twitter Could Have Explained Itself Better

    Laroquod ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2012 @ 03:17pm

    Compare with Google doing business in China

    When Google decided to do business and open up offices in China, etc., they enabled country-specific censorship as part of that move, and they were roundly condemned for it. Nobody even suggested that Google would censor everybody else's search results in order to comply with China -- that was not even on the table: something only a crazy person would suggest.

    Boys, have things ever changed. Now, Twitter does the same thing, implementing country-specific censorship, and we are supposed to THANK them for not censoring everybody instead of on a country-specific basis? We are supposed to THANK them for not doing what it was insane to even contemplate Google would do?

    I don't think so. I don't want Google nor Twitter censoring their results, on any basis. Thank you very much -- I am not interested in your country-specific compromise.

  • On the post: What Is Ron Paul Thinking? Sues To Unmask Anonymous Internet Users

    Laroquod ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2012 @ 04:46pm

    Cue Streisand Effect

    n/t

  • On the post: If You Have To Tweet About Me Before I Give You Content, Will You Still Respect Me In The Morning?

    Laroquod ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2010 @ 10:32am

    Crass behaviour is crass behaviour, regardless of the source

    Had a friend once who insisted I tweet in support of his job search -- even wanted to dictate how my tweet would read, word for word. Didn't even occur to him at all that attempting to maintain honesty in the things I say to the world might be important to me. This and other similar backscratching requirements resulted in deterioration and eventual ending of the friendship.

    People don't really tolerate this from their friends. Why would they just swallow it from some corporation? No way. Just another slanted bargain with lipstick on it, this initiative is as doomed as a 'friendship' that is based on pure self-interest.