Mason Wheeler 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (4010) comment rss

  • On the post: Pepe The Frog Creator, Infowars Both Claim Victory After $15k Copyright Settlement

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2019 @ 07:17am

    Re: Re:

    Yes, I'm well aware of that. That's why I said "the term in its present usage".

  • On the post: Comcast Forgets To Delete Evidence It's Using Evil Fansubs In Its Streaming Service

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2019 @ 09:45am

    Still, it must have been at least slightly jarring to see Sky essentially forget to strip out Addic7ed's signature for its own work. Using someone else's work as one's own by way of copying it is about as close an analogy to copyright infringement as one could get.

    To be fair, though, it's possible they didn't forget at all. If they had used it and deleted the signature, that would potentially have been clear-cut copyright infringement, depending on the terms under which the fansub was released. Here, though, they've taken something that was made available for free, used it as it was intended to be used, and provided proper attribution for the person(s) whose work they made use of. There's an irony-angle story here ("oh look at how these guys thought fansubs were soooooo evil until they found out they could be useful!") but I don't see any way this is a "they did something wrong" story.

  • On the post: There Are Lots Of Ways To Punish Big Tech Companies, But Only A Few Will Actually Help Improve The Internet

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2019 @ 10:53am

    Re: Re:

    This article does say how: rather than forcing interoperability, let interoperability be a defense to antitrust suits.
    Yeah... that's not actually a solution, given how toothless antitrust law has become over the last 3 decades or so.

  • On the post: Pepe The Frog Creator, Infowars Both Claim Victory After $15k Copyright Settlement

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2019 @ 01:46pm

    Memes are sort of new and the internet spread of memes are certainly a recent phenomenon

    Huh?

    The term, in its present usage, may be relatively new, but people have been creating and sharing image macros on the web for decades now. It's by no means a new phenomenon.

  • On the post: There Are Lots Of Ways To Punish Big Tech Companies, But Only A Few Will Actually Help Improve The Internet

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2019 @ 07:41am

    I've argued an even better solution is not just about forced interoperability, but moving to a world of protocols instead of platforms.

    Yes, you've said that many, many times on here. What you've never said is how.

    How are we going to get the platforms to take this action that runs directly against their self-interest? Is there anything, other than extremely heavy-handed government regulation, that would make this outcome even remotely plausible?

  • On the post: Comcast Gets $9 Million Fine For Tricking Customers With 'Worthless' Protection Plans

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 07:34am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Yes, that was deliberate.

  • On the post: 10 State AGs Join Forces, Will Sue To Stop T-Mobile Sprint Merger

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 01:52pm

    To be perfectly honest, I can see a legitimate case for the idea of the merger improving competition. It hinges on this idea being based on a mistaken premise:

    The DOJ, for example, seems a bit sheepish on signing off on a deal that will reduce already semi-tepid US wireless competition by 25%.

    That statement would work if AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile were all approximately equal in size and power, but... come on, you know that's not true. The reason Sprint's been trying to get this merger to happen for so many years is because they're painfully aware that they're just not big enough to stay relevant without it. And T-Mobile has caused a lot of interesting changes over the last few years with their "scrappy underdog" competitive tactics, but that's the thing about underdogs: they are, by definition, at a big disadvantage when it comes to size.

    The simple truth is that AT&T and Verizon are first-tier mobile phone providers, while Sprint and T-Mobile are second-tier mobile phone providers. They're well-known names, but they're just not in the same league as the Big Two. The question is, would the hypothetical "SprintMobile" company be big enough to be a legitimate first-tier company that could compete on the same level as AT&T and Verizon? If so, it's quite possible we could see improved competition as a result, because it wouldn't be "going from four providers to three" but "going from two first-tier providers to three."

    (Please note that I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case; I don't know how big "SprintMobile" would be compared to the Big Two or how much overlap there is currently between T-Mobile and Sprint that would become redundant. I'm just saying that it's plausible, and worth considering from that perspective.)

  • On the post: Here's Why Net Neutrality Still Matters One Year After Repeal

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 07:57am

    Should the lawsuit fail, the onus lies with voters to 1) purge Congress of Luddites and telecom lackeys that have repeatedly made it clear that the public interest and Democratic process does not matter to them,

    You want a lower-case D there...

  • On the post: Facebook Tested With Deepfake Of Mark Zuckerberg: Company Leaves It Up

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2019 @ 07:53am

    some artists and an advertising agency created a deep fake of Zuckerberg saying a bunch of stuff about controlling everyone's data and secrets and whatnot

    Why would they need a deep fake for that, given the sheer quantity of things along those lines that he's legitimately said?

  • On the post: If You Think The Reason Internet Companies Snarf Up Your Data Is Because Their Services Are Free, Allow Me To Introduce You To The Telcos

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2019 @ 07:44am

    Any company that takes a longer term view of things would recognize that if the platforms optimize in a manner that creates serious problems for the world, that can't be good for long term business

    Welcome to the world of publicly-traded companies. It may be a bit of an exaggeration to state that they are legally or contractually incapable of long-term thinking, but not a very big one!

  • On the post: Comcast Gets $9 Million Fine For Tricking Customers With 'Worthless' Protection Plans

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2019 @ 07:23am

    Comcast's little gambit was certainly profitable: the court ruling declared that Comcast netted more than $73 million in errant fees over a five-year period by signing up customers for the worthless service plan they never asked for.

    Comcast, whose historically terrible customer service is already the stuff of legend, will be required to refund nearly 50,000 customers and pay a $9.1 million fine to make up for years of misleading behavior. And while that sets a Washington State record, that still likely falls well short of the total net profit Comcast made from scamming Washington State consumers.

    Which is why I say we need a law to cover such scenarios. Allow me to propose The Crime Does Not Pay Act: Should any business be found to have earned money through a violation of the law, they shall be fined a minimum of 100% of the gross revenue earned through their illegal business dealings.

    You want companies like Comcast to stop treating fines for illegal behavior as "the cost of doing business" and profiting anyway? Make it impossible to profit therefrom.

  • On the post: Republicans Blame CDA 230 For Letting Platforms Censor Too Much; Democrats Blame CDA 230 For Platforms Not Censoring Enough

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2019 @ 08:23am

    Either proposal would be engaging in 'prohibiting the free exercise'.

    Umm... huh? The only place that those words appear in the First Amendment, it's immediately followed by the word "thereof", making it clear that it refers to the thing that was discussed immediately prior, which is religion, not speech.

    (You're not wrong about this being a likely violation of the First Amendment; only about how it applies here.)

  • On the post: Activision Shouts 'First Amendment' Over Humvee's Trademark Lawsuit For Call Of Duty Depictions

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2019 @ 07:20am

    Re: Yikes

    They must have been taking lessons from European news publishers!

  • On the post: European Court Of Justice Suggests Maybe The Entire Internet Should Be Censored And Filtered

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2019 @ 07:17am

    Re: Re:

    No. That was a completely wrong interpretation when Thad said it, and it's still wrong when you say it now. The correct paradigm from which to understand the idea of geofencing Europe is the notion of quarantine. Right now, any given European user may or may not be a carrier of a deadly malady known as "liability", and you have no way of knowing until they infect you. From a simple self-preservation perspective, the only rational decision is to quarantine Europe--lock it down entirely until the disease burns itself out.

  • On the post: European Court Of Justice Suggests Maybe The Entire Internet Should Be Censored And Filtered

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2019 @ 07:14am

    Re: Re: Re: *sigh*

    There once was a man from Japan
    whose limericks never would scan.
    When told it was so,
    he replied, "yes, I know,
    for I always try to fit as many words into the very last line as ever I possibly can."

  • On the post: New York State's Privacy Law Would Be Among The Toughest In The US

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2019 @ 11:05am

    Insofar as the interests of stockholders and users diverge, the officers and directors of these companies may be put in the untenable position of having to violate their fiduciary duties (to stockholders) under Delaware law in order to fulfill their fiduciary duties (to end users) under the new body of law that Balkin proposes.

    I'm no expert in corporate law, but I would imagine that this is not a legitimate contradiction. There has to be some law (or case law, or probably both) that clarifies that it's not a breach of fiduciary duty to refuse to take some action that, while profitable, would also be illegal... right? That's just common sense; otherwise we would see shareholders suing companies to force them to violate the law in the name of maximizing profit.

  • On the post: Getting Worse Part 3: TurboTax Wrapped Its Veterans Site In The American Flag And Then Tricked Soldiers Into Paying

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2019 @ 09:54am

    So now can we all agree that something must be done to punish Intuit for this?

    Depends. Have their shenanigans reached the point where they meet the legal definition of fraud yet, or is it still just de facto fraud that they can legally get away with?

  • On the post: European Court Of Justice Suggests Maybe The Entire Internet Should Be Censored And Filtered

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2019 @ 08:32am

    From there, the case when to the CJEU

    "went"

    and (2) Once cases get to the CJEU, experts and public interest advocates can’t intervene to explain the missing info

    So the CJEU has no concept of an amicus brief?

  • On the post: Twitter And Liz Mair Explain Why Devin Nunes' Lawsuit Doesn't Belong In Virginia

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2019 @ 06:30am

    Re: Re:

    Sure, but fake click-wrap "contracts" that cannot be negotiated (EULAs, website Terms of Service, etc) didn't. Plenty of places in the world don't recognize their legitimacy, and with good reason. Unfortunately, the USA is not one of those places. It needs to become one.

  • On the post: If 'Big Tech' Is a Huge Antitrust Problem, Why Are We Ignoring Telecom?

    Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2019 @ 06:48am

    On its surface, many of these actions aren't all that surprising. After all, experts have noted for a decade than US antitrust enforcement has grown toothless and frail,

    A decade? I think the first time I personally heard complaints about this was in the late 90s, over 20 years ago, and they were describing it as a "long-standing" problem.

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