Internet Zen Master 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Chilling Effects: James Clapper Tells Congress That Journalists Are Ed Snowden's 'Accomplices'

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2014 @ 03:45pm

    Umm...

    Hold on a minute.

    What exactly would they be criminally charging Greenwald et al. with, since Snowden clearly was able to do this alone. I mean, they can't exactly arrest the reporters for publishing articles on the NSA documents. They lost that battle back in Nixon's day against the New York Times over the Pentagon Papers. So what exactly would they be criminally charging these "accomplices" (the reporters) for again?

  • On the post: Hollywood Screenwriters Worry About Aggressive Copyright Enforcement And Threats To An Open Internet

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2014 @ 10:30am

    Speaking of 6 strikes

    Has there actually been any evidence of people getting strikes from their ISPs/that joke they call the CAS?

  • On the post: DOJ Says Company That Vetted Snowden Faked 665,000 Background Checks

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2014 @ 10:00am

    Regardless of what you think of Snowden

    It can't be denied that his decision to blow the whistle on the NSA uncovered more and more corruption, feels like a rather pleasant side effect for something that's "jeopardized national security".

    At the very least, now the NSA will (hopefully) be getting new employees that deserve their security clearances in the future (Granted, from a government standpoint, they should just drop all contracting work from the intelligence community altogether and keep everything in-house, but that's not likely to happen any time soon).

    Of course, this assumes the DOJ is actually going to go after the US IS and it's execs, and not let them slip away unharmed like they've done so far with the scumbags over in Wall Street.

    As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."

  • On the post: Buying Positive Coverage Of The Xbox One On YouTube Is Dumb On So Many Levels

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2014 @ 02:05pm

    Wouldn't surprise me

    If Nintendo or Sony have similar agreements, and Microsoft just got its hand caught in the cookie jar.

    That being said, their PR team is LEGENDARY for being terrible at their jobs, so it could go either way really.

    Won't build trust between the consumers and the producers/publishers/reviewers though, no matter how you slice this, that much is for sure.

  • On the post: Copyright Week: Fair Use Is Not An 'Exception' But The Rule

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2014 @ 02:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Many artists don't understand Fair Use/Transformative works

    Pretty much what Karl said. I was trying to differentiate between the types artists thatuse a canvas for their works, whom I've always referred to as simply 'artists' (ex: van Gogh, Da Vinci, and so on), and the artists that create symphonic masterpieces, aka musicians (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.). Yeah I know, it's not the proper usage of the term, but I couldn't find a word to describe an artist who just uses a canvas [physical or digital] for there type of art.

    Plus I was getting rather annoyed by some of the comments I was reading over at dA, so I was feeling a little sarcastic when I wrote that post.

    Speaking of dA, I actually managed to talk to zilleniose herself and one of her friends, and she admitted that yes, the other art might be considered Fair Use, but because the art was definitely [partially] traced from hers that it qualified as 'art theft'. I politely responded that Fair Use can be rather subjective, so the alleged infringing work could potentially go either way, and let it go at that.

    As for her friend, she her view is that it's fine to claim Fair Use for tracing MLP screenshots because the creator's okay with it, and only Hasbro will come after you, but tracing other fan-art should stay off-limits unless you have the consent of the creator.

    And of course, the comment section where all this took place is still bickering about the whole thing.

    Ugh...I should've just stayed out of it. Would've saved me a lot of wasted time.

  • On the post: USTR Refuses To Show Up For Senate Hearing On Fast Track

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2014 @ 03:35pm

    Re: Re:

    Ain't over till the fat lady sings, or something...

    'sides, even if they DO get FTA, they still have to make TPP look harmless enough for all the Congressmen on the electoral 'chopping block' to vote for during an election year, when they don't want to do anything too drastic because it might cost them their seats.

    As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."

  • On the post: Copyright Week: Fair Use Is Not An 'Exception' But The Rule

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2014 @ 02:38pm

    Many artists don't understand Fair Use/Transformative works

    And I don't mean musicians. I'm talking about actual artists. Y'know, painters, drawers, digital artists, the ones who make pictures.

    I say this after what happened yesterday over on the art site deviantArt.

    The site has always had a problem with new users recoloring/editing/tracing over copyrighted images, in other words, other artists' works, and then uploading it and claiming the art as their own.

    I didn't pay much attention to all this until yesterday, where someone posted a journal entry linking to another user ranting about how the site's admins are refusing to enforce their own copyright policy correctly, and allowing people who trace others work to do so.

    Intrigued, I took a look at the tumblr link in the rant, and saw, well, see for yourself: http://zilleniose.tumblr.com/post/73465931014/warning-to-all-deviantart-users

    While the alleged 'art thief' did trace over part of the original image, it had clearly been altered enough to qualify as a transformative work under Fair Use.

    After reading all that I basically wrote up a journal entry stating that, in this particular case, the "art thief"'s work is transformative enough to qualify under Fair Use, despite the fact that some of it was clearly from/identical to another piece of art (now that I think about it, the only part of the picture that's really traced from the original is the pose).

    Part of the problem is dA's Copyright policy leans so hard on "with permission" that it's not even funny, which gives peopel the foolish idea that you need permission for everything, so it's not surprising that a lot of artists on dA are reacting this way right now (and are still foaming at the mouth over the fact that the admin refused to take down the accused's work).

    I think it really shows what problems are caused by people insisting that you need "permission" for everything these days, and why Fair Use is such a vital part of Copyright law, and the Internet as a whole.

  • On the post: UK Man Jailed For Not Giving Police Thumbstick Password

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2014 @ 10:32am

    In the man's defense

    You'd be surprised how easy it is to forget the password for thumbdrives. I should know, having 3 (or was it 4?) password-protected thumbdrives that I rarely ever use.

    Which results in me having to try and remember the password I used and how much l33tspeak is used in it at the time. Which is even more fun when the password program on the thumbdrive states it will reformat the drive if you fail to get it correct 5 times in a row.

    But yeah, as mentioned above by others, the authorities already have the ability to decrypt the drive without forcing the accused to give up the password. Just get the court to give the go ahead and do that instead of punishing the accused for "refusing to cooperate".

    Why is it so hard for authorities to ask for clearance from the court to go ahead and crack the password/encryption these days?

  • On the post: President Obama Surpasses Exceptionally Low Expectations On NSA Reforms, But Reforms Are Still Very Weak

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2014 @ 09:41am

    I smell bullshit from Obama

    It's a start I guess... Not much of a start, but he did surpassed low expectations.

    ...Which tells me that the staff who leaked the intended reforms earlier this week did so intentionally in order to lower everyone's expectations so that Obama would get praise and avoid more stinging criticism when he discussed his reforms today.

    In other words, keep raising hell and pressuring him until he actually makes significant changes and doesn't leave reforms up to the incompetents in Congress or the shady "making-things-up-as-we-go" types at the DOJ.

    The NSA is under the Executive Branch, so the head of the Executive Branch should be the one to put the organization's feet to the fire, not Congress.

    Just my two cents.

  • On the post: President Obama Locking In Cosmetic NSA 'Reforms' Before Key Privacy Board Can Even Weigh In

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2014 @ 09:14am

    So is there anyway people can, I dunno, call him on his bullshit and pressure him to continue reforming the NSA even after he locks in the window-dressing reforms he plans on doing right now?

  • On the post: 2014 Federal Spending Bill Contains Demands For Transparency On NSA Surveillance Programs

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2014 @ 03:15pm

    Congress doing something good for once?

    I must admit, this is a rather pleasant surprise.

    Now the only question remains is whether or not it'll get past both houses of Congress.

  • On the post: FISA Court Judges Say They Don't Want Any Changes To How The Rubber Stamp Court Is Run

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2014 @ 02:34pm

    In the words of Heavy

    "Cry some more!"

    FISA court lost its right to bitch about reforms when they stopped doing their jobs and started taking the NSA/FBI at their word for everything.

  • On the post: Wikileaks Releases TPP Environmental Chapter; Once Again Shows Why Negotiators Wanted Details Hidden

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2014 @ 12:09pm

    Excellent!

    The IP chapter wasn't having enough impact for Congress to start having second thoughts about granting the USTR fast track authority.

    But the knowledge that this shit would be the first thing they'd tell the legislative to sign is likely to make those Congresscritters pause now that the Environmental chapter's added fuel to the fire.

    Well, one would hope anyway. I'm probably overestimating the intelligence of US Congress.

  • On the post: Dangerous Ruling In Virginia Allows Cleaning Company To Identify Anonymous Yelp Critics

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 04:01pm

    Re: One just needs to remember...

    Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, was also the ancestor of all modern trolling.

    Haven't thought of it that way before... kinda amusing actually.

  • On the post: RIAA's Boss Thinks He Knows Better Than Google How To Build A Search Engine

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 03:10pm

    Re: Re:

    That would explain why all that formulaic pop crap keeps topping the charts, instead of original, high quality music.

  • On the post: Weather Channel To DirecTV: Meet Our Cost Demands Or EVERYONE WILL DIE!

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 06:44pm

    By TWC's logic...

    The entire Pacific Northwest should be dead. They are never covering our region, let alone the West Coast, when I flip to them for weather (out of laziness). All they ever seem to cover (when not doing reality programming/documentaries) is the f***ing East Coast/Midwest.

  • On the post: As Expected, Court Strikes Down FCC's Net Neutrality Rules: Now What?

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 10:35am

    Re: How long before?

    ...I just imagined them starting their own ultra-high speed broadband provider as a "gesture of goodwill" to their detractors.

    Sad thing is, I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that if they got desperate enough in terms of public opinion.

  • On the post: Patent Troll Sues The FTC, Saying It Has A First Amendment Right To Shake Down Companies Using A Scanner

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 06:29pm

    Did they just pull a Prenda?

    Seriously, MPHJ claiming that their 1st Amendment rights are being violated by the FTC because they can't go patent trolling companies anymore is some Prenda-grade bullshittery right there.

  • On the post: South Carolina Senator Aims To Criminalize The Recording Of Criminal Activity

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 09:37am

    Re: Sorry, South Carolina...

    In addition, your privileges to watch any tv shows depicting violent criminal activity, including, but not limited to: Law&Order, NCIS, NCIS:LA, CSI (and its various spinoffs), Burn Notice, White Collar, Almost Human, Agents of Shield, Person of Interest, Castle, Hawaii Five-O, Criminal Minds, Sherlock Holmes, etc. have been revoked.

  • On the post: Jury Finds Two Officers Charged In Beating Death Of Homeless Man Not Guilty

    Internet Zen Master ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 10:51am

    Uhm... wow

    Do they temporarily lobotomize the jury in those trials or something? I mean, what the hell. They had goddamn video evidence of the incident. You do not need to beat a man into a coma to "restrain" him. They had a tazer, why weren't they using it to, I dunno, taze him? I mean, yeah it's wrong and excessive, but it's better (and probably much less lethal) then a no-holds-barred, all-out beatdown by SIX cops.

    What the hell is wrong with the people in Orange County?

    Oh, right. It's OC. Nevermind.

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