Mike Raffety 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: State Appeals Court Says Stubhub Isn't Responsible For Actions Of Its Users

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2012 @ 11:35am

    Entirely aside from StubHub facilitating "illegal activities" ...

    Why is it illegal to resell a ticket at whatever price the market will bear? This is America, the center of capitalism, not Soviet Russia.

    Surely this falls under price fixing, like a manufacturer telling distributors they cannot sell the product for less than the MSRP?

  • On the post: Best Selling Author Barry Eisler On Copyright, Piracy And Why SOPA/PIPA Are 'Extremely Disturbing'

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2011 @ 12:21pm

    The problem with Amazon e-books ...

    And the reason I have no plans to buy a Kindle any time soon, is that you cannot sell or give the book to someone else when you are done with it. It's pretty rare that I read a book twice; I normally give it to a friend when I'm done, and encourage them to do the same (not give it back to me).

    While I admire Barry Eisler's embrace of e-book technology, Amazon's current "ownership model" (for lack of a better word) is a one-time license with no transferability, not a sale. This is why they were able to reach out and delete a book when they decided it was a mistake.

    He has some excellent viewpoints on copyright, but Amazon is not the solution either.

  • On the post: SOPA Sponsors: Pass SOPA To Protect The Troops; Everyone Else: WTF?

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2011 @ 11:00am

    Pass SOPA, save the children!

    We must protect our children from counterfeit baby formula being imported, SOPA will save thousands of lives!

    SOPA will save the children, the troops, jobs, the economy, heck, maybe even prevent global warming and bring about peace in the Middle East.

  • On the post: Do The Authors Of The Felony Streaming Bills Even Know What The Details Of Their Own Bills Mean?

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2011 @ 11:48am

    So why is Klobuchar so focused on getting it passed?

    That's easy, check her campaign donor records. At least those still have to be published.

  • On the post: What's The Most Expensive WiFi You've Seen?

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2011 @ 12:06pm

    Re: Re: You've clearly never taken a cruise

    Have you tried this service on the cruise ship? It's not high speed -- it's about the speed of dial-up, and of course, horrible latency. I brought a laptop with a local mail client (Thunderbird, of course), and downloaded all my e-mail in a batch, wrote responses off-line, then went back on-line to upload all my outgoing mail. Kept the connection time to just a couple minutes at a time.

  • On the post: What's The Most Expensive WiFi You've Seen?

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2011 @ 12:02pm

    Except most hotels are going to charge you for that modem call. Even the ones that offer "free local calls" (usually the cheap hotels that are giving you free WiFi too) often limit the free call duration to something like 30 minutes. And then I can't order room service while on-line. :-)

  • On the post: Wireless Carriers Finally Cave On Overage Fees; Reluctantly Agree To Stop Treating Customers Like ATMs

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2011 @ 11:20am

    Overage charges?

    One thing I completely fail to understand. The per-minute or per-megabyte charges when you exceed your plan are usually FAR higher than the same rate within your plan. For almost anything I can think of, the cost per unit FALLS when you buy in larger quantities.

    What is the economic driver behind this thinking, other than monopolistic practices that all the other post-pay carriers do the same thing? Why wouldn't carriers welcome these heavy users with unit costs that match or are somewhat lower than the plan unit costs?

    Certainly, carriers would shun heavy users when the plan is unlimited, with no unit costs! But if a carrier offered a plan with decreasing charges as you bought more, the sting of not having "unlimited" (which never really is) would surely be lessened, with much happier and more loyal customers.

    And if you say that there's only limited total radio bandwidth, then why do those same carriers offer you lower per-unit rates when you buy a bigger plan?

  • On the post: Find A Massive Security Hole At American Express? If You're Not A Cardholder, It Doesn't Care

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 12 Oct, 2011 @ 03:42pm

    Re: Re: why he didn't use the phone number supplied

    For some years now, U.S. 800/888/877/866 numbers CAN be dialed from other countries, though they're not toll-free, usual calling rates apply.

  • On the post: Lawyer For Accused: DDoS Is A Legal Form Of Protest

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2011 @ 02:11pm

    DENIAL of service

    Wait, let's look at what this is called, DENIAL of service. DENYING an entity the ability to do its normal activity, like operating a web site, due to all this traffic, certainly SHOULD be illegal (and hopefully IS illegal).

    The physical world equivalent would be forming a human chain to prevent people from entering a building -- and police will and do break those up.

    Standing around with signs and bullhorns chanting is like having another web site, or posting messages on their web site. It does not actually interfere with their ability to operate (other than in the mind of potential customers/visitors).

  • On the post: Police Ticket Guy Who Helped Direct Traffic After Traffic Light Failure; Then Leave Without Handling Traffic

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2011 @ 12:00pm

    The man got a citation?

    YES! A citation for meritorious conduct, I hope! Does that city have a citizen's award of some sort?

  • On the post: Apple Sues Teen Who Sold Repair Parts To Make Your iPhone Into A Mythical White iPhone

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2011 @ 12:02pm

    Selling replacement iPhone parts

    If the kid was putting the Apple logo on parts that didn't come from Apple, that's clearly not going to fly, since there's substantial likelihood of confusion, and an implied endorsement, at the least.

    Since there's no software involved in this, it sounds remarkably like the car companies' ongoing efforts to prevent others from manufacturing cheaper replacement parts.

    Here's a recent article about just such an attempt in France:

    http://www.ipfrontline.com/depts/article.aspx?id=25172&deptid=7

  • On the post: NY Stock Exchange Claims Trademark On Any Depiction Of Trading Floor, Threatens TPM

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 27 May, 2011 @ 11:02am

    Trademarking an image

    Reminds me of the attempts by the French to claim copyright over all images of the Eiffel Tower.

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050202/1946248.shtml

  • On the post: Feds Seize More Poker Sites

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 25 May, 2011 @ 12:37pm

    Seizing casino Internet domains

    Why bother with a DNS domain at all? If I owned an on-line casino, I'd go get an easy-to-remember IP address to host it all, like 7.11.7.11 or 21.21.21.21, and market the hell out of that.

    No more DNS problems! Now, does anyone think DHS can tell every U.S. ISP with an international link to block a given IP address?

  • On the post: Author Walter Jon Williams Asks For Fans To Help Him 'Pirate' His Own Works Better

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 25 May, 2011 @ 12:29pm

    Author scanning his own work?

    Umm, if he wrote the book, doesn't he still have the text on his own computer? Why scan anything? Or did he write it all out long-hand on paper?

    Plus, then search engines will be able to index the text cleanly (e.g., someone's trying to find the origin of a quote that came from his book).

    But yes, assuming this was not self-published, his publisher may well have a vested interest in blocking this, it's likely his contract explicitly prohibits him from circulating copies by any other channel.

  • On the post: The End Result Of Superinjunctions: The Count The 'Can't Be Nameds' Game

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 24 May, 2011 @ 12:05pm

    Re: An appropriate response:

    Absolutely, surely someone is keeping a list of the superinjunctions, hosted outside the UK?

  • On the post: Ross Pruden's Favorite Techdirt Posts of the Week

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 22 May, 2011 @ 12:31pm

    Blue laws

    The comment on the Paris Virgin Megastore being open on weekends reminds me that we still have problems like that in the U.S. Here in Illinois, it's illegal to buy a new car on Sunday, a law that the car dealers lobbied for and got years ago.

    I'd LOVE to find a car dealer willing to challenge that and sell me a car on Sunday, but you know they all like the law!

  • On the post: Death Of iFlow Reader Due To Apple Changes Shows Why Betting On Closed Platforms Is Risky

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 19 May, 2011 @ 11:31am

    "All sales agents are required to sell books at the same retail price, which is set by the publisher. No one can sell at a different price."

    Isn't this illegal? We went through this with CD price fixing a decade ago (when CDs were important):

    http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.shtm

    Even today though, there are certain brands you simply cannot find discounted, or only at specific levels for specific time periods, as controlled by the manufacturer. Examples include Bose and Calvin Klein and all the fine cosmetics brands.

    For example, ALL retailers put Calvin Klein underwear on sale for 25% off at the same time every year. They never discount it otherwise.

  • On the post: Senator Leahy Wants To Update Digital Privacy Law; Some Good, Some Bad

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 18 May, 2011 @ 11:06am

    Searching e-mail on ISP servers

    What's the law regarding searches of bank safe deposit boxes? Seems like a possible analogy here. If the police want to access my personal safe deposit box at the bank, what do they have to do? I would surely think this requires a warrant??? Or for that matter, even to ask the bank for my bank statement?

  • On the post: Amazon Uses Steve Jobs Words Against Him In App Store Dispute

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2011 @ 10:57am

    Trademarking "app store"

    I don't recall Apple EVER putting that little "TM" or the "R in a circle" after the term "app store". Probably not a requirement, but certainly an important indication of their (lack of) intention.

  • On the post: Targeted Advertising? Patented! Bunch Of Media Companies Sued

    Mike Raffety ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2011 @ 10:56am

    Patenting the patent troll business process?

    Has anyone (yet) patented the business process commonly known as patent trolling? I think I'll go file that right away and make a few million.

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