Michael Donnelly 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (56) comment rss

  • On the post: Copyright Office Admits That DMCA Is More About Giving Hollywood 'Control' Than Stopping Infringement

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2017 @ 05:02pm

    Arrtgfghfghf.

    Sorry, that's all I can really say on this topic.

    (I am the first two letters in MDY Industries)

  • On the post: FTC Smacks Down Michigan For Trying To Ban Tesla Sales: Didn't We Already Warn You About This?

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 15 May, 2015 @ 04:45pm

    The funny thing is how ineffective the bans are.

    These would have been absolutely crippling to Tesla if they were selling car's in the early 90's. Fortunately, they're not.

    See, the primary purpose of the car dealer is to sell cars.* But you don't need a dealer to sell cars any more than you need Circuit City to sell televisions.

    The Internet has brought an alternative to walking into a store and buying a product. Everyone is so accustomed to buying on-line that they have very little trouble buying cars. The bans are just free press for Tesla Motors at this point, which is why they're lobbying and not suing.

    They become a bit more problematic when you approach the mass-market, but I don't think they'll represent a lot of lost sales then, either. People are just too used to shopping on-line and circumventing bullshit government restrictions.

    * Dealers also service cars, but Tesla service centers have remained legal so far.

  • On the post: Bill Introduced To Fix Broken DMCA Anti-Circumvention Rules

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2015 @ 06:22pm

    Re: Re: Even if they leave "all copying" in there, it's a big step.

    I meant should in the pejorative. As in, "well, those asshats should be shooting themselves in the face any minute now".

    So, yeah, they will. ;)

  • On the post: Bill Introduced To Fix Broken DMCA Anti-Circumvention Rules

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2015 @ 07:34am

    Even if they leave "all copying" in there, it's a big step.

    The worst victims of 1201 abuse aren't even the "circumvention but copy was fair use" situations where there's some ambiguity on the copy.

    This bill would fix the extreme bullshit cases of circumvention without a whiff of a copy. Like Lexmark (toner cartridge auth), Chamberlain (garage door opener interop), etc. Those are the real abuses of 1201, when the DMCA is pulled way out of the arena of copyright to try and prevent some integration. Since the 9th Circuit explicitly rejected Chamberlain in a case I know well (cough), this would mean you can finally sell Skylink garage door opener fobs in California without threat of a copyright (!?) lawsuit.

    While it would be nice to codify that only infringing copies made after circumvention are violations, you can still sweep those under the rug and wind up with a very useful bill. It's one which, as Mike notes, Hollywood should fight tooth and nail, even if it doesn't affect their business model a bit.

  • On the post: For 10 Years Everyone's Been Using 'The Streisand Effect' Without Paying; Now I'm Going To Start Issuing Takedowns

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2015 @ 10:31am

    Use of other name without attribution.

    As both a fan and imaginary legal counsel for the American band "10 Years", I must complain about your usage of the group's name in the title without first obtaining a license.

    As an expert in the various intellectual property disciplines, you should already understand that such cavalier disregard for my clients' rights will not be looked upon favorably by the court.

    Consider this post a properly-constructed DMCA/trademark/patent (pending) takedown notice. Yes, those exist now, deal with it.

  • On the post: Former CIA Director Hayden: We Didn't Lie About Interrogation Program. Torture Report: Yeah, You Did. REPEATEDLY.

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2014 @ 11:36am

    Watch it happen in real-time.

    Step 1) Make it a partisan issue.

    Step 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

    Step 3) PROFIT!

  • On the post: Yet Another Study Shows US Satire Programs Do A Better Job Informing Viewers Than Actual News Outlets

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2014 @ 09:26am

    Oliver is doing journalism and he knows it.

    Watch the final 30 seconds of this episode and tell me this is comedy:

    http://youtu.be/KUdHIatS36A?t=14m41s

    That's major "serious face" there. The show contains a lot of humor, but it also contains a lot of passion for the facts.

  • On the post: Stupid WiFi Hotspot Name Gets American Airlines Flight Grounded

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2014 @ 07:37am

    Key point: it wasn't a threat.

    What's being overlooked in this hilarious story is that the offending SSID wasn't even a threat. It was not a network named "Al Qaeda Will Attack" or anything even close to that.

    The "take all threats seriously" mentality is already stupid. This is beyond stupid because there was no threat to take seriously.

  • On the post: Techdirt's Response To Roca Labs' Demand For A Retraction

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2014 @ 03:32pm

    The phrase "pick your battles" comes to mind.

    Throwing down against TechDirt and the EFF over improper speech is just a really, really bad idea.

    It does serve to illustrate the mental state of the person making the decisions, however. And that state is not pretty.

  • On the post: New Bill Designed To Stop Bogus Copyright Claims From Stopping You From Selling What You Own

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2014 @ 12:08pm

    Section 117 what?

    Oh, yeah, nobody owns anything. Let's codify more basic property rights to further muddy the illusion.

    Awesome.

  • On the post: Reuters Downplays CIA Torture As Merely 'Physically Stressful Interrogation Techniques'

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2014 @ 08:03am

    We tortured some folks.

  • On the post: FedEx Indicted For Failing To Look Into Its Packages To See If Any Online Pharmacies Were Sending Drugs

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2014 @ 09:49pm

    Every time secondary liability expands...

    ...a demon gets its wings.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Uses The Bizarre 'Looks Like A Cable Duck' Test To Outlaw Aereo

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2014 @ 09:53am

    Don't worry, the NSA will help.

    Not sarcasm: the US Government has already dealt all American cloud companies an enormous kick in the crotch with the spying, secret letters, recruiting agents within firms, etc. Nobody outside of the US with half a brain would trust an American company today.

    Further legal uncertainty is just another bullet in that corpse.

    Innovation will not be taking place here.

  • On the post: New Emails Show That Feds Instructed Police To Lie About Using Stingray Mobile Phone Snooping

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2014 @ 12:45pm

    The only people more afraid of the terrorists than the US Govnernment this point?

    The US Government.

  • On the post: Judge Says NSA Can Continue To Destroy Evidence

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2014 @ 12:34am

    The silver lining isn't that deep.

    What Mike meant to say (and I mean this in the least sarcastic way possible) is this:

    If there's some sort of silver lining to all of this, it's at least the acknowledgement that the NSA is willing to tell a court that it really does have a minimization process to not hang onto information it's not supposed to have, and that it's not immediately easy to turn off the process of getting rid of that data.

    The NSA's track record, and that of its "overseers", suggests that there might be a gap between what it says is true and what is actually true. Just a small gap. Like a teeny-tiny one. Maybe 300 million "targets", give or take. Little gap, I swear.

  • On the post: DOJ Admits It's Still Destroying Evidence In NSA Case; Judge Orders Them (Again) To Stop; DOJ Flips Out

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2014 @ 08:05am

    Re:

    That seems to be most likely, but those retention rules would still allow for exceptions, such as when ordered by a court to preserve data past the normal expiration.

    Of course, since it's a secret law, who knows.

  • On the post: Michael Robertson Challenges Ruling That Says He Has To Pay Over $40 Million For Copyright Infringement

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2014 @ 07:32am

    When did Troy Aikman join EMI's legal team?

    Yeah, that would have been a touchdown pass if Romo had made a better throw, too.

    He didn't.

  • On the post: Techdirt Is Now 100% SSL

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2014 @ 07:26am

    It's not just about encryption and user privacy.

    It's also about making the NSA work a little harder when they man-in-the-middle techdirt.com as part of some enormous sweep of malcontents and ne'er-do-gooders. It's always fun to make their guys go and hack pieces of Chrome to kill the cert-pinning trick Google came up with.

    You gotta get that DMCA shirt back in stock, though. ;)

  • On the post: Judge Says Supreme Court Should Overturn Awful Surveillance Precedent, But Until It Does, He Has To Reject Case Against NSA

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2014 @ 08:49am

    Re:

    The district court judge is constrained. If she rules in violation of that clear precedent, the appeal will be fought over the wrong issue: whether it was proper for her to ignore case law as dictated by SCOTUS.

    The order must be appealed up the chain to SCOTUS so they can rule on the merits of the case and overturn Smith. Them's the rules.

    If it does get to Roberts and he is the Chief Asshole like you say (and I at least partially agree), then we can say that part of the system is broken.

  • On the post: Is Nvidia Playing Fair With Their New Development Tools?

    Michael Donnelly ( profile ), 31 May, 2014 @ 07:44am

    Market forces should handle this.

    1) Ubisoft knew the product would under-perform on AMD hardware of a similar class. They chose to release it this way.

    2) People buying the game with such hardware will be disappointed. A large number of them will understand point #1.

    3) Such folks will become reluctant to buy further Ubisoft games.

    The normal pain feedback cycle applies here, unlike in many other non-competitive situations (broadband, anything related to movies/records, etc). If Ubisoft can make more money pissing off 40% of their target market, great. If not, they'll work harder to make sure the performs well on both chipsets.

    Laying any blame at nVidia's feet (or AMD's) is silly. Ubisoft makes the call, Ubisoft reaps the results. They don't have a monopoly on the market and Watch Dogs isn't big enough to make people switch display adapters.

Next >>