Stephan Kinsella 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Hides Effective Political Ad That Calls Out GOP

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2023 @ 10:02am

    MDS?

    In addition to Covid Derangement syndrome and TDS, I think we have to add MDS to the list.

  • On the post: The Supreme Court May Not Have Read Our Brief About The First Amendment And Copyright, But You Can

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 27 May, 2023 @ 11:17pm

    It's not about the court

    "you can’t say the court got the law wrong ... I think they got it right" -- it's not about whether the Court "got it right." It's about whether the law itself is just. If the law is unjust then it's not "good" that the Courts accurately interpret and enforce it. Don't you people care about justice and rights anymore?

  • On the post: The Supreme Court May Not Have Read Our Brief About The First Amendment And Copyright, But You Can

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 27 May, 2023 @ 11:14pm

    Why ignore the crucial dates and the reality of the censorship of copyright?

    The author writes: "Congress’s hands are also further tied by the First Amendment, which prohibits making a law that impinges on free expression. ... if the effect of legislation that Congress passes is that free expression has been impinged, then that legislation would be unconstitutional on that basis as well." But there is no "if" about it. Copyright law clearly violates the First Amendment. It prohibits what people can write and say. This is obvious to see and even the Court recognizes it. There is no way to square freedom of the press with the copyright law. http://c4sif.org/2011/11/copyright-is-unconstitutional/ But the First Amendment was ratified in 1791, two years after the 1789 Constitution which tried to authorize copyright law. So if there is an incompatibility then the Copyright Act has to fall; it is unconstitutional (also under the 4th and 5th and 8th amendments, arguably, but let's just stick with the 1st for now).

  • On the post: 'Radical' Publisher Claims Copyright On Free Collection Of Marx And Engels Works; Orders Them Taken Down

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2022 @ 01:03pm

    Commie countries have IP law

    they don't oppose IP at all.

    https://c4sif.org/wrongaboutip/#ip-socialist-ussr

  • On the post: Rather Than Attacking Section 230, Why Aren't Trump Supporters Angry About The DMCA That's Actually Causing Issues?

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2020 @ 07:16pm

    Re: but defamation laws should not exist

    Defamation laws are unjust in and of themselves. But of course almost no one understands this, yet they yammer on and on about policy matters anyway.

  • On the post: Rather Than Attacking Section 230, Why Aren't Trump Supporters Angry About The DMCA That's Actually Causing Issues?

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2020 @ 12:20pm

    Re: Re: Re: DMCA takedown provisions

    "You've got to consider what the landscape was like before the DMCA. The safe harbor exemption didn't exist, that's true. However, if a rightsholder wanted to hold a provider liable and get content removed, they actually had to sue the provider and win." I'm not a deep expert on the copyright or DMCA law so I may be wrong, but this seems inaccurate to me. You still have to sue and prove the same stuff to "win." It's just that the DMCA safe harbor promises liability exemption to the platform so they immediately comply to make sure they take advantage of the exemption. I don't see that it makes it easier for them to be held liable for copyright infringement at all. Do you have a legitimate legal source for this contention, or are you just some random layman nym spouting off?

  • On the post: Rather Than Attacking Section 230, Why Aren't Trump Supporters Angry About The DMCA That's Actually Causing Issues?

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2020 @ 11:54am

    Re: DMCA takedown provisions

    The DMCA takedown provisions are paired with the limited exemption the DMCA provides to vicarious copyright liability. The takedown process is just the price paid for being exempt from vicarious copyright liability. If you remove the takedown process you likely remove the exemption and then start to hobble the Internet even more than copyright already does.

  • On the post: Rather Than Attacking Section 230, Why Aren't Trump Supporters Angry About The DMCA That's Actually Causing Issues?

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2020 @ 11:21am

    The DMCA is not the problem; copyright is

    "Twitter has little choice but to shut down Donktum's feed, and people blaming Twitter or Section 230 for this (or idiotically calling it "election interference") have misplaced their blame. They should, instead, be concerned about Section 512(i) of the DMCA and the series of recent cases that say it is based on accusation, and not on any adjudication of infringement. "

    The reason there is concern is that (a) there is copyright liability in the first place, and (b) sometimes secondary liability. That the DMCA does an imperfect job of exempting platforms from secondary liability, doesn't mean that the DMCA is the problem here. The problem is copyright law itself. As Burke said, "the thing! the thing! The thing itself is the abuse!"

  • On the post: The Two Things To Understand About Trump's Executive Order On Social Media: (1) It's A Distraction (2) It's Legally Meaningless

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 29 May, 2020 @ 05:55pm

    ignoring the Constitution

    "To be clear: the executive order is nonsense. You can't overrule the law by executive order, nor can you ignore the Constitution."

    Well... I dunno. The entire CDA, including the sec. 230 safe harbor, is unconstitutional (there is no power enumerated in the Constitution for Congress to overrule state defamation law, for example).

  • On the post: Happy Birthday, Statute of Anne

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2020 @ 12:10pm

    Failure to strike at the root

    The problem here is that the entire copyright system and mentality is truly destructive at the core. All copyright should be abolished. The author however tries to do the moderate tech author thing and have it both ways--implicitly praise the "good" intentions of copyright while criticizing the "abuses."

    For example, the author says "The Statute of Anne, whose anniversary of coming into force on April 10, 1710 we celebrate today,"

    I know this is worded in an anodyne way but... no. Nobody "celebrates" this.

    And after citicizing the censorial aspects of copyright, the author tries to shower praise on the Statute of Anne. "However, the political pressure for democratic reform eventually caught up with this system, and by 1695 it finally gave way for good. And that set the stage for the Statute of Anne to be enacted in 1710, which changed the approach to copyright entirely. While the Licensing Act of 1662 was “[a]n act for preventing the frequent abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed books and pamphlets,” the Statute of Anne was purposefully “[a]n act for the encouragement of learning.” Whereas the former was about government control over ideas, the latter was about spreading them. Instead of using royal printing licenses to administer the copy right as a means of controlling discourse, by its very design the Statute of Anne was meant to stimulate it."

    "And it did. Right away newspapers proliferated, public houses exploded with popularity (as they had during earlier periods when licensing statutes had lapsed), and democratic ideals flourished as tight government control over ideas yielded. "

    This implies that there is a "balance" between state control of ideas that is "too strict" (leading to censorship) and "just enough" regulation and control of speech (Statute of Anne) so as to "encourage" or "stimulate" works. What nonsense. So the Statue of Anne somewhat relaxed state censorial power, and that, plus the increasing use of the printing press, led to an explosion of publishing of ideas. This is not to the credit of copyright law! IT still led to the authors being subject to the whims of publishers, as they author admits in the next sentence, and as Prince put on his cheek with his "SLAVE" notice carved into his beard:

    "But while the structure of modern copyright law today looks much as it did following the Statute of Anne, its limiting effects on discourse now seem more similar to the period that preceded it."

    So what we really have is ALL state/church control of what can be said and what can be published distorts and limits free speech and freedom of the press. IT's not that "it was bad before the STatute of Anne, then good after 1710, then bad again after US copyright law got off on a wrong footing again in the 1900s." No. No. It was ALWAYS bad. The state's copyright law always restricts and distorts free speech and freedom of the press. IT did so then, before 1710; it did so after 1710; it does so now. THe ONLY solution is to totally abolish all copyright law. There is no balance. Asking for a "balance" is like saying "but if we abolish slavery who will pick the cotton? Maybe we need a balance. We'll have slaves pick the cotton for 6 months and be free for the other 6 months--we need to be reasonable, people! Abolition is too extreme!"

    "These rights were of limited duration, however, and the Statute of Anne further enhanced public discourse by creating a public domain."

    Praising a modern copyright law for "creating a public domain" is perverse. The DEFAULT in a free, private law system IS the public domain! The only reason there is NOT a public domain is BECAUSE OF COPYRIGHT LAW. Relaxing copyright censorship controls so that less work is forced behind a paywall and a bit more ekes out into the natural public domain is not to its credit. All you need to have a public domain is to just abolish copyright law. Copyright law never "creates" public domain works. All it can do is infringe on the public domain.

    I suggest people interested in the real history of this read Karl Fogel's more clear-eyed explanation here: "The Surprising History of Copyright and The Promise of a Post-Copyright World" https://questioncopyright.org/promise

  • On the post: Pai's FCC Crushes Rules That Brought More Broadband Competition To San Francisco

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2019 @ 04:51pm

    So you at techdirt have no free market or property principles

    at all. It's all just technocratic chirping; no principles at all.

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2019 @ 05:41am

    Re:

    So what? The point is that if you ask someone to tell you "how many" copyrights "they have" and then go on to say that it's easy to check by searching at the LOC, this is simply incorrect and belies a misunderstanding of copyright law.

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 09:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    For example https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=Kinsella+N.+Stephan&Search_Code=NALL&PID=nTlpCq2iKKc5N_eAeJvjfy8wdNi&SEQ=20190123000113&CNT=25&HIST=1

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 08:57pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    THis is not exactly correct. The fact is you do not need to register to get copyright; it is in fact automatic. And most copyrights are never registered.

    Nonetheless, to answer your pointless question I have lots of registered copyright that make money, for various publications such as Oxford and Oceana and others. So what?

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 02:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Missing the point

    "I'm talking about your repeated requests to multiple people to continue this conversation elsewhere, to move it away from here, where everyone is calling you on the crap you're posting, to a friendlier venue under your personal control." Oh. I'm offering to tutor you people for free. And to record it and broadcast it so others, who are similarly confused or ignorant, can learn from the instructions so given. If you want to turn down my offer--your loss.

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 01:40pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "The question is simple. Actually I can check the LOC to see how many are registered in your name "

    this is just registered copyrights. Those that people bother to register. And in the US. But since the US accession to the Berne copyright convention in the 1980s formalities are abolished. there is no need to register. Copyright is now automatic. So you don't know what you are talking about.

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 01:19pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Well that undermines the notion that only a copyright attorney is qualified to assess copyright law."

    Actually the question is not "copyright law" but normative issues: not what the law is, but what it should be. Copyright lawyers (of which I am one) are not any more qualified than laymen about the latter issue.

    "It also doesn't answer the question: how many profitable copyrights do you own?"

    I have already explained why this question is confused. No one knows how "many" copyrights they own. I "own" the copyrights already today in every comment I have posted here. Does this count as 10? AS for profitable--again, you don't count things as "a copyright". An author has one or more coyrights in a given work of authorship. I personally have made close to a million dollars from publishing legal treatises--outside of my work as a lawyer--but that doesn't make me think there "should be copyright".

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 12:39pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Missing the point

    "How many profitable copyrights does this person own?"

    Copyright doens't work like this. It's impossible to count "them". I have a copyright in the comments I just posted. How many is that? What's amazing to me is that people who know little about the law, like you, insist on having public opinions about it. Amazing.

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 12:38pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Missing the point

    Any decent human being will respect the rights of others" Did you ever learn what "question-begging" is?

  • On the post: Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

    Stephan Kinsella ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2019 @ 12:37pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Missing the point

    I'm not trying to make anything private. What are you talking about. I offered to tutor you and record the conversation and put it on my quite public podcast. Is this what you mean?

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