Free Capitalist 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Google Considers Leaving China If China Will Not Allow Uncensored Search

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2010 @ 12:37pm

    Not Guilty by Association

    Google should stop considering and start packing. Censorship is the wrong business for the world leading search provider to engage.

    It might just be me, but ever since Google and Yahoo started working with the Chinese, other (formerly) democratic countries, like Australia, and certain members of the EU, have been falling over themselves trying to "catch up" on the censorship curve.

    In my mind, censorship is the worst evil a search company could possibly commit. It is pretty alarming how much leeway mainstream media seems to be willing to give on this front these days.

  • On the post: Well Respected VC Firm Comes Out In Favor Of Independent Invention Defense Against Patent Infringement Lawsuits

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2010 @ 11:23am

    This is truly classic (from the statement):

    In a side note, one troll accepted services from our portfolio company in lieu of cash because the troll could not technically do the thing that our company was accused of copying so we are providing them with the capability. The irony there kills me. It feels a little like being forced to dig your own grave before being shot.



    That little anecdote is going on my cube wall. Truth hurts donuts.

  • On the post: Fair Use And Films: Does Running Everything By The Lawyers Really Improve Your Film?

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2010 @ 10:11am

    Re:

    Welcome to Techdirt. Enjoy the themes. Chain your own metaphors. Actually most readers here will think you are making lazy comments about another POST.

    Come ON TAM, you can do better than that!

  • On the post: Reading Between The Still Secret Lines Of The ACTA Negotiations

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2010 @ 09:52am

    I'm reading a gigantic finger between the lines of the pro-ACTA arguments, and it's presented squarely in the direction of free speech and free commerce.

  • On the post: Dear Rock Stars: Please Stop Claiming You're Just Interested In Helping Up-And-Coming Artists

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2010 @ 12:59pm

    Re: Re:

    "What record labels, radio stations, and the like have done for us in the past is to narrow the field enough that we didn't have to go wading through the noise to find something we like. They dealt with the noise and extracted some interesting stuff for us."


    I found the "we tell you what to like" service somewhat useful while growing up in the 70's in the country, in a town with 1 bar and two country cover bands, without Internet.

    Today I prefer the choices I get from any of the myriad computerized record company executives available to the masses. Maybe its because I tell the 'bots what I like... not the other way around.

  • On the post: Anti-Piracy Group In Spain Fined For Bad Faith Actions Against File Sharing Systems

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 25 Nov, 2009 @ 07:09am

    Re: Does Spain Actually "Get It"?

    Forgot link to mpaa press release (I'm sure it was already discussed here)

    The World Is The MPAA's

  • On the post: Anti-Piracy Group In Spain Fined For Bad Faith Actions Against File Sharing Systems

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 25 Nov, 2009 @ 06:57am

    Does Spain Actually "Get It"?

    This article reminded me of the MPAA's press release where they were creaming themselves over the "Special 301" that came out of USTR this past April.

    The release restates just how the MPAA would like to influence the laws domestically and abroad:

    It is, therefore, imperative that U.S. trading partners have effective legislative frameworks for protecting creative content online and that they enforce intellectual property rights in the digital environment.


    This paragraph once again shows just how "special" they think they are. While everyone else has to rely on personally funded civil litigation to prove a case where their rights have been violated, they are pressing governments to "just forget about" the burden of proof and become their personal IP policemen.

    But they go on to call out Canada, Russia, China and Spain as an axis-of-evil, and have a go at the "situation" in Spain:
    Internet piracy in Spain has reached an epidemic level, undermining the development of legitimate online commerce and damaging both U.S. and Spanish creators. There is strong local support in Spain for increased cooperation with ISPs but, to date, MPAA has been disappointed by the lack of concrete results.


    Of course the "cooperation" they are after is the ability to cut off Internet connections at the drop of a dime.

    To me it seems like this level of shameless belligerence in public truly is only matched by well connected Mafia-like organizations. And considering the behavior illustrated in the linked article I would not at all be surprised if the SGAE is just a local puppet of a world-wide criminal organization with intent to directly manipulate the legal systems of the "first world" to their bidding.

    It sounds to me like the Spanish either a) "Get it", and are offended by a commercial enterprise trying to usurp their legal system, or, b) were largely ignored during the most recent rounds of political payoffs and are allowing the public image of a) to take hold.

    Either way. HAHahahAhahahaha. Not yet above the law in Spain.

  • On the post: Once Again, If The Gov't Has Data, It Will Be Abused

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 24 Nov, 2009 @ 10:35am

    Re:

    These private entities have no obligation to protect my information and have an interest in exploiting it...a recipe for disaster


    Actually, that is not true. The types of corporations you mentioned are obligated to keep your personally identifiable information private. Fourth Amendment protection applies to financial records.

    That's not to say they always do that well, or that none of these companies would every try to cover up a leak. However there is a law.

  • On the post: The Lobbyists' Ability To Control The Message

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2009 @ 07:25am

    Re: Re: Do us a favor

    Congress kills the free market.


    Agreed. There is no free market with congress setting the ground rules.

    To me what we have seems like the twisted progeny of the entrenched mercantilism/statism system from the 19th century. Sure we've gone to paper currency and dropped the "fixed" view of mercantilism, but the mechanism seems entirely unchanged over 150 years.

    Free market gets a lot of lip service, but unfortunately the term is attributed to a system entirely different from the definition.

  • On the post: Cable Industry Joins MPAA In Asking FCC To Allow Them To Stop Your DVR From Recording Movies

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 10:16am

    Technotcracy

    Can't you see that every "awesome new consumer-friendly technology" needs a government mandate to make it in today's market.

  • On the post: Don't Post Comments On StlToday.com Or They Might Tell Your Boss

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 08:35am

    Re: Got more of the scoop

    DID the right thing and contacted the school, as it could have been a student posting VULGAR remarks.


    At first I thought, "wow, what a petty, vindictive, free-speech-hating ass to have dropped dime over an absurd comment".

    Then I read your comment and remembered that the first amendment had been suspended "for the children" in the 80's.

    There's no moral panic like the moral panic created by the possibility of foul-mouthed children existing in our public school system.

  • On the post: Massively Increasing Music Licensing Fees For Clubs Down Under Massively Backfires

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2009 @ 09:20am

    Re: Re: Jamendo

    It is not stated that this end-around traditional licensing organizations is based upon a "free" model.


    I do not see where this can be described as an "end-around" at all. They are simply cutting out a particularly greedy collection society by choosing not to play the music they license.

    They would have to somehow arrive at the same product for this to be an "end-around"... unless you're saying this collection society has the right to collect on all music everywhere... which is exactly what some of these self-righteous, navel-gazing beggars seem to think.

  • On the post: Police Allowed To Hang Onto Seized Computers For Anti-Piracy Group, Despite No Gov't Prosecution

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2009 @ 08:09am

    Re:

    Back to the days of Longshanks, huh?!


    Update to Braveheart:
    "The problem with the Internet, is that its full of users."

  • On the post: Google Doesn't Rely On Intellectual Property For Its Leadership Position

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2009 @ 07:51am

    Re: Google would not exist without patent protection

    Google made it very, VERY clear that they felt the PageRank patent was defensible and that they would sue if any attempt was made to duplicate it within Yahoo (and Yahoo legal agreed with them.) If it was not for the protection of the patent system, Yahoo would have copied and crushed Google by 2001 and they would have been lucky to get bought by Microsoft for maybe a billion or so.


    That is the same that I heard in the trenches.

    PageRank brought people to Google. Pay-per-click monetized the traffic.

    The value of PageRank for the average user has sadly declined with fraud and over-zealous SEO. However, Pay-per-click is alive and well, and making Google (and a few others) plenty of money to keep them out of the "litigate for profit" business model.

    Google did rely on IP to reach maturity, but they use an open business model to survive and thrive today.

  • On the post: Google Doesn't Rely On Intellectual Property For Its Leadership Position

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2009 @ 01:18pm

    Re: Moderate the blog comments

    "Nay" to more moderation.

    The comments really only represent the blog reader's musings, and are already moderated to an extent. Name calling is part of the political process as we have seen, and I think "punky abortion victim" is just as valid as "communist terrorist free america-hater" when it comes this practice.

    I think angry dude actually adds value somewhat... but that's just me.

  • On the post: UK Gov't Official: Innocent People Won't Get Kicked Off The Internet; Trust Us

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2009 @ 12:57pm

    Another well paid tool heard from

    "hardly anybody, other than the most serious and egregious recidivistic offenders"


    Well at least he was properly bought and paid for, I'm sick and tired of hearing from "free" politicians. They're coming for the Raporists!

    The one bright spot, at least, is that the EU is requiring an avenue for appeal through judicial review. Hopefully this will be a more tangible justice than the French 3-strikes law in place.

  • On the post: Google Doesn't Rely On Intellectual Property For Its Leadership Position

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2009 @ 12:27pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Oh man, a troll on troll thread starring angry dude. I would have paid for this click.

  • On the post: Microsoft's COFEE Computer Forensic Tools Leaked

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2009 @ 09:48am

    Better in the Open

    It is very curious that the admins pulled this torrent. I wonder if there was pressure from some entity, and if so, who? Could this have been DMCA action from MS?

    In my opinion it is better that hacker tools (used for "legitimate reasons", or otherwise) are kept in the open, available for public review. For law enforcement, there should be no confidential method of obtaining evidence... otherwise how can they claim they even have a chain of evidence?

    But to be more salacious, MS has a history of releasing their operating systems with undocumented functions. It would be in the public's best interest to know just how secure they are when they license an operating system.

    But more to the point of security, it is far easier to detect and defend against known threats than against the unknown.

    Either way, whether the code is public or not is kind of a moot point. Real hackers can reverse engineer anything, especially operating systems.

    There was a big "pantiesinabunchcident" about SATAN back in 95 or so, and I think the world is much better off for having had the tool during that period of Internet proliferation.

  • On the post: Does The White House Have Any Legal Right To Demand No Modifications To Its Photos?

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2009 @ 03:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    and also, I appreciate what you're taking the time to illustrate here in this forum.

    "Free your mind, your ass will follow". Live free as best you can no matter where you live.

  • On the post: Does The White House Have Any Legal Right To Demand No Modifications To Its Photos?

    Free Capitalist ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2009 @ 02:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I'm pretty sure I understand what your writing DH, but my point is that, at least in this country, the art of centralizing control of government to serve the interests of established corporations has clearly evolved beyond the original definition of the word fascism.

    I would also still argue that the reality of corporations controlling the government does not fall into the original context of a state/authoritarian controlled economy that defined fascism.

    Call me a Grammar Nazi, as that's the role I'm playing here. All I'm saying is that it is because of the images the word "fascist" conjures, calling the current method of government pandering to corporations "fascist" would mislead the common, somewhat educated person who would be looking for a pronounced dictator to verify the claim of "fascism".

    The word fascism carried with it a certain... I don't know... penchant (in the past before it was over-used) for creating a "moral panic", and thus it was favored by the hippies and follow on practitioners of modern liberalism (I'm not identifying "The Democratic Party" here... not by a long shot).

    However I think the modern practice deserves a better, more precise word/term to define its nature. If we need a term that evokes more loathe than "Corporate Republic", perhaps "Shadow Government Fuck The Little Guy Raporism" would suffice? I'm not that great of a wordsmith, however.

    I also agree with Lobo's assessment of the President being more image and puppet than executive or even CIC.

    We do both agree that it is a small number of people who wield true power in government, and they don't seem to play for us.

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