PopeRatzo 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Facebook Using DMCA Notices To Takedown Private Videos?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2008 @ 02:00pm

    I've had completely original videos, set to my own original music taken down the same way recently. Something very weird is going on.

    The only person who can possibly claim copyright to these videos is me, and I definitely did not make a DMCA notice.

    These were abstract videos with absolutely nothing that could be considered offensive, unless of course you find electronic dark ambient music offensive.

    We're going to find that there's pressure being exerted to have any video with ANY music taken down. Even when the music is original.

  • On the post: Gov't Computers Used To Dig Up Info On Joe The Plumber

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2008 @ 05:31pm

    It's how it's supposed to work

    "It's not entirely clear what the nature of those database lookups were"

    The information that was "dug up" on Joe "the Plumber" was public information available to anyone who asks. Here's how it works:

    #1: The Plumber's License (or Lack Thereof): You go to a municipal or state office and you ask if so-and-so is a licensed plumber. The person in the licensing body looks it up on a "government computer" and gives you the answer. Naturally, it will show up on a log. This is the way people find out if the guy that showed up on your doorstep with an unmarked van and box of wrenches is actually a plumber or not.

    #2: Joe "the Plumber"'s Tax Liens: All federal income tax liens are recorded with the Clerk of the Circuit Court's office. That's how ambulance chasing lawyers find out who to send the unsolicited mail to people with tax liens offering their services. Anybody who's had a tax lien can tell you all about the tons of unsolicited mail that comes to you with these offers. At the Clerk of the Circuit Court's offices here in Chicago, for example, you don't even have to ask for help. There are "government" computers lined up for the public to use to look up recent tax liens. It's all perfectly legal. Reporters do it ever day to find out what cases have been filed recently, looking for news. Naturally, there are logs kept.

    It's amazing that there is an outcry because people looked up Joe "The Plumber" on publicly open records, but practically nothing about NSA agents listening in on personal phone calls of Americans working overseas, including calls of a very personal nature, and then joking about it. Listening in on military personnel, reporters, aid workers, peace activists, contractors, and others.

  • On the post: Let's Be Honest About Bandwidth Rationing

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2008 @ 03:06pm

    You say that "Bandwidth is clearly an increasingly limited resource." But you don't back that statement up with data.

    It may be that the "limitations" placed on this "resource" are completely arbitrary and artificially created.

    The cost of increasing the amount of bandwidth available for everyone is nowhere near the amount that telecoms stand to profit from this artificial "bandwidth shortage" that they're starting to cry about.

    It has nothing to do with a physical limit and everything to do with a desire to blow up profits once again.

    It's very similar in fact, to the reason there so little public R&D money going into solar and wind energy. If we could power our homes from a windmill or panels on the roof, then no big company makes money, and we can't have that now, can we?

  • On the post: Self Plagiarism And The Creative Process

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2008 @ 03:33pm

    How is a joke different from a dance step? Why is it stealing when someone tells someone else's joke, but not if someone does an identical dance step?

    I can almost understand the notion that a formula for a wonderful, unique, say, window cleaner or cancer drug should be protected long enough for the innovator to be rewarded (I said innovator not "company who bought (or stole) the formula from the innovator".

    But if we're going to trivialize the notion of what constitutes "protected intellectual property" so that it covers jokes, it does nothing but point out just how ridiculous it is that any art should be copyrighted.

    The most obvious example to me is pop music. Most pop music is little more than a trivial chord progression over a beat. To call led zeppelin thieves for coming up with a song that's the same as one written by some old blues guy is silly, especially since the old blues guy probably got it from someone before him, maybe slaves working in the field.

    The bigger question is why should someone who plays pop music for a living have any expectation of great wealth? And why should someone who wrote a hit song in 1972 expect to be rich for the rest of his life off of the royalties from that one 3 minute opus? Ultimately, copyright probably does more to discourage creativity than to encourage it, which was the original purpose.

  • On the post: Is MySpace Music For Big Record Labels Only?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2008 @ 08:28am

    MySpace is so 2002.

    Yawn.

  • On the post: Michael Moore Embraces Free Distribution Of Latest Movie

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2008 @ 11:06am

    We can't believe Michael Moore because he's fat, and we can't attack Missy Palin because she's a "woman" and we can't say shit about McCain because he's a POW.

    It's kind of funny, but when you really fact check Michael Moore's movies, you'll find a lot more truth than you heard in any of the speeches from the Republican Convention this week.

    But did I mention that McCain is a POW? And that Michael Moore is fat?

    Bowling for Columbine was an extremely perceptive view of the US gun nut culture. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a very clear depiction of the Bush Administration and their use of the 9/11 attacks to gain political power and decimate the Constitution. Anybody who's been sick in the last 10 years can tell you that Sicko was right on the money.

    So, you don't like that Moore ambushed Charleton Heston? It made you squirm when Moore put some tough questions to GOP senators? Do you know why nobody ever fact checks the loony right-wing documentaries like "Expelled" or "Passion of the Christ"? Three guesses.

    One fact that's easy to check: Michael Moore has left several nice imprints of his big-ass sneakers on the backside of the GOP corporate shills, and he'll keep on doing it. He's the 21st century version of Tom Paine, who quite nicely exposed the ugliness and moral bankruptcy of King George, using pamphlets and essays that were also accused of being "imprecise".

  • On the post: Are 88% Of IT Admins Really On The Verge Of Stealing Sensitive Company Info?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2008 @ 10:17am

    Honestly, today's corporation would happily ruin the lives of thousands of workers by laying them off if it meant a temporary two dollar bump in their stock price.

    So why on earth would any worker feel obliged to have a shred of loyalty to their employer? It wasn't the workers who created the sense of hostility that exists between ownership/management and labor.

  • On the post: Do People Still Write Letters To The Editor?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2008 @ 06:11am

    If you were to read the op-ed pages of the New York Times or Washington Post, you would find that indeed people still do write letters to the editor.

    The problem is, they are all employees of Right-Wing think tanks, National Review wankers or conservative talk-show hosts.

  • On the post: Covering Up Any Brand In Beijing That Hasn't Paid To Sponsor The Olympics

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2008 @ 03:30pm

    It's nice that you inform us of this ridiculous over-stepping by the IOC regarding intellectual "property" and I'm glad that there will be much appropriate outrage here on Techdirt and on the internet.

    But be advised: Your excellent journalism and righteous outrage will mean approximately nothing. The corporations and the governments they now direct will roll right over the common sense of law, the sovereignty of countries, and the common interest of consumers.

    All we are for is working, borrowing and spending. There is a worldwide assault on the middle and working classes and it will not stop until our standard of living is barely above poverty, and we work 80 hours a week to pay off the credit cards with which we bought the consumer "goods".

    It's way too late to expect your pitiful righteous outrage to do any good. Are you ready to turn your back on your sucking consumerist lifestyle?

  • On the post: Is The iPhone App Kill Switch Really Such A Surprise?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2008 @ 04:54pm

    There is a lot to this story that impacts on the way people view the iPhone and Apple. It should not have taken a hacker discovering this "kill switch" for them to admit to it. The very idea that a company sells a product to consumers and retains the power to destroy (or even limit) that product's utility is something that consumers should absolutely not accept.

    Now that corporations are increasingly holding the reins of power in sovereign nations, it is time to establish a set of ground rules for what sort of behavior is acceptable and what is not. We have to fight this battle on many fronts. There is the record and movie industry that tries to establish a new type of ownership for the products they sell. You can no longer do what you wish with an album, with a DVD, with a computer (see:Vista), with software, even after you have bought and paid for that product.

    The fact that any consumers would accept this and actually buy an iPhone (or Vista, or a DVD, or...) is testament to the overarching power of the consumerist doctrine that is ruining the world.

  • On the post: Russia Looking To Ban Goth And Emo Music And Websites

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2008 @ 04:52am

    Didn't they try that before with Shostakovich?

    He was pretty emo, too.

  • On the post: Is The FCC Just Toying With XM And Sirius Now?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2008 @ 06:44pm

    The main thing I want to know about this merger is whether the FCC will require XM and Sirius to give back one of the broadcast licenses they have so it can be auctioned off.

    If they are going to be one company, then it's absolutely a breach of anti-trust for them to own both of the licenses for satellite broadcast.

    I know the last eight years have been one big pig-out for the corporations of America, but now that we've got some non-GOP lawmakers in Washington, they might want to start putting things back the way they're supposed to be.

    And by "supposed to be", I mean "according to the law".

  • On the post: Do J.R.R. Tolkien's Kids Deserve Money For The Lord Of The Rings Movies?

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2008 @ 05:11pm

    This is an easy one:

    No, JRR Tolkien's kids don't deserve money for Lord of the Rings. All they've got coming is any money their Dad left them.

    Trying to enforce a copyright after the author is dead is obscene. The idea of "intellectual property" is supposed to encourage creativity. How do you encourage creativity of a dead person? If Tolkien's kids want money, let them write their own books. Maybe it's time to stop trying to squeeze a dollar out of your daddy's corpse.

  • On the post: Microsoft Seeks Patent On Virtual Graffiti Years After The Idea Is In Use

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2008 @ 10:40am

    Why?

    So, how can this patent application possibly go through?

    Is it starting to sink in that these big corporations are openly hostile to the greater good? That they would readily forfeit the well-being of their customers if it meant a bump in their quarterly stock price?

    IMHO, these big corporations, and the rich that live off them, are simply begging for a class war. They'll be the first ones wailing and gnashing their teeth when that class war comes and they are confronted with their behavior.

  • On the post: Trent Reznor's Path To Accepting And Embracing New Business Models

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2008 @ 11:31am

    How much is enough?

    One important question when looking at this equation is: How much should a successful musician expect to make from a successful album? The "old" model, with rock stars and having a house on MTV "Cribs" and trashing hotel rooms and buying a castle in Scotland might have been just a wee bit unreasonable. Does a recording artist, even one who is widely heard, deserve to earn more than, say a surgeon or a programmer or even a clerk in Wal-Mart?

    Those are the questions that have to be answered, and I think they can only be answered by the next generation of recording artists, who will come up in an age of moderate success as opposed to "American Idol".

  • On the post: Everyone Panic: Teens Are Sending Each Other Naked Photos On Camera Phones

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2008 @ 10:41am

    Impossible!

    Oh. My. God.

    What's next, teenagers having sex? Or, God forbid, smoking pot?

    I think the first thing we need are congressional hearings, and then a full investigation by the Department of Homeland Morality. I'm sure there's some connection to terrorism, so the NSA should be granted unhindered power to tap these teenagers' cellular phones. We don't want the smoking gun to be a *gasp* NAKED VIDEO. Oh, and clearly they are getting the idea for these naked cellphone pictures from the Iranians, so we better bomb them RIGHT AWAY!

  • On the post: Bad Ideas: Instituting Artificial Scarcity To Annoy Fans Into Buying Now

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2008 @ 05:03pm

    Thank you, Milton Friedman

    This is what passes for a "free market" economy.

    False scarcity, indeed.

  • On the post: Older Gas Pumps Don't Go Above $4; But Don't Expect To Get Cheap Gas Out Of Them

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 05 May, 2008 @ 06:28am

    Re: Deja vu all over again

    Seriously? Gas was sold by the liter in the US? When (and where) was that?

  • On the post: Patriots Still Want 19-0 Trademark; So They Can Pretend They Had A Perfect Season

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2008 @ 11:41am

    Re: Pat Riley

    There's another difference:

    "Threepeat" is a neologism. "19-0" is a won-loss record that many teams have achieved in various sports and many more will in the future. If they are granted this trademark, our system is absolutely beyond repair and ought to be dismantled and/or ignored. Certainly subverted at every opportunity.

    I mean, if they had tried to trademark "The New England Patriots went 18-1 in 2007" it would make more sense than the notion of trademarking simply three digits and a dash.

    Can I trademark "411" and have every phone system in the world pay me? Or how about "911" and shut down every emergency system? Maybe I can trademark "69" and spoil a lot of couples' fun. Maybe I can trademark "867-5309" and never have to hear that awful song again. "Niiy-ee-eyeeen", indeed.

  • On the post: AT&T Lobbyist Predicts Doom & Gloom, Clogged Internet By 2010

    PopeRatzo ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2008 @ 01:44pm

    Re: I wish the major news orgs would beat up them...

    It's not that the major news orgs are "plain blind", Skeptic, but rather, they are totally complicit.

    Every major news organization is owned by a large corporation. Many of them also have interests in military contracting, transportation, manufacturing, and the entertainment industry. It is in their best interest to have a weak government with no regulatory power.

    They played stupid when there was still a chance to prevent this war in Iraq. They are playing stupid now when the same gang is trying to start a war with Iran. They will push John McCain at any cost (see the recent ABC "debate").

    The media is in no way a "victim" of the current regime. They are sitting side-by-side in the drivers seat.

    That's why it's crucial that strong net neutrality laws are enacted right away.

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