radix 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (282)

• On the post: Trademark Opposition Stupidly Prevents Indians Pitcher Shane Bieber From Telling Everyone He's 'Not Justin'

  

  radix ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2020 @ 12:55pm

  Trademarks are useful marketing tools. -> The USPTO is a key entity in marketing. -> The opposition process can be used in the overall marketing strategy.

  I've never heard of this company before. Now I have. Mission accomplished.

• On the post: How Years Of Copyright Maximalism Is Now Killing Pop Music

  

  radix ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2020 @ 09:47am

  It fails to make a distinction between theft and echo

  Ooof. The New York Times just lost that Teespring ad contract.

• On the post: Apple Filed A Silly, Questionable DMCA Notice On A Tweeted iPhone Encryption Key… Before Backing Down

  

  radix ( profile ), 13 Dec, 2019 @ 12:52pm

  09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

  And #FF00FF just for good measure.

• On the post: New Bill Would Force Hardware Makers To Disclose Hidden Mics, Cameras

  

  radix ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2019 @ 02:07pm

  They aren't perfect, but I think food nutrition labeling requirements are a good model to start with on this front.

  Standardized fonts, colors, and sizes in a conspicuous place on the exterior packaging that state clearly whether there are cameras, microphones, and wifi or other antennas. You could even add in some (audited) power consumption stats for operating and standby modes while we're there.

• On the post: Elizabeth Warren's Feud With Facebook Over 'False' Ads Just Highlights The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale

  

  radix ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2019 @ 10:14am

  Hard factual claims can be hard enough to judge in many cases, but politicians only become successful when they have the ability to speak out of both sides of their mouths. Every claim is full of half-truths, opinions, and spin that could be considered truthful from a certain point of view. Giving any government regulatory organization the power to make those judgments is stupid, dangerous, and antithetical to American values.

  Given that political bluster is often played up just to get people to the polls, it's hard to say how much of this 1st Amendment antagonism is really what she believes vs what she thinks she has to say to win. That said, even the more charitable interpretation is still normalizing direct attacks on discourse in America, and that should never be glossed over.

• On the post: Anti-Safe Space Crusader Bret Stephens Apparently Needs A Safe Space: Backs Out Of Bedbug Debate

  

  radix ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2019 @ 01:27pm

  Re:

  You know what else has a yellow belly? Bedbugs, coincidentally.

• On the post: Deputy Attorney General Rosen: Companies Like Facebook Are Making Everyone Less Safe By Offering Encryption

  

  radix ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2019 @ 08:51am

  Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.

  As long as law enforcement defines their own job as "catching the bad guys," they have a vested interest in the continued supply of "bad guys." Strong (aka, effective) encryption disrupts that.

  If people can't be easily victimized, the whole law enforcement industry becomes less important.

• On the post: Surprise! Buzzfeed Links Bogus Net Neutrality Comments Directly To Broadband Industry

  

  radix ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2019 @ 08:18am

  Re: Gee, so many negatives.

  Everybody already has free credit monitoring. Maybe apply for a settlement check of up to approximately $2.13?** ** Supplies limited, application does not guarantee approval, attorney's fees will be deducted, average payment is $0.46.

• On the post: US Courts Rep Ignores Everything About The Internet, Says PACER Access Can Never Be Free Because It Costs Money To Operate

  

  radix ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 01:03pm

  My company just happens to sell hosting and search services for digital and physical media such as those PACER indexes. In fact, we have a number of US court systems as current customers! None pay anywhere near $1m/year, let alone $100m.

• On the post: Just As Everyone Predicted: EU Copyright Directive's Link Tax Won't Lead To Google Paying Publishers

  

  radix ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 10:21am

  Complying with the law = evading the law

  The EU has just one move left: the Aereo maneuver.

  It has done its legislative job so well/horribly that the spirit of the law directly contradicts the letter of the law, so they get to argue that no matter what Google does, it's in violation.

• On the post: Verizon Can't Stop Over-hyping 5G; This Time In NFL Stadiums

  

  radix ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2019 @ 08:07am

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqnl7Ng9KfQ

  "If Verizon can do this for the NFL, imagine what it can do for you."

  My first thought after seeing this on Sunday: If Verizon can only deliver this to fewer than half the stadiums, at a cost only affordable to one of the richest sports leagues in the world...I can certainly imagine what this means to me, it's not terribly flattering to Verizon.

• On the post: Third Circuit Says TSA Officers Can Be Sued Directly For Abuses And Rights Violations

  

  radix ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2019 @ 01:09pm

  I guess I can't necessarily blame the government for arguing, presumably with a straight face, that physical body searches are less intrusive than administrative paperwork.

  After all, their own boss is setting the culture that the release of tax records is more personally offensive than "pussy grabbing."

• On the post: Guy Sues Facebook For Violating Basically All The Laws, For Shutting Down His Account And For Everything Else Bad Facebook Has Ever Done

  

  radix ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2019 @ 02:15pm

  This raises many questions, but the most interesting one is, how long is it going to take before Robert Zimmerman goes full Thomas Goolnik?

• On the post: Gutting Section 230 Will Harm The Most Marginalized

  

  radix ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2019 @ 03:04pm

  Re:

  Something something neutral public platform bullshit.

• On the post: Gutting Section 230 Will Harm The Most Marginalized

  

  radix ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2019 @ 02:09pm

  Re: Well, yeah...

  The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
  H. L. Mencken

• On the post: Gutting Section 230 Will Harm The Most Marginalized

  

  radix ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2019 @ 02:20pm

  Scaling back speech that wouldn't otherwise have a voice is a feature of these proposals, not a bug.

  The internet, and in particular user-generated media, has leveled the playing field making once-loud voices softer, and once-quiet voices louder. The problem some people have with this isn't that Facebook/Google/Twitter are now gatekeepers, it's that people are foregoing the traditional gatekeepers altogether.

• On the post: Company Sues Blackhat Because People Mocked Their Sponsored Presentation And Called It Snake Oil

  

  radix ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2019 @ 11:58am

  Going to argue in court that their attempted bribe didn't work....bold strategy, Cotton.

• On the post: The DOJ's Plan To 'Fix' The T-Mobile Merger Isn't Going To Work

  

  radix ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2019 @ 09:14am

  T-Mo & Sprint's entire justification for the merger is that the new whole will be greater than the sum of the parts. i.e. Separately, they are not viable competitors in the market: 0.4 + 0.4 = 1.0.

  Not happy with the math, the DOJ instead proposes that they are actually bigger than that, and the combination will be too large: 0.6 + 0.6 = 1.2, so they must remove the extra bits: 1.2 - 0.2 makes 1.0 and 0.5. Equation solved!

• On the post: For All Of Trump's Complaints About Social Media 'Censorship', The White House Itself Moderates Content Similarly To Social Media Sites

  

  radix ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2019 @ 02:12pm

  Re: Re:

  I think you're misunderstanding what I (attempted to) say. Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been (it happens often, unfortunately). Let me re-phrase: Private companies are not "bound by" the first amendment in the same way government is. This is indisputable. The downside to phrasing it this way is that people will selectively read this to understand that companies and the first amendment have nothing to do with one another, when in actuality, companies are protected by the first amendment in the same way citizens are. "Congress shall make no law", indeed. The pro-regulation people are calling for exactly such an unconstitutional law. By disconnecting companies and the 1A protections they enjoy, it makes this hypocrisy less clear. I think it's important to reinforce the message that people who are whining the loudest about "censorship" are the very same people who are proposing the censorship of corporate speech! Hopefully that was more clear? This is why I don't write professionally. :)

• On the post: For All Of Trump's Complaints About Social Media 'Censorship', The White House Itself Moderates Content Similarly To Social Media Sites

  

  radix ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2019 @ 01:05pm

  the First Amendment (which they, as private companies, are not bound by)

  I understand what you're saying, but I think this is the wrong way to frame it. The First Amendment absolutely applies to private companies, just in the other direction than the pro-regulation crowd is wanting. (The difference is between "bound by" and "applies to," but I think it's important to hammer home the fact that support of private moderation is a protection of the 1A rather than a violation.)

  The freedom that companies enjoy to speak their own minds have resulted in the Citizens United case that the right has traditionally defended vigorously. It takes some Olympic-level mental gymnastics to try to have it both ways.

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