Bruce E 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: 200-Plus Scholars Speak Out Against American Psychological Association's Violence/Gaming Study

    Bruce E ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2015 @ 08:26am

    Science is the art of...

    Science is the art of not fooling oneself. The rest is all details.

  • On the post: Congressional Rep Makes A Pull Request On GitHub, Which Is Then Merged By US Gov't CIO

    Bruce E ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2015 @ 01:31pm

    Key signatures

    I'd hope that all congressional staffers have personal signing keys that get signed by a key for the congressperson, and all changes be signed.

  • On the post: World's Most Honest Candidate Gets IndieGoGo Funding For Kentucky Senate Race

    Bruce E ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2014 @ 11:38am

    Humour & Truth

    Although humour and truth have always been closely related, it seems that humour is the only way to access the truth these days. Examples are The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, its spinoffs The Colbert Report and Last Week with John Oliver, plus pranksters like The Yes Men and now this.

  • On the post: Why The Supreme Court Needs To Make Sure That Selling A Used iPad Isn't A Copyright Violation

    Bruce E ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2012 @ 03:56pm

    Have your cake and eat it too

    It seems to me the SCOTUS has made a logical error. If the Copyright Act does not apply to goods manufactured outside the country, then I could take one of those goods and make copies and the putative copyright owner is not afforded protections. Or, if they are afforded protections then the first sale doctrine applies. You can't have both (protections but no first sale doctrine).

  • On the post: Forget Wiretapping Laws, Now You Might Be Able To Use Copyright Law To Stop Anyone From Recording You Ever

    Bruce E ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2011 @ 07:36am

    Separate copies

    Hold on. From the initial description, it sounds like Bloomberg makes their own recording of the call. So we have two separate recordings of the same call. What makes one recording take precedence over the other? My impression is that each has copyright over their own recording and can control copies of their own recording, but not the other.

    That's why the thing that prevents people from recording concerts is the fine-print agreement language (contract?) on the ticket, not copyright law.

    B

  • On the post: Obama Quietly Issues Ruling Saying It's Legal For The FBI To Break The Law On Accessing Phone Records

    Bruce E ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2010 @ 01:33pm

    Re: Re: President slowly becoming king

    I'm not talking specifically about Obama or Bush for that matter, but rather about the series of Presidents and how their power shifts over time.

    With respect to healthcare legislation/reform being passed (or rather not passed) is certainly an example where the the two legislative houses are exercising their power and the President only has political power (and is seems little of it) in that process.

    However, these signing memos (in which the President signs a law but attaches some sort of note or letter saying that he and the executive are going to ignore parts of the legislation) and other actions, such as warrantless wiretapping (without the special court's overview) and declarations by their lawyers that, say, certain things that the general public would call torture are not to be considered torture, are all ways in which the Office's power are increasing.

    And speaking of the torture memos, these were documents by lawyers representing the upper executive in their official capacity, saying that they thought X was legal. And now everyone takes that as a fait accomplis that it is legal. WTF? That's like a person hiring a lawyer, the one specifically that gives the indication that they are willing to write a justification that, say, murdering someone who is harrassing you is legal, and then saying "well, that's it, their lawyer told them it was legal so it must be".

    What happened to the courts trying people, such as senior executive? I understand that the equivalent for the President (Bush) and Cheney (VP) would be impeachments which is largely a quasi-judicial political process, but what about people who "just went along"?

  • On the post: Obama Quietly Issues Ruling Saying It's Legal For The FBI To Break The Law On Accessing Phone Records

    Bruce E ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2010 @ 10:28am

    President slowly becoming king

    Apart from term limits, which have been honoured, it appears that the role of the President of the United States is being morphed into that of a King. Ironic, since kings/queens for countries like Canada and Britain have long been titular heads of state only.

  • On the post: David Pogue Weighs In On Ebook DRM: Non-DRM'd Ebook Increased His Sales

    Bruce E ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2009 @ 11:36am

    Lower Prices

    It seems to me that the experiment points towards offering the electronic version at a very low price in a very convenient format (or formats).

    The physical book and the ebook are two different markets (even if some customers are in both markets). The mistake of the booksellers is equating these two markets. If the price of the ebook is only marginally lower than the physical book, then it neither satisfies the physical book market (people who don't like ebook readers, who value the physical copy) and it doesn't satisfy the ebook market, where the vast majority get free copies from the small minority who buy the ebook.

    Instead, if the ebook was offered at a significant discount to the physical book, I would guess that the total revenue from ebooks would rise significantly even though the revenue per customer was lower (see music and iTunes, where the convenience of the electronic marketplace coupled with the low per-item cost results in significant sales in spite of the non-DRM nature of the product). And the physical book market probably wouldn't be adversely affected based on the results of this experiment.

    I think the experiment needs to be repeated with a lower ebook price.

  • On the post: Morons In A Hurry Can Raise Their Glasses Of Glenora Whisky Proudly Again

    Bruce E ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2009 @ 07:20pm

    Re: Whisky vs. Whiskey

    Perhaps it is a protestant/catholic thing, like I think Mac is protestant and Mc is catholic prefix for "of" or "son of". People think of it as Irish/Scottish but it is more likely catholic/protestant???

  • On the post: The Constitutional Problems With The Award In The Jammie Thomas Case

    Bruce E ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2009 @ 09:02am

    Re: The damages are within the law

    Your car analogy is poor. If you rear-end a car, that driver does not have a choice as to whether or not to rear-end the other car. Their car is literally forced.

    If you share a music file, the receiver has a choice whether to further share it. They may not have been able to further share without you having shared it in the first place, but they do have a choice.