The Wanderer 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Netflix Bows Out Of Cannes After Festival Tells Streaming Services To Get Off Its Lawn

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2018 @ 08:04am

    Re:

    Hey, I have an idea! Movie creators: Why not release movies in the cinema and streaming services at the same time?
    Per discussion on this very page: under French law, that's apparently illegal. You're not allowed to release to streaming services for 36 months after the theatrical release, unless you have an exception under the law - and the only entity with an exception just has a 12-month lockout period instead. Exactly why that is the law is another question; if it's only in the law because the "movie creators" you're addressing asked for it to be, then your point may indeed be well-directed.

  • On the post: More Drug Lab Misconduct Results In Massachusetts Court Tossing Nearly 12,000 Convictions

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2018 @ 05:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tossing convictions is one thing.

    I think the idea is not that the comment section is full of nothing but sockpuppeting Techdirt staff, but that these accounts with the "zombie" posting patterns (which, by the nature of those posting patterns, are a small minority of all commenters) are sockpuppeting Techdirt staff.

    Still an unreasonable conclusion given the plausibility of the available alternatives (the main two of which you cite), but at least doesn't lead to the "if you're right, you're raising the alarm to nobody but yourself" fork-twist.

  • On the post: Latest EU Copyright Plan Would Ban Copyright Holders From Using Creative Commons

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2018 @ 08:16am

    Re: Re: He is just as absurd as de vos

    Surname overlap.

  • On the post: Ted Cruz Gets Section 230 All Wrong, While Zuck Claims He's Not Familiar With It

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2018 @ 06:16am

    Re: Have your cake and eat it too?

    I read "I'm not familiar with the text of the law that you're talking about" not as meaning "I don't know of any text in that law which says what you're talking about", but as meaning "I'm not familiar with what that law says, so I don't know whether it says what you're talking about". I can see room for the interpretation you mention, now that you've pointed it out and if I squint, but it's not at all obvious either that that is the correct interpretation (the one that Zuckerberg intended) or the one that e.g. Ted Cruz would take away from hearing it. As to what he should have said instead, "I don't know of any text in that law which says what you're talking about" would seem sufficient. Now, it's possible that there's no way he could have expressed that sentiment clearly without it being clear that he's saying "you're wrong", because that's exactly what that is saying - and that's exactly why I disagree that "you're wrong" is not an option. When a member of Congress says something that is blatantly untrue, it's just as legitimate to tell them that as it would be to do so with anyone else. (Alternatively, a request for clarification - "could you point me to the text in that statute which contains the language which imposes that requirement?", or something like that - might have gotten the job done, but would be at risk of seeming like just a passive-aggressive or condescending way of saying "you're wrong", and that's likely to result in a worse impression than just saying "you're wrong" up-front.)

  • On the post: Again, Algorithms Suck At Determining 'Bad' Content, Often To Hilarious Degrees

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2018 @ 05:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What was the tweet?

    I'm reasonably sure that the people who are reporting problems with such images not loading (properly) are using NoScript or similar, are being passive-aggressive about the fact that Websites which don't have an inherent need to be dynamic should work properly (at a basic level) without JavaScript, and are attempting to hint that giving sites which don't respect that principle a benefit by linking to them is something which should perhaps be avoided.

    I use NoScript myself, and wouldn't allow scripting from such a site just for the purpose of loading images (although I might manually edit page source in Firebug, or potentially do it less-manually with Greasemonkey, to enable myself to view a particular image) - but I haven't followed the links in question, and would have been unlikely to speak up here about the matter anyway. (Although knowing that the linked-to site does have that problem is something that's useful to me.)

  • On the post: Broadband Industry Aims To Use Facebook Fracas To Saddle Silicon Valley With Crappy New Laws

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2018 @ 08:20pm

    Re: This author has 'no earthly idea' what a natural monopoly is.

    Where do you get the idea that the author (of the article, I'm presuming, so Karl Bode) thinks that either of those things is a "natural monopoly"? Re your last line: a natural monopoly cannot be created, it can only be brought from irrelevance into relevance (by the advent of new technology that makes a previously-irrelevant bottleneck valuable), worked around (while it's relevant), or made obsolete (by the advent of new technology which renders the previous bottleneck irrelevant). If it was created, it's not a natural monopoly.

  • On the post: Politicians Who Said SESTA Was Needed To Takedown Backpage Claim Victory Over Backpage Takedown… Without SESTA

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2018 @ 08:12pm

    The best way to express that is to vote for a write-in candidate, even (possibly especially) a joke or otherwise nonexistent candidate. Just not voting at all means you aren't counted towards the total which defines "majority", so both of the candidates have an easier time winning, and it looks as if they both have more support (as a fraction of the electorate) than they actually do.

    (My brother refuses to vote not because he doesn't want to support any of the candidates in the race - although he often may not - but because he refuses to legitimize the system, which he considers to be so badly broken as to be irreparable from within, by participating in it.)

  • On the post: Federal Backpage Indictment Shows SESTA Unnecessary, Contains Zero Sex Trafficking Charges

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2018 @ 08:40am

    Re: prostitution vs. art

    One other possibly important difference in the case of porn: none of the participants in the sexual act are paying to do it, they're all being paid, by a non-participant. I don't know if the law specifically recognizes that as an important difference, but I suspect that it may.

    (Of course, that would just bring up the question of someone who's enough of a voyeurism fetishist to pay other people to have sex with each other just so he(?) can watch without participating, but I imagine there would be caveats in the law to account for that.)

    I do recall reading something a while back whose gist was that people had tried to put a veneer of legality over prostitution exactly by using the "see, a camera! we're making porn!" defense, and it didn't work out.

  • On the post: Broadband Industry Aims To Use Facebook Fracas To Saddle Silicon Valley With Crappy New Laws

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2018 @ 08:14am

    Re: Re:

    Not quite. What con men do is winning their customers' trust. Earning it is another matter altogether.

  • On the post: Federal Backpage Indictment Shows SESTA Unnecessary, Contains Zero Sex Trafficking Charges

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2018 @ 07:49am

    Alternate interpretation

    Predicted reaction of SESTA's supporters:

    "See? They couldn't bring any sex-trafficking charges against Backpage! This proves that we need SESTA, so that we can hold these people to account for their role in sex trafficking!"

  • On the post: Politicians Who Said SESTA Was Needed To Takedown Backpage Claim Victory Over Backpage Takedown… Without SESTA

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2018 @ 08:19pm

    I think the position he's attempting to argue is something like "any forum which is open to posting (or other relevant participation) from members of the general public, rather than only from members of a defined group, is by definition a public forum, and it's long-established that the First Amendment strictly limits the placing of restrictions on speech in any public forum".

    (Examples of a "members of a defined group only" forum would include e.g. a company-internal mailing list, or a discussion-forum Website where only people with accounts can post and you only get an account with the direct approval of the site's moderators, or suchlike.)

    Where that fails is in the fact that "public forum" as the term is used in First Amendment jurisprudence has its own definition, which is quite distinct from the one which he appears to subscribe to (and which I've attempted to paraphrase above); the mismatch between those definitions renders the conclusions he reaches invalid.

  • On the post: Politicians Who Said SESTA Was Needed To Takedown Backpage Claim Victory Over Backpage Takedown… Without SESTA

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2018 @ 07:27am

    Er... where do you get "I didn't vote at all" from "I didn't vote in any of the current officeholders"?

    I think it's considerably more likely that the person voted for someone else, who then lost the election.

    (Another possibility is that the person wasn't eligible to vote, but that seems unlikely in this instance.)

  • On the post: Sex Workers Fighting Back Against SESTA/FOSTA With Their Own Social Network… And Plan To Expose Politicians

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2018 @ 04:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Now...

    It's not quite that simple; if people vote on things they don't know about, or possibly even don't understand, that doesn't help and may in fact make things worse. A mandate that everyone vote (which I understand exists in some countries) would not necessarily be a good thing even in terms of outcomes, never mind individual freedom.

    The current status quo in voting participation, however, is well short of even "everyone who knows what they're voting for or against actually does vote", much less "everyone, even people who have no idea what the issues are, votes" - so getting more people to actually bother to vote would indeed do a great deal to help the situation.

  • On the post: Cali Lawmakers Pushing For 72-Hour Bot Removal Requirements For Social Media Companies

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2018 @ 10:53pm

    Re: Re:

    ECA, is that you? Did you forget to log in?

  • On the post: Patent Troll Sues Spotify, SoundCloud And Deezer Over Patent On A 'Music Organizer And Entertainment Center'

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2018 @ 09:44am

    Re: Re: Re: I didn't realize Spotify was selling a music playing computer.

    Actually, it specifically states "sound card functions", i.e., the functions provided by a sound card.

    Those functions are still present even if what provides them is integrated hardware rather than an add-in board.

    The real question is whether the fact that the company being sued does not control the hardware which includes such a device is enough to insulate them from liability, when considered vs. the fact that their software system cannot meaningfully do anything useful without such a device being present at some point in the pipeline.

    I'd probably be inclined to decide that it is, but I can see how others (especially the less technically savvy and/or rigidly legalistically minded) might decide otherwise.

  • On the post: License Plate Reader Company Says Public Records Requests For ALPR Documents Are Just Clickbait

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2018 @ 08:38am

    Re: Let me paraphrase

    Well, the thrust of it is more "if people hear the twisted version of what we're doing that the EFF tries to present, they will be scared into giving the EFF money to help stop us from doing it".

    The premise that the EFF's version is twisting the truth rather than representing it honestly is the point of dispute.

  • On the post: Patent Troll Sues Spotify, SoundCloud And Deezer Over Patent On A 'Music Organizer And Entertainment Center'

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2018 @ 07:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Prior art

    "Underpaid patent office" != "underpaid patent officers".

    The suggestion is that the patent office itself does not have enough money to pay enough people to process patents thoroughly enough (that ones which should be rejected always do get rejected, and ones which shouldn't don't) while still doing so quickly enough to avoid having an oversized backlog.

  • On the post: Comcast's Top Lobbyist Is Pushing A Net Neutrality 'Compromise' That Isn't

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2018 @ 09:04am

    Re:

    Why do you object to the use of elision to avoid the need to type "the Trump administration's FCC" every time one wants to distinguish between the current incarnation of the FCC and one or more of the previous incarnations thereof?

  • On the post: Not Everything Needs Copyright: Lawyers Flip Out That Photos Taken By AI May Be Public Domain

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2018 @ 04:17am

    Re: Re:

    (Nit: "copyrighted", or "under copyright", or "covered by copyright".

    The only thing that is literally copyright is copyright itself.)

    That's a very interesting question; I can see arguments being made in both directions. If there have been any court cases on that point, I'd be interested to learn of them. (A quick Google search on naive terms didn't find anything that seems relevant.)

  • On the post: Attorney General Says Texas Cops Can View All The Camera Footage They Want Before Being Questioned

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2018 @ 09:04am

    Re: Is this really that big of a deal?

    But not before someone tries to question you.

    (Also, requesting footage doesn't mean you'll get it, much less get it in advance of questioning - whereas under this rule an accused cop would be explicitly entitled to it.)

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