The Wanderer 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Congressman's Office Gets High School Student Suspended For Expressing His Displeasure With Congress

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2018 @ 08:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Dishing it out?

    Wow. I didn't expect to get Insightful for this; if the system supported such a thing, I'd have thought I'd be more likely to get downvoted for being unnecessarily pedantic.

    (...is there such a thing as being "necessarily" pedantic, or would that be a contradiction in terms?)

  • 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 @ 06:44am

    Re: Re: So...wait a month before producing third-party witness footage?

    ...what does communism vs. capitalism have to do with the subject?

  • On the post: Aussie Rightsholders Look To Feature Creep Site-Blocking To Search-Blocking, Because Of Course They Are

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2018 @ 04:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stop letting them refer to their content as "property"

    I believe that funding road upkeep is in theory one of the purposes of the gas tax. (And of course, there's always toll roads, the number of which I think is on the rise.)

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

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2018 @ 09:17am

    Re: Copyright ownership is clear

    When I create something (e.g. take a picture), the law simultaneously creates a copyright to link me with that thing.

    When something which is not a person creates something, the law takes no such action, and no copyright is created.

    The copyright is separate from the created thing, and must itself be created separately - and although copyright maximalists hav been largely successful in getting that separate creation to occur automatically in many cases, there are still cases where it does not, and "creation by something which is neither a person nor an association of people" is one of the major exceptions.

  • On the post: Court Shows SESTA Is Not Needed: Says Backpage Can Lose Its CDA 230 Protections If It Helped Create Illegal Content

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2018 @ 06:26am

    ...I can't believe I only just noticed that "FOSTA/SESTA" is phonetically very similar to "foster sister".

    A bit unwieldy as a nickname, unfortunately...

  • On the post: Aussie Rightsholders Look To Feature Creep Site-Blocking To Search-Blocking, Because Of Course They Are

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2018 @ 04:48am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Stop letting them refer to their content as "property"

    Are you sure? I don't remember a recurring vehicle tax on either of my two cars.

    There is a fee for the license plate, representing the license which permits me to drive them on public roads - but that's not for ownership of the car itself, and in theory driving a car without one on private property would be legal with the permission of the owner of that property. (In fact, IIRC one of my two cars no longer has such a license, and indeed I don't drive it.)

  • On the post: It Took All Of Three Hours To Code A Plugin That Makes News Comments More Civil

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2018 @ 04:53pm

    Re: Re: What A Complete Waist Of Tax Payers Money

    Myself, I couldn't decide whether "censer" was worth a plus or a minus.

  • On the post: Congressman's Office Gets High School Student Suspended For Expressing His Displeasure With Congress

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2018 @ 08:08am

    Re: Re: Dishing it out?

    Strictly speaking, "fuck" isn't vulgar; it's obscene. (Relating to matters sexual.)

    "Shit", on the other hand, is vulgar. (Relating to bodily functions, or at least the more unmentionable such.)

    (And "damn" would be profane - relating to matters religious.)

  • On the post: Aussie Rightsholders Look To Feature Creep Site-Blocking To Search-Blocking, Because Of Course They Are

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2018 @ 08:47pm

    Re: Re: Stop letting them refer to their content as "property"

    Not all property is subject to property tax; as far as I'm aware, it's mainly real estate (land and buildings constructed thereon) which gets taxed that way. Cars, computers, televisions, phones, armchairs, tables, carpets, trash cans, clocks, lamps, dishes, silverware, clothing, beds, and so on and so forth, are all forms of property, and very few if any of them are taxed in any jurisdiction. Those who call these other things "intellectual property" would counter your implied argument by simply asserting that they're among the many types of property which are not subject to property tax. (Of course, given that - unlike so many of the listed types of property, but like real estate - these other things are amenable to rent-seeking practices, maybe a property tax would be appropriate...)

  • On the post: Once Again, Algorithms Can't Tell The Difference Between 'Bad Stuff' And 'Reporting About Bad Stuff'

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2018 @ 07:10am

    Re: Re: Re: A bit off-topic, but...

    I parsed Richard's "at that point in time Communism was a murderous cult" as containing an implicit "generally seen as being" - i.e., he was talking about what those saying and hearing that "First they came for the Communists" speech would have understood Communism to be, not necessarily what those practicing it (or attempting to do so) understood it to be, much less what it actually was.

  • On the post: Insanity Wins As Appeals Court Overturns Google's Fair Use Victory For Java APIs

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 09:04pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: APIs are plumbing

    well, but when they do this -- it's technically copyright infringement since they copy the content verbatim.
    No, it's not. If fair use were not a thing, it would be. But because fair use exists, and the described action is fair use, the described action is not copyright infringement. Something which is fair use is not "permitted infringement", or whatever you want to call that; it is not infringement at all, it is use which does not require permission.

  • On the post: FBI Officials Were Angry That An iPhone Hack Blocked Them From Getting Court To Force Apple To Break Encryption

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 09:08am

    Re: Re: Re: Holy crap!

    Oh. I misread the comment. Quite right, never mind...

  • On the post: Arizona Bans Self-Driving Car Tests; Still Ignores How Many Pedestrians Get Killed

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 09:07am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: overstating your case

    But if the initial group is "fatalities from jumping the curb due to driver error", then the others don't belong in the same group. I'm not disputing that that group definition wasn't all that clearly conveyed, nor that in order to avoid being misleading it probably should have been expressed more clearly, but I still see it as being present. While I can see where you arrive at that assessment of intent, I do not see that intent as being apparent in the way that you apparently do.

  • On the post: FBI Officials Were Angry That An iPhone Hack Blocked Them From Getting Court To Force Apple To Break Encryption

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 08:15am

    Re: Holy crap!

    ...I don't see a "then" there?

  • On the post: Arizona Bans Self-Driving Car Tests; Still Ignores How Many Pedestrians Get Killed

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 08:08am

    Re: Re: overstating your case

    I think that the initial group of four were not supposed to be the exhaustive set of the cases that were due to "driver error", but rather the cases that were due to "the form of driver error which involves the driver jumping the curb and hitting someone". It could certainly have been phrased more clearly, but I think the intent is visible.

  • On the post: Arizona Bans Self-Driving Car Tests; Still Ignores How Many Pedestrians Get Killed

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 08:01am

    Re: Re:

    If they wouldn't have gone back on the roads until after the conclusion of the investigation anyway, then announcing a ban before the end of the investigation accomplishes no such thing, as compared against waiting to announce one (or not) after the investigation ends.

  • On the post: Insanity Wins As Appeals Court Overturns Google's Fair Use Victory For Java APIs

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2018 @ 07:15am

    Re: Re: REPEAT of 2015: Designing and specifying API was creative work.

    I'd guess the suggestion is that they borrowed "google" from one or both of "googly" (as in "googly eyes") and "googol".

    Neither of which is any more of a direct copying than are a large number of other company names, particularly if you take into account that neither of the two terms has much connection to the search-engine field which is what the company was originally getting into - i.e., that even if the term was taken from those places, the chosen use was transformative.

  • On the post: Trump's Lawyer's Lawyer Threatens Defamation Over Claims Stormy Daniels Did Not Make

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2018 @ 08:09pm

    Re: If you prefer, you can say "Democrat-led"…

    I actually have a fuller breakdown/analysis of the term space there, but I figured a reply like that one wasn't really the place for it.

    At minimum, there is:

    "democracy" vs. "republic" (nouns: forms of government)
    "democratic" vs. "republican" (adjectives: ditto, plus the associated philosophies)
    "democrat" vs. "republican" (nouns: adherents of the said philosophies)
    "Democratic" vs. "Republican" (adjectives: names of the USA political parties)
    "Democrat" vs. "Republican" (nouns: members of the USA political parties)

    Importantly, "democratic" and "Democratic", or "republican" and "Republican", do not at all mean the same thing.

  • On the post: Cannes Bans Netflix Films From Competition Because The Internet Is Bad (Or Something)

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2018 @ 08:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Old man yells at cloud

    The question then would seem to be: what is there which mandates that, in order to be shown at Cannes, a movie needs to be in compliance with French law?

    My best guess at that, based on a shallow reading, is that the festival only accepts films which have been screened in theaters in France - and what is permitted to be shown in theaters in France is subject to the requirements of this law.

    If the lineup of films available at the festival is limited by the restrictions of French law, that means the festival is not nearly as universal as its reputation might paint it.

  • On the post: Trump's Lawyer's Lawyer Threatens Defamation Over Claims Stormy Daniels Did Not Make

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2018 @ 08:09pm

    Re: Mueller may be biding his time while building a stronger case…

    Nit: "Democratic" Congress. The word "Democrat" is a noun, not an adjective. (Whereas "Republican" is both noun and adjective.)

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