Whatever 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Journalists Blaming Facebook For Decline Is Just As Tiresome As When They Blamed Craigslist & Google

    Whatever ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2016 @ 08:30pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Ahh, the elephant in the room, pointing out the blindly obvious, which is that even Techdirt is pretty much forced to shill (the marketplace ads as posts) and the various "limited time" t-shirt things... oh yeah, and the crowdfunded "reporting" thing that turned out to be nothing more than business as usual.

    Techdirt is a fairly popular website. Being one of the top 10,000 sites in the US (according to Alexa) you would figure that it could easily be profitable. But the marked increase in adverposting and t-shirt campaigns says otherwise. That is with a minimal staff, and with costs shared with a number of different companies and of course the think tank.

    The truth is that few mainstream websites on the internet are very profitable. The ones who make big money (say TMZ) do it in no small part by moving to traditional media distribution (the daily TMZ show) to really bring in the income. Online isn't as huge a money maker as all of that.

    The newspapers' arguments are valid. Pre-internet, they ruled the roost. If you wanted aggregated eyeballs, and you wanted to get a message out, advertising in your local newspaper was actually a pretty good way to do it. Ditto for local radio and local TV. Those were effectively your three choices.

    Now the online world is dominated by Google and Facebook. Between the two, they represent 75% or more of the online ad revenues, and have the majority of the eyeballs. Newspapers have lost their dominant spot, and more over, with hungry online companies willing to sell space for pennies instead of dollars, they have also seen their ad revenue models collapse. They still get lots of eyeballs, but you can get many of the same views much more cheaply online.

    Should they have adapted? Well, to what, exactly? Subscription model? Techdirt says no, walled gardens are bad! So where should they do? Sell lots of t-shirts? Put cameras over reporters shoulders and charge people to watch the streaming live video?

    it's nonsense in the end. The newspapers aren't wrong but they also need to understand that the proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube, there is no going back.

    The real problem is news is replaced by opinion, entertainment, and self-reflecting information sources that are often wrong about everything. It's why we have riots about police shooting armed suspects. It's not about understanding why, it's about a feedback loop of misinformation and twisted stats used to make things matter. It's pretty sad.

    As you sow, you shall reap. Read them and weep.

  • On the post: Albuquerque Police Seize Vehicle From Owner Whose Son Drove It While Drunk; Want $4,000 To Give It Back

    Whatever ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2016 @ 08:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "I directly addressed the implicit idea that the parents should be responsible for the actions of their adult children. Most especially the one in the article, who statistically is likely to be in his 30s, not a young driver, although the articles didn't specify his age."

    Had you researched even a small bit, you would know his name (tino) his age (30s) and that he had been arrested for a prior DUI but got out of it because it appears the officer was not available to testify - similar to his mother! My lack of sympathy for a parent doesn't mean that my concern stops at a family relationship, it would apply to even me being foolish enough to loan you a car (or even enough for a bottle of two buck chuck, but I digress)

    "I didn't say they should be given back the car. I said that they should be liable for costs incurred. "

    Glad you don't work for the government on these things, otherwise things would be so fucked. The car is the thing incurring the costs. You don't give back the asset until the costs are paid. End. Adding it to the defendant's tab would be meaningless, considering the defendant doesn't have the same motivations to get it back. In other words, the state would never get paid for the work it did (including towing and storage, legal fees, etc) just to process the car. Your answer is a huge failure to understand the basics of the law.

    "I'd prefer the tactic that prevents crimes from happening, thanks. That involves holding the people responsible liable for the costs of their crimes, not the nearest convenient innocent scapegoat."

    Your failure to understand the law would be appalling if I did't know your history better. Let's just say you don't understand the basic concepts of ownership versus use, or legal process on seized property used in the commission of a crime. Sorry, but without you having a basic understanding, it's a pretty hard discussion to have.

    "No, you really didn't. Deflection, goal post moving and ignoring the salient point in favour of those you can avoid do not count as answering."

    Not at all. I stand where the law stands, you stand out in the middle of nowhere waving your arms and trying to act like the law doesn't exist. Like I said, without you getting a basic understanding of the laws in question, it's really hard to have a discussion, and apparently very hard for you to understand the answers.

  • On the post: Albuquerque Police Seize Vehicle From Owner Whose Son Drove It While Drunk; Want $4,000 To Give It Back

    Whatever ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2016 @ 04:00am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "But... not really. The action of loaning a car does not answer the question posed to you, which was whether you believe that a parent should be held directly responsible for the actions of their grown adult offspring."

    You miss the point - it's not parent / child, it's someone loaning a car to someone who is potentially drunk (and has been stopped for it before). If I know someone has been stopped by the cops before for drunk driving, I am not going to be loaning him my car just for fun. Knowing the facts, it's perhaps not the best choice, right?

    "Another non-answer. What about the people who own cars they can run and maintain... right up until it's impounded and they're asked for an amount that exceeds the value of the car?"

    If the car is that valuable to you, then don't lend it to others who won't take as much care with it. Problem solved.

    "Yes, so why no the person who actually committed the action that caused those costs to be incurred? "

    The owner of the car could very well go to court for civil action to recover the losses (I have done this at a car hire firm I managed to for a while). Legally, the car cannot be given back to the person who committed the offence, as they are not the owner and cannot claim it. Basic law.

    "They're arguing that the innocent party should be held responsible for the rest of that reality. "

    Nope. They are saying "your vehicle was involved in a crime. We had to impound it. We had to tow it. We had to store it. We had to do legal process on it. This is what it costs to get it back". Are their fees high? Yes. Too High? Probably yes. Illegally high? Nope. They are certainly enough to discourage people from casually lending their cars out.

    "Once again, you seem to be avoiding any response to the actual points raised in either the article or the followup posts, just random blather in an attempt to distract."

    I answered all of them. You just don't like the answers because they confuse your small mind. Sorry about that.

  • On the post: Will The Washington Post Give Back Its Pulitzer And Stand Trial With Snowden?

    Whatever ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2016 @ 03:53am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: wow

    Well, first you are playing a game. It's not a comparable situation, nice try. The Post was, well, post crime and not before it. Quite simply, there is nothing the Post could do that would have stopped the crime (where as loaning car to someone who is drunk might not be such a good idea).

    Second, the Post's involvement is different. They don't have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight on this one. At the time, they probably thought they were doing something good to inform the public. They probably didn't reaize at the time that Snowden was using them in the same manner that Assange has used the media to push his agenda. They thought they were doing good journalism, instead Snowden was meat puppeting them.

    They were manipulated, sadly as much by their own greed and desire to "break the big story" as Snowden. But overall, it's just a perfect victim being hit by the perfect conman.

  • On the post: EFF Heads To Court To Fight Off Smart Grid Company That Can't Wrap Its Mind Around Section 230 Protections

    Whatever ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2016 @ 11:01pm

    Does 230 come into play with surrogates?

    This situation presents a real problem. While Muckrock in theory does not get the FOIA documents themselves, they do seem to play a significant role beyond blindly hosting them.

    One thing I see is organization and focusing. Does Muchrock (or staff, employees, editors, etc) provide any "aim" or provide a target list? Do they in any way organize people to go and make these requests?

    Another thing I see is curation: Does Muckrock take the posted documents and collate, curate, or otherwise edit them together to "get rid of the blackouts"? In other words, does Muckrock edit and republish the results?

    I ask this because I don't spend time on the site and it's not clear on a cursory glance how they actually work. But it would seem that if any of what I raised is true, then section 230 may not apply (no matter how much EFF wishes it does).

    I also think that this may be the sort of case that leads to changes in the law to stop those who seek to hide bad acts behind section 230. At minimum, Muchrock appears to be encouraging a certain amount of abuse of the FOIA, and that's not good for honest, regular citizens trying to get information. It's like getting stuck at the ATM behind the guy with 11 cars and 120 bills to pay. He ends up hogging all the resources.

  • On the post: Will The Washington Post Give Back Its Pulitzer And Stand Trial With Snowden?

    Whatever ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2016 @ 03:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: wow

    See, you don't realize the problem: Snowden didn't just discuss monitoring Americans, rather he released all about the legal (but unsavory) world of communication spying around the world, and the people involved. That helps the enemy (and hurts the US) by outing sources, making methods well known, and generally giving the enemies of the US an advantage they did not have before.

    They knew the US might be listening - now they know exactly how and to what extent.

  • On the post: Will The Washington Post Give Back Its Pulitzer And Stand Trial With Snowden?

    Whatever ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2016 @ 01:21am

    Re: Re: wow

    Yes, but does exposing the way the US operates around the world truly benefit the citizens, or did it set back security and thus put the citizens in peril?

    Does it really uphold the constitution to aid the enemies of the country?

    I think not.

  • On the post: How Pirates Shaped The Internet As We Know It

    Whatever ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2016 @ 06:07am

    Re: Re: Re: Piracy

    "No it isn't unless you make efforts to present it as the real thing."

    Actually, being in possession of it is enough. Read the law.

  • On the post: How Pirates Shaped The Internet As We Know It

    Whatever ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2016 @ 04:08am

    Re: Piracy

    Sorry to say, but your argument is without meaning, because you are looking at the wrong place.

    Is copying money a crime? it's just copying. Oh wait, it is.

    See, it's easy to look at the mechanism and say "the machine itself isn't breaking the law". You can use the machine to turn out copies of your primary school doodles. That would be fine. Start trying to bang out copies of money and you are in trouble - so much so that most good photocopiers won't even do it.

    The copying isn't the issue - it's what is GAINED by copying - the value of a license without recompense to the artist (or those who hold the rights). it is the "something for nothing" thing that is key.

    No, the VCR didn't kill hollywood - but then again, copies of copies of videotapes were useless, and every copy was made pretty much real time. It's another vapid and all too common argument.

  • On the post: How Pirates Shaped The Internet As We Know It

    Whatever ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2016 @ 03:50am

    Talk like a pirate? No problem:

    " I want 60 million or more for advertising on my not pirate indexing only doesn't have any content but millions of people visit site".

    See how easy that is?

  • On the post: Indian Court Says 'Copyright Is Not An Inevitable, Divine, Or Natural Right' And Photocopying Textbooks Is Fair Use

    Whatever ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2016 @ 01:41pm

    Of course, it's a ruling in a country with the caste system, which the courts there seem to feel are natural and a divine right. When you understand how totally screwed up their view of human rights are, you come to understand that their court rulings are meaningless in any civilized way.

  • On the post: NYC Kills Internet Browsing At Free WiFi Kiosks After The City's Homeless Actually Use It

    Whatever ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2016 @ 05:30am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I knew you would get the story wrong.

    More important, I think, is that it's not a question of needing more rules or more enforcement. That stick is perhaps a little worn out, and needed in more important places.

    I think the answer is people, and their own self control. There is an insane undercurrent of "all for me and f-ck everyone else" that permeates much the American mindset. Someone flipping over a newspaper box and using it to sit in front of the free internet terminal for hours has issues, plain and simple. It's not just an internet thing, but rather a whole right and wrong, living in society thing.

    There is no real good answer for that stuff. The only real answer is to remove whatever it is that is leading to the behavior. Making the internet terminals less friendly and less useful in certain ways sucks, but it's a perfect example of "why we can't have nice things".

  • On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: September 11th

    Whatever ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2016 @ 03:24am

    First, my 9/11 story, which is quite simple: I arrived in Las Vegas about 1am or so (4am east coast) on 9/11, on a flight from New York. I got woken up by my business partner who said I probably would want to see this, and got up just in time to see the second plane hit. I got trapped in Vegas, which turned into a major ghost town. Nobody had money, nobody had a way to leave...

    My opinion of the fall out of 9/11 is pretty simple: American lost it's innocence, and now faces a long battle to come to the realization that freedom as defined in the US is both amazing and a loaded weapon. The undoing of the US will likely be as a result of someone exploiting your "freedom" to hide their activities. The surveillance and spying and what not is a weight on the other side from freedom, and hopefully some balance will come that Americans can tolerate - but that is safer.

  • On the post: NYC Kills Internet Browsing At Free WiFi Kiosks After The City's Homeless Actually Use It

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 10:41pm

    Re: Re: I knew you would get the story wrong.

    You are a pretty bad troll.

    It's not that the homeless shouldn't use WiFi - it's just that wifi delivered in this manner is causing unforeseen results that are not good for the overall society.

    Moreover, read my comments: It's not just about homeless. Others are congregating to enjoy free unlimited Wifi - to the point of dragging out seats and such and turning the sidewalk into a living room - again to the determent of the neighborhood as a whole.

    But hey, thanks for playing "I'm a crappy troll", your score isn't high enough to win a prize.

  • On the post: Unpatent Launches Combination Crowdfunding/Crowdsourcing Platform To Invalidate Stupid Patents

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 10:17pm

    It seems to read more like "give us money so we can make a living poking at patents" rather than a real serious attempt to accomplish anything.

  • On the post: NYC Kills Internet Browsing At Free WiFi Kiosks After The City's Homeless Actually Use It

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 05:54pm

    I knew you would get the story wrong.

    Karl, I knew you would punt the story into the weeds. Too busy trying to get a headline and too little time spent trying to understand the problem.

    To start with, the WiFi kioskes have a built in tablet (explaining how the homeless have tablets). While the original intention was for a tourist or whatever to be able to check a map or quickly pick up their hotmail, it instead turned into a place where people would stay for hours, playing games, watching videos, movies, and yes... porn. A side problem of course is that some people like to enjoy porn as an immersive experience, so they were pleasuring themselves in full public view.

    The more significant issue is that with powerful and relatively quick wifi, people would gather around the immediate area to surf the web. Sort of the original intention, until they are dragging out benches, old sofas, chairs, and the like to sit in the middle of the sidewalk for hours enjoying the internet. Add in people illegally parking their cars (to get close enough for wifi) and the like, and you have significant neighborhood disruption.

    Oh yeah, don't forget that you can add in loud voices, yelling, drug and alcohol consumption, fighting, and all the other stuff that comes when you get a lot of people in one place being themselves with no consideration for anyone else.

    In some areas, homeless were moving in and setting up camp around the wifi spots so they could use them continuously... and use the charging features and such as well. Let's just say a really good idea instead was most appealing to the wrong people and they way the wifi kioskes were used was not to the benefit of the neighborhoods in question.

  • On the post: NYC Kills Internet Browsing At Free WiFi Kiosks After The City's Homeless Actually Use It

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 05:46pm

    I knew you would get the story wrong.

  • On the post: Another Day, Another Anomaly: Paramount Issues DMCA Takedown On Ubuntu Linux Torrent

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 04:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I don't support that. Stop lying, asshole!

  • On the post: Congressman In Charge Of OPM Hacking Report Announces Plan To Investigate Stingray Use Next

    Whatever ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2016 @ 04:04am

    Based on his already expressed opinions, you can already pre-write the report for him. That's not an investigation, that's just a witch hunt. Probably a good one, considering there are plenty of (what he considers to be) witches out there.

    I can't imagine how much you guys would be losing your shit if a supporter of these devices was "investigating".

  • On the post: Another Day, Another Anomaly: Paramount Issues DMCA Takedown On Ubuntu Linux Torrent

    Whatever ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2016 @ 05:38am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Hey Paul, seriously, fuck off. I have a life, I don't spend my time hiding out from the tax man shivering in front of my computer. Sorry to disappoint you!

    "DMCA notices are generally takedown notices. They're not "erm, we saw a dodgy link, can you remove it". They're usually "remove this entire page/file or face further action"."

    Since a torrent site generally is proving a link to allow people to download the material, it follows that it could be a page with the content on it. That would include the COPYRIGHT image of the box cover that the site happens to use (oh, darn, there is that reality crap again ruining your rant!).

    "Whether our usual clown knows this and is playing ignorant, "

    So the images on the page are not copyright? The links to the pirated torrents are not invalid?

    Come on Paul, stop being a twit. You use to be way smarter in your comebacks, now it's just pure baiting bullshit.

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