A. Nnoyed 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (39) comment rss

  • On the post: The DVR That Watches You Back: Verizon Applies For 'Ambient Action' Detecting Device Patent

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2012 @ 08:01am

    The DVR that watches you back.

    A reinvention of an old scheme. The Welcome Wagon did most of this manually. The Welcome Wagons local office collected lists of new residents, renters or homeowners, in their area from the Telephone Company or other Utility Companies and sent representatives to spy on them. The Welcome Wagons representative would knock on the residents door and offer them a gift usually a basket of fruit. Once they entered the residents home they would grill the resident to learn as much as possible about them. The conversation appeared to be small talk but was actually a script designed to squeeze as much information out of the resident possible. Welcome Wagon then sold these reports to those that subscribed to Welcome Wagon Reports.

    Verizon's technology can be applied to any Set Top Box, it does not have to be a DVR. If you think you can place tape over the camera lens to block their snooping, all they have to do is make the camera the remote control receiver.

  • On the post: HuffPost Moderates Comments To Please Advertisers [Updated: Or Not]

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2012 @ 03:58pm

    Trying to defuse the anger in the Trayvon Martin case.

    I live 25 Miles from Sanford Florida and am very concerned that the Trayvon Martin case may eventually lead to rioting if George Zimmerman is found not guilty. I have tried to start a dialog in the Trayvon Martin section of Huffington Post to defuse the anger. Any comments about the case are either not shown or immediately deleted after being posted. Several of my comments have been Faved only to be deleted. All that is posted is the columns are incendiary language between the pro Trayvon Martin faction and the pro George Zimmerman faction. The first thing that must be done is to discredit the people who are instigating the incendiary rhetoric. The Huffington Post seems to be trying to keep the anger alive rather than quelling it. Any criticism of the race baiters and haters agitating their base is deleted.

  • On the post: US Olympic Committee Forces 30 Year Old Philidelphia Gyro Restaraunt To Change Its Name

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2012 @ 05:18am

    Same old Olympic Committee abuse.

    This is nothing new. I still remember that during the Olympic games in Atlanta in 1986 the Olympic committee sued a restaurant named the Olympic something to force them to change their name. The restaurant had been in business for I believe longer than the one in Philadelphia and the name was registered by owner as a trademark. The problem was that like the victims of copyright trolls the restaurant owner could not afford the cost to defend the good name of his restaurant. The restaurant owner should have sued the Olympic Committee and demanded that they change their name. Remember the financially strong can always beat up the financially weak.

  • On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2012 @ 04:04am

    Smart TV a Failure!

    I fully agree that smart TV's are not so smart. Years ago, when consumers purchase their DirectTV and Dish Network Receivers, Sony manufactured a large screen projection TV with built in Direct TV receiver.

    In mid 2005 I was looking for a home in Central Florida. I always asked the homeowner the availability of Cable TV and Broadband and how they received pay TV. I noticed that one homeowner had one of those Projection TV's with a built in Direct TV Receiver and a Direct TV receiver on the top of the set. I asked why the DirectTV receiver on the top of the set. He stated that he used the receiver in the set for a while but the receiver in the set would not work with the new Multi-Satellite DirectTV system, so he had to use an external receiver. Therefore Smart TV not so smart!

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2012 @ 05:10am

    Megaupload, Silicon Valley

    Megaupload: If the MPAA Government Puppets read the BetaMax decision by the Supreme Court they might have gotten it through their corrupt skulls that Megaupload conformed to that precedent. Just like the VCR, Megaupload had both infringing and non infringing uses. The Supreme Court found in favor of Sony because of the non infringing uses. Why doesn't the same law apply to Megaupload?

    Silicon Valley: Since the BetaMax decision the RIAA and MPAA cartel has developed psychotic delusions that everyone is stealing their stuff. Each time new technology is developed the cartel requires that more draconian copyright protection be applied to the new technology. Compare the copyright protection applied to DVD's and Blue Ray DVD's. Silicon Valley has been a victim of this psychosis. Hardware developers fear that the copyright cartel will withdraw content for their hardware. The cartel trashed Sony, by refusing to release new movies in Beta format until long after they were released in VHS format. Consumers stopped buying BetaMax VCR'a and started buying VHS VCR's.

    Remember when the DVD was developed. The Copyright Mafia refused to release any content until copyright protection was developed for the DVD. In reality even though the movie studios state in their advertisements of a movie "Own It Today" in reality the purchase price is a one time right to use fee and consumers do not really own the content the movie studio retains ownership. Then of course there was the prosecution of that kid in Sweden, under the DCMA, for creating the DVD copyright protection decode and publishing it.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2012 @ 04:28am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I disagree that "during the period 1960-1998 there was little in the way of serious attempts to enforce copyright against the public." In reality Microvision was the first shot across the bow. Microvision was designed to prevent copying prerecorded video tapes. Then there was the attempt in the late 80's by copyright control to create a version of Microvision for music. That was rejected by the National Bureau of Standards after it was found that the system damaged the music it was designed to protect. During that period the DAT recorder, Original developer of the MP3 Player/Recorder and Digital Compact Cassette, was sued and/or restrained out of existence. The Serial Copy Management System was introduced for consumer CD Recorders to prevent recording a copy of a copy of CD with a music flag. Copyright control also required that only blank Music CDR's for which a copyright fee had been paid, could be used to record music on consumer music CDR recorders.

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2012 @ 06:19am

    Nothing for something just in case.

    PAYING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING JUST IN CASE:
    1) Composers and Performers must have a way of being compensated for their work product!

    2) Around 1984 there was a lawsuit brought by Composers and Performers for inadequate compensation. Why? When the CD was introduced there was such a demand for them that most retailers added a $4.00 premium to the MSRP. A CD with a $12.98 MSRP was sold for $16.98. As a result of the lawsuit record labels were forced to increase compensation to Composers and Performers based on the actual selling price of a CD.

    3) The RIAA attempted to place a ban on high fidelity cassette recorders but were unsuccessful. Through intense lobbying efforts the RIAA was able to have a law passed requiring manufactures of High Fidelity Cassettes pay a Surcharge of around of $0.50 for each High Fidelity Cassette sold. The fee was paid to the Copyright Control Agencies. More draconian laws were applied to home compact disc recorders. Including the Serial Copy Management System. The law also required that CD recorders only accept blank discs for which a surcharge had been paid to the Copyright Control Agencies. I still have a pile of High Fidelity Cassettes that I have already paid a surcharge to the Copyright Control Agencies for, that I never used to record anything.

    4) The Copyright Control Agencies wanted a law passed requiring Broadband Subscribers to pay them a $5.00 monthly fee, collected by their ISP, just in case the subscriber used their connection to download copyrighted material. Fortunately for Broadband Subscribers that law never was passed.

  • On the post: China Ramps Up Online Censorship Efforts As US Congress Gives Them Perfect Cover

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2011 @ 08:09pm

    Lawmakers willing to destroy constitution on behalf of special interests.

    Lawmakers do not have a clue. They are willing to destroy the constitution on behalf of special interests. Using losses caused by theft of copyrighted material is a scapegoat for poor performance in the marketplace. This is a continuation of the whining about home taping destroying the copyright holders business in the 1980's.

    How can one steal copyrighted material when it is available free through other channels. The valuable newly released material is always available free, books and movies at the local library and songs at the local top 40 FM Station. The only holders of copyrighted material that are actually making a killing are those selling out of print CD's and Books on ebay or Amazon.com. I found one CD I have in my collection offered on Amazon for around $200.00. I am sure I have more.

  • On the post: British Historian On Porn And Internet Censorship: North Korea Is Right — The Internet Is Our Enemy

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2011 @ 08:20pm

    Timothy Stanley - Luddite

    Timothy Stanley mirrors the thought process of persons disrupting technological advances in the weaving of yard goods during the early 1800s. He is a perfect example of a Luddite. As a historian he should recognize that he is behaving like a Luddite. See this description of Luddites here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

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

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2011 @ 05:34pm

    Legality of recording a conversation!

    This precedent was determined in 1998 or 1999 as a result of potential litigation between an ISP and a customer. At that time it was determined that when a called party or call center plays an announcement that the call might or would be recorded that the announcement gave the caller the right to record the conversation without warning the called party. The theory is that a called party (call center) recording a conversation without allowing the calling party (customer) to record the conversation would be the same thing as requiring the customer to sign a contract and then refusing to give them a copy of the contract they just signed.

    This decision is very troublesome in that it has the potential of making a recording made by a caller (customer) legally invalid because the called party (call center) announced that the call would be recorded and therefore established copyright of the recording of the conversation.

  • On the post: Verizon Moneymaking Plans: Low Bandwidth Caps + New High Bandwidth Services = Profits?

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2011 @ 04:19am

    Overhead and updates.

    When you use your voice service you know how many voice minutes you are using. On the other hand customers will not know how data is used by operating system and application updates as well as wireless system overhead. They will not know if they are being charged for data that is used but provides no apparent benefits to the customer. We already know that Verizon was cited for charging customers a mystery fee for data usage even though their handsets had data turned off. If the Wireless ISP's screw their customers enough the outcry might even reach the lawmakers ears even though they are normally filled with ISP's campaign contributions.

  • On the post: No, Having Open WiFi Does Not Make You 'Negligent' And Liable For $10,000

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2011 @ 08:40pm

    Copyright Trolls nothing new!

    The copyright control agencies have always used copyright law and their superior financial position to shake down businesses because most businesses do not understand the complexity of copyright law. Check out this article in the NY Times written in 1996:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/17/nyregion/ascap-asks-royalties-from-girl-scouts-and-regrets-it.html

    Most businesses simply pay rather than fight a shake down for such violations. Playing background music through a businesses paging system or providing music on hold without a license from a copyright agency is a violation of copyright law and is used as an excuse to engage in a shake down. One of the worst shakedowns was perpetrated by copyright control agencies against restaurants that sang Happy Birthday to You to their patrons without a license from a copyright agency. One large restaurant chain was sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a happy birthday to you violation.

    The copyright control agencies are now extending their tentacles to shaking down ordinary citizens that have even less financial resources than most businesses.

    Unjust financial enrichment of the copyright agencies could be prevented by requiring that the violator receive proper written notice of the violation. If the violator fails to take action to correct the problem, only then could the copyright agency make financial claims against the violator.

  • On the post: Recording Industry Using Net Neutrality Debate To Try To Link Child Porn With Copyright Infringement Again

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2010 @ 11:54am

    Copyright control agencies are deceitful.

    I am annoyed that the music copyright agencies are always coming up with a new Red Herring. This child pornography issue is another Red Herring. Since the early 70's the music industry have always come up with a new Red Herring as an excuse to explain a decline in sales.

    The copyright control agencies lobbied lawmakers to:

    1) Outlaw Home Taping.

    2) Blamed the loss of sales in 1981 on home taping when in fact the recession dried up the money for consumers to make discretionary purchases.

    3) Lobby Lawmakers to pass laws which were passed requiring manufactures of high fidelity cassette recorders and cassettes to pay a fee to the copyright control agencies, just in case the cassette was used to record copyrighted music. They were successful and consumers wound up paying this hidden fee even if they did not use the cassette to record copyrighted music.

    4) Outlaw the Digital Compact Cassette.

    5) The lawmakers as a compromise to the copyright control agencies passed laws that required that all consumer CD recorders incorporate the Serial Copyright Management System and only copy music on CD ROMS that were encoded to indicate to the consumer CD Recorder that it was a CD ROM on which a fee was paid to the copyright holders.

    6) Now the Red Herring is the sharing of copyrighted music.

    Both lawmakers and copyright holders have failed to take into account that there are more opportunities for consumers to spend their discretionary money on things other then prerecorded music.

  • On the post: Dispensing With Some Myths About The Poor Poor Songwriters Decimated By Piracy

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2009 @ 05:11pm

    Try selling quality rather than so loud.

    Until the music industry promotes musicians that are skilled rather than musicians that are hot listeners, will not be able to justify purchasing music on high quality media.

    The music industry tried to pitch the Super Audio Compact Disk because they claimed that the quality of the sound reproduced by an SACD Player was better than a standard CD. Because of the amount of compression used on most recordings a listener cannot tell the difference between the quality of an SACD a CD or an MP3.

    One has to go back to classical music or popular music played by skilled musicians when the quality of the performance was the key to success. Most listeners are satisfied with MP3's which clearly cannot produce the same resolution of even an ordinary CD.

    The music industry's new business model should use downloaded MP3's as samplers to give listeners an incentive to purchase music on high quality media.

  • On the post: Harvard Team Asks Court To Allow Live Broadcast Of Tenenbaum Case Against RIAA

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2008 @ 07:33am

    RIAA Shakedowns.

    The shakedown methodology being used by the RIAA has been exploited for years. The RIAA has always used calculated extortion to shake down those businesses targeted for such transgressions as playing copyrighted music without paying a fee to the RIAA. In such a case RIAA Lawyers would figure out how much it would cost the defendant to pay an attorney to defend the business against a frivolous RIAA Lawsuit. The RIAA would immediately demand a payment for significant damages. The defendant was never given the option of agreeing to cease and desist before paying the damages. The dollar amount demanded would usually be less than it would cost for the business to defend itself against the lawsuit. In most cases, management would roll over and write a check to avoid wasting the time and money to defend the business against the lawsuit. Since the defendant was a business, management could pay up and simply write off the cost as a business expense. On the other hand if the business management took a strong position on the matter and threatened to strongly defend themselves, the RIAA lawyers would simply go away. Individuals do not have the luxury of writing off such a settlement as a business expense. The best way to stick it to copyright control agencies such as the RIAA is to require them to give a person or persons accused of copyright infringement the opportunity to cease and desist. In the event of the accused copyright infringement is over a broadband connection the ISP's abuse department which most ISP's already have in place could act as a referee between the two parties. The only way an infringer could be assessed damages would be for them to be caught continuing infringing.

  • On the post: Missouri Prosecutors Going Overboard In Bringing Cyberbullying Cases

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2008 @ 08:13am

    Media Madness

    There is an secret lottery and your do not want to win it. I call it media madness. The winner is the loser when a story about the winner is picked by the media as front page fodder. Then will they drag the story back and forth through their feces pile and destroy the winner's good name even if they are innocent. Consider the late Richard Jewel, the Ramsey's and the three Duke Students who were defamed by our judicial system and the press. That list is just the tip of the iceberg. Those victims later receive an apology from prosecutors. How do they get back their good name. Most of the cable news shows are fraudulent. They claim to be news shows but are actually speculation shows, where expert guests speculate about a story they have no knowledge about. The United States and State Governments should pass laws as they have in Great Brittan restricting what is presented as news. Speculation by the press about a civil or criminal case should be outlawed. Anyone citing freedom of speech must consider it is illegal to scream fire in a crowded theater when there is actually no fire.

  • On the post: Big Guns Come Out In Effort To Show RIAA's Lawsuits Are Unconstitutional

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2008 @ 05:01pm

    RIAA and other copy control agencies may get what they deserve.

    The method that the RIAA and other copyright control agencies are using to shake down college students are not new. Before the RIAA became the Digital Download Police they were the Music on Hold and Background Music Police. They used the same technique to shake down business owners that were using copyrighted material for music on hold or background music. It an RIAA inspector visited or called a business using copyrighted music as background music through a public address system or for music on hold through a PABX System, the RIAA would send a demand letter for thousands of dollars in damages much like accused college students received. Most businesses simply paid the amount demanded and simply wrote it off as a cost of doing business. The smart businesses obtained a license from a local public radio station for about $25.00. Once they had a license, the next time the RIAA tried a shakedown all the business owner had to do was sent the RIAA a copy of the license. Hopefully this litigation will stop future shakedowns of those playing copyrighted music without due process. P.S. do not forget the Happy Birthday to You police. The copyright police will sue any restaurant owner where employees sing Happy Birthday to You to a customer on their birthday that does not have a very expensive license to perform that song.

  • On the post: On The Criminality Of WiFi Piggybacking…

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2008 @ 07:03pm

    On The Criminality Of WiFi Piggybacking

    Consider my friend B. H. He asked me about how to connect his wife's laptop and his laptop to his broadband connection at his new home. I answered the question by giving him a wireless router as a house warming gift and installed it for him. For security I activated WPA and MAC Address Filtering. I then set up each laptops client to connect to the router. I gave him the necessary passwords and complete written instructions how to add a computer to his network. I returned several weeks later and learned that he had given his daughter a laptop for school. I asked him if he had any problem, setting up the client in his daughters laptop, to connect to his network. He looked me as though I had grown horns. He also complained that the connection to his daughter's laptop was intermittent. I checked the client in his daughters laptop and found that she was actually connecting to another persons unsecured network.

    Now comes the key question? Was his daughter stealing service from the unsecured network or was it simply a matter of not being networking literate?

    Oh by the way, I immediately set up the client in his daughters laptop to connect to his network. That solved the problem of the intermittent connection.

  • On the post: The Difference Between Content And Communication In The YouTube/Viacom Billion Dollar Spat

    A. Nnoyed ( profile ), 27 May, 2008 @ 06:09pm

    Are copyright laws being used to supress free speech?

    Right now YouTube is a powerful means to critize any program. Posting a clip of a program to point out it's flaws is much more powerful than simply describing the programs flaws. Such use of such a clip should be legal under fair use. Posting an entire program is not fair use and should be prohibited.