Rico R. 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Apple Cancelled Jon Stewart Because Feckless Tech Executives Were Afraid Of The Pesky Truth

    Rico R. ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2023 @ 10:07am

    Think different.*

    *This phrase does not include issues such as artificial intelligence, China, the right to repair movement, DMCA § 1201, jailbreaking, hackintoshing, or any other view that does not align with the views of Apple, Inc, truth in journalism standards notwithstanding. And no, this does not make our 1984 ads ironic or make Steve Jobs roll in his grave; we have only welcomed change in the world if it is a change that will benefit us as a corporation.

  • On the post: FCC Starts Taking ‘Space Junk’ More Seriously, Fines Dish For Parking Satellite In A Dumb Spot

    Rico R. ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2023 @ 05:38pm

    You know, when I heard Dish got a public performance license for WALL-E, I was a little excited. But I didn't know that they wanted to do a live-action remake in real life!

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

    Rico R. ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2023 @ 12:43pm

    Re: Stephen T. Stone

    This sounds like something a comic book villain would say before trying to wipe out a significant chunk of human life.
    Either that, or a wealthy criminal in a soap opera who planned to use a sophisticated pathogen as a bioweapon that made COVID-19 look like a picnic and Thanos's plan the better half of the equation in terms of the Trolley Problem.

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

    Rico R. ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2023 @ 03:13pm

    Top Comment Inception

    So if I make a comment commending Samuel Abram's comment that commends Stephen T. Stone's comment, and I get the top vote in a category, does that mean Stephen's comment somehow wins 2 and a half times? BTW, congrats to Samuel Abram for the top comment, and to Stephen T. Stone's comment that prompted it.

  • On the post: How The Lack Of Copyright For AI-Generated Works Actually Works To Writers/Actors Advantage In Strike Negotiations

    Rico R. ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2023 @ 12:44pm

    Two wrongs don't make a (copy)right...

    Sorry, but no matter how you slice it, copyright should absolutely NOT be extended. Extended in duration? No way! Di$ney's obsession with a cartoon mouse has made copyright practically immortal. I guarantee you that none of the new works you've encountered in your lifetime will fall into the public domain before you die (unless the author dedicates the work to the public domain themselves). Extended in scope? Copyright already covers nearly all creative works. Extending it to cover more works, AI-generated or not, does nothing to "promote the progress of science" and only seeks to benefit the publishers (the TRUE beneficiaries of copyright). Extended insofar as what counts as infringement? Absolutely not!! Fair use needs to be protected and made more robust, especially after the disastrous SCOTUS decision in AWF v. Goldsmith. I'm not sure yet how Congress could legislate the precedent set there out of existence, but if it's possible, it absolutely should be done. The more copyright covers in scope and duration, the more fair use needs to cover to prevent turning everyday creativity into copyright infringement. Especially considering the absurd amount of damages that can be awarded if something is deemed infringing. ($150,000 per infringed work is ludicrous!) I (generally) support the strikes from SAG-AFTRA and the WGA. I'm not sure I stand for all of their AI demands (especially the WGA's), but I definitely don't think studios should be able to pay for 1 day's worth of work to use AI to capture an actor's likeness to use in perpetuity. As far as the financial side of things is concerned, I absolutely stand in solidarity with the writers and actors. The studios are in the wrong in not wanting to pay a fair share to the writers and actors. And while it's interesting Hollywood's view of copyright maximalism actually helps the strikers and their cause, that doesn't make copyright maximalism right, either. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if studios lobbied Congress to pass an update to copyright law that protects AI-generated works. They absolutely shouldn't, just like they shouldn't make copyright duration longer to protect Mickey Mouse. Two wrongs don't make a right. Whether we're talking about the studio's view of the strikes or the studio's view on copyright law, they are both wrong. Copyright may help the strikers' cause, but that doesn't mean we should embrace copyright maximalism.

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

    Rico R. ( profile ), 06 Aug, 2023 @ 02:09pm

    “click here to continue reading”

    To be fair, the front page already has that in the form of the expand and collapse button. Maybe it would be closer to modern media sites if the front page only had the headlines and maybe a photo relevant to the story, and you actually had to click on the headline to read the story. And maybe enable endless scrolling on the front page while you're at it!

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

    Rico R. ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2023 @ 12:20pm

    "When two goblins love each other very very much"

    I bet that will go over well in states that want to mandate age verification of porn to stop minors from accessing it... What's Spez gonna say then? That he asked the mods to remove NSFW marks from their sub because of protests he didn't agree with? On second thought, knowing what's happened on his enshitified site, I bet he will crudely invoke his fifth amendment rights and simply say to those state government officials, "Fuck you!"

  • On the post: Council On Foreign Relations Burns EARN IT To The Ground In Powerful Post Criticizing Its Anti-Encryption Aims

    Rico R. ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2023 @ 10:46am

    I think the idea was that either these sites cave into the government's encryption demands, OR lose the protections afforded to them under Section 230. In other words, they're EARNING the right to be shielded from liability by breaking encryption at the behest of the government. Doesn't make it right or a good idea, but that's how I've interpreted the name "EARN IT".

  • On the post: Perhaps GPT Is Not Ready For The Supreme Court

    Rico R. ( profile ), 30 May, 2023 @ 10:46am

    As Lawful Masses has demonstrated...

    ChatGPT has also learned its lesson and has corrected itself... in the most humorous way possible!

  • On the post: The Warhol Decision: How SCOTUS Forgot The First Amendment & Turned Copyright Into A Liability Time Bomb

    Rico R. ( profile ), 26 May, 2023 @ 02:58pm

    RIP Fair Use (c. Oct. 1841 - May 18, 2023)

    Diving into the SCOTUS ruling, I had half expected that a worst-case scenario ruling for Goldsmith would have turned the US fair use regime into a fair dealing regime. I still had hope that could rule for AWF and undermine the persuasiveness of the 9th Circuit's ruling in Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. ComicMix by saying that new works need not comment on original works to qualify as transformative fair uses. Boy, was I wrong on both counts! Far from clarifying anything, it turned fair use into a minefield. Determining if a use is fair or infringing is now an unpredictable game where the rules are made up and creativity doesn't matter. It created a false binary between transformative uses and commercial uses, punted a determination on if a noncommercial use of The Prince Series could qualify for fair use, and most importantly, created a chilling effect on many new forms of art that will never see the light of day because it's based on earlier works. Vidders, remixers, and fan editors should be concerned because their works are now more likely to be considered infringing. In the case of fanvids, the aforementioned ComicMix decision already called the fair use of such works into question. This decision amplified its authority, even though it remains possible that most vidders who don't monetize their fanvids could be safe (as it could make fair use more certain). However, the Supreme Court's punting on the issues in this case regarding noncommercial uses still makes it legally uncertain. But what I'm more so worried about when it comes to this decision and the ripple effects for fair use in this decision is its effects on documentary filmmakers! Documentaries have historically been at a disadvantage when it comes to using other people's footage. Assuming you don't license it (usually because you can't afford to), you have to rely on fair use. Most distributors wouldn't touch a film if it relied on fair use rather than clearing the works in question. Errors and Ommissions Insurance started to fill that gap in recent years, allowing fair use of copyrighted works in documentaries, provided they can get a lawyer to sign off on the film that the use of the content is fair use. E&O Insurance seemed like the perfect solution. But now, I'd have to imagine fair use has just become risky again, even from an insurance perspective. Because unless you're uploading your film to a site like YouTube or Vimeo without monetizing it, any commercial use could make that fair use analysis come into question. Any exploitation of the film, be it publicly performed at a festival, airing on a TV network, sold on DVD or Blu-ray, or even offering it on a paid streaming service, are now all new uses that require a re-analysis of fair use, and any one of them could be infringing while the other is not. No filmmaker is going to know how they're going to exploit the film in the future with 100% certainty, so this ticking timebomb could prove too much of a liability with some E&O insurance providers. On the whole, this decision made two things clear to me: One, fair use (as we know it) is dead. While it's not as simple as "turning fair use into fair dealing where only the examples listed in the preamble are permitted fair uses", it's now so unpredictable that any copyright infringement lawsuit where fair use is raised as a defense is now a virtual coin flip, where your own new expression doesn't matter. (But the point still stands, I can't imagine what sort of fair use defense can be raised effectively if it's not a use within the preamble, parody, or reimplementing an API a la Google v. Oracle.) Two, while I've been there for a while, any sort of defensibility of copyright law as a whole is now thrown out the window. Copyright, as it is now, is no longer simply "promoting the progress of science". It's no longer fine-tuned against the intricacies of the first amendment guarantee of free speech. And even beyond the constitutional issues that the SCOTUS didn't care to take up (nor likely to consider taking up in the future), any sort of benefit the concept of copyright gives to creators is now outweighed by the massive liability for infringement in everyday life. Larry Lessig said when promoting Creative Commons back in the day that we can't kill this kind of transformative creativity; we can only push it underground. I think that's exactly what the Supreme Court just did. Whether you create transformative uses of earlier works (assuming it's not an open-and-shut fair use case like a critical review) or simply post those works wholesale online, both are now decried as piracy or at the very least, have the same level of liability risk. While Lessig may not agree with the conclusion I've drawn, it's time for copyright to be abolished. It's hard to imagine what sort of patchwork reform could save copyright and fair use from the monstrous SCOTUS decision. Repealing all of Title 17 and coming up with a new copyright law whole cloth (like was done in 1976) might be needed in today's world, but given that Congress will likely only listen to the lobbyists from the MAFIAA, that's probably not desirable either. But the bottom line is if you want copyright to be respected by the public to the point they're not crying out for its abolition, this decision, which is now the law of the land, at the very least must not be allowed to stand.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Leaves 230 Alone For Now, But Justice Thomas Gives A Pretty Good Explanation For Why It Exists In The First Place

    Rico R. ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 03:46pm

    Which is just as weird, as on the same day they saved the Internet (without even CONSIDERING section 230, written by a justice who more or less hates section 230), SCOTUS also upended fair use as we know it, ruling for Goldsmith in the Andy Warhol copyright case. I'm sure Mike (or some other Techdirt writer) is going to have a field day with that one!

  • On the post: Ed Sheeran, Once Again, Demonstrates How Modern Copyright Is Destroying, Rather Than Helping Musicians

    Rico R. ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 06:27pm

    Except, I think I read somewhere that it was the estate of a co-writer of Gaye's that sued, not the Gaye family themselves, as was the case with Blurred Lines. Either way, THIS Ed Sheeran case had the right results. Shame that Gaye's family is getting royalties for Blurred Lines for (checking notes) doing absolutely nothing creative and filing a bogus copyright infringement lawsuit.

  • On the post: Germany Wants To Include Copyright Infringement Under Its Planned ‘Digital Violence’ Law

    Rico R. ( profile ), 05 May, 2023 @ 05:00pm

    First the VCRs, now the Internet...

    Copyright infringement is in no way comparable to the kind of life-threatening online abuse that the new law against digital violence is designed to tackle.
    Well, at least we can now say that copyright infringement is closer to "the Boston Strangler [targeting] the woman at home alone," at least within the online space! Jack Valenti would be proud! /s

  • On the post: Wizards Of The Coast Sends Pinkerton Agency To Person That Bought Unreleased ‘Magic’ Cards In Error

    Rico R. ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2023 @ 08:39am

    Could've been worse...

    At least the company didn't hire Judoon to take back their property. Otherwise, we'd be looking at a very different, tragic outcome!

  • On the post: Wizards Of The Coast Sends Pinkerton Agency To Person That Bought Unreleased ‘Magic’ Cards In Error

    Rico R. ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2023 @ 08:36am

    Yeah, but a DMCA notice doesn't come storming into your home and "taking back" what it deems is infringing!

  • On the post: DeSantis May Be Learning What The Copyright World Has Always Known: Disney’s Lawyers Don’t Fuck Around

    Rico R. ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2023 @ 02:14pm

    My "theory" about that last sentence...

    Still, all this makes me wonder what kind of bullshit Disney’s lawyers are going to pull on December 31st as the clock ticks down to Mickey Mouse entering the public domain…
    Isn't it obvious? Those higher-ups at Disney will then unthaw Walt Disney's frozen head, install it to a robot body, and then revive Walt back from the dead. If he's made alive again, we'll have to wait until 70 years after his second death for Mickey Mouse to be public domain!!

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

    Rico R. ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2023 @ 12:52pm

    Re: pbryan

    Twitter and Musk could not be immediately reached for comment.
    Maybe it's because they tried to reach out to him on Twitter during an outage? Hard to reach out to a website when the website is down!

  • On the post: One City Builder Game’s Tale Shows Just How Wide Open The DMCA Process Is For Abuse

    Rico R. ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2023 @ 04:42pm

    Oh, the irony!

    Techdirt: A certain game publisher who shall not be named (cough-cough Nintendo cough-cough) has the right to take down certain fan works, but that doesn't mean they should. Perhaps they could have reached out to said fan and worked something out to make it official, but no because of copyright. 3Division: Good advice. We'll do that with this fan who's creating a piece of fan work for one of our games. Fan: F*ck you! I'm filing DMCA takedowns on your own game. Steam, receiving fan's DMCA takedown: Aaaaannnd it's gone! I just hope this doesn't damage any similar goodwill to this and other studios because of one bad actor. Do you realize how hard it is for there to be a DMCA dispute between a fan and a major game studio over a fanwork where the game studio is the good guy?

  • On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

    Rico R. ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2023 @ 12:37pm

    Got Chrome?

    Find a real recording or reliable transcript of someone telling some “you’re fired” in real life.
    Here's one!

  • On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

    Rico R. ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2023 @ 12:24pm

    Because no one actually says “You’re fired” in real life, dumbass.
    What is this, a screenwriting dialogue class? Is there not enough subtext for you in the way Elon Musk is portraying himself here? This is a real news story, not a screenplay. By the way, even if most bosses don't simply say "You're fired," when firing someone, it doesn't mean that none do. I'd believe that Elon actually did say those exact words in this instance before I'd believe any of the nonsense you seem to be spouting!

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