Rico R. 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Trump Files Ridiculous Copyright Lawsuit Over Bob Woodward’s Audio Book

    Rico R. ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2023 @ 10:34am

    Is it partisan to correctly call Trump an idiot?

    If Obama or Biden filed this lawsuit about one of their interviews, assuming all the facts are the same, they would absolutely be called out for the same conduct.

    “There’s totally legitimate questions here….”
    Except there isn't. Unless there isn't a written, signed document stating the contrary, generally speaking, whoever presses "record" to fix the audio in a tangible medium of expression is the copyright owner. Here, it's either the journalist themselves or someone working for the journalists (and a work-for-hire agreement, in that case, would assign the copyright to the journalists, not Trump). Notice how Trump produces nothing here to show that he owns any copyright in any part of those recordings? That's because it doesn't exist. This is an open-and-shut case for the journalists. Trump has about as much copyright interest in those recordings as the subject of a stock photo has in the photograph. All he's doing is being vindictive toward journalists, and that's nothing new for him.

  • On the post: DoNotPay Promotes Itself As Helping You Get Out Of Subscriptions, But Keeps Charging Customers After Telling Them Their Own Accounts Are Closed

    Rico R. ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 10:44am

    Rise of the machines???

    Wow, a tech company continually charging customers after their accounts are closed... How can their attorneys be so incompetent? Maybe they should find another lawyer. The AI one has been malfunctioning nonstop!

  • On the post: New Dumb Attack Against Gigi Sohn Tries To Shame Her For Being On The EFF’s Board

    Rico R. ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 12:29pm

    Congratulations, Fox "News"!

    Before these "news" organizations reported that Gigi Sohn is on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I had no idea that was the case. Now, I want Sohn confirmed to the FCC even more! That was your intent, right?

  • On the post: HBO Max Jacks Up Prices After Cheapskate Executives Trash Popular Shows, Refuse To Pay Artist Residuals

    Rico R. ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 09:11am

    There is a better solution...

    At an investor conference last week, Gunnar Wiedenfels, the chief financial officer of Warner Bros Discovery, said streaming services “are priced way too low.”
    There's only one way that would make sense. Suppose there was a world where it didn't matter if Time Warner, Disney, NBCUniversal, CBSViacom, etc. produced a particular show, and instead, streaming services competed on (gasp) the quality of their service! Imagine: For a price slightly higher than the current rates, you could watch any show available for streaming on any streaming service. Producers would get paid royalties based on how many viewers there are across the various streaming services. In some ways, the music industry learned that lesson years ago. Most people consume content, be it music, movies, or TV shows, agnostically. They don't care which label or studio makes or owns the rights to a particular piece of content; they just want to enjoy it for its artistic value. In the current landscape of music, it doesn't matter whether you pay for Amazon Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Spotify, etc. For the most part, if a song is released, you can listen to it on any streaming service. Why can't you do that with movies or TV shows? Oh, wait... there already is an option that allows you to access all the content ever released. It's called "piracy" by the industry, and as usual, pirates are not affected by this. HBO Max removed a show and increased their price? Pirates have it still, and it costs them nothing. As long as the industry sticks to its guns on streaming exclusives, and doubles down on its stance of anti-piracy and that password sharing is evil, its business prospects will never improve.

  • On the post: MA Automakers Stall Right To Repair Reform After Running Ads Claiming Improved Repair Options Would Aid Sexual Predators

    Rico R. ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2023 @ 09:27am

    Is it just me?

    The link above with the text "boon to sexual predators" isn't working for me. Upon using inspect element, it appears it has two URLs. The first of which is to this Techdirt article, and the second of which isn't a web address at all. It's just a URL-encoded version of this paragraph, with "http://" in front of it:

    In late 2020, Massachusetts lawmakers (with overwhelming public support) passed an expansion of the state’s “right to repair” law. The original law was the first in the nation to be passed in 2013. The update dramatically improved it, requiring that as of this year, all new telematics-equipped vehicles be accessible via a standardized, transparent platform that allows owners and third-party repair shops to access vehicle data via a mobile device. The goal: reduce repair monopolies, and make it cheaper and easier to get your vehicle repaired.
    Please fix this. Thanks!

  • On the post: Afroman Turns Security Footage Of Bullshit Raid Of His Home Into Viral Rap Video Hit

    Rico R. ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2023 @ 06:07pm

    Well, that's a first!

    Here's a video of police doing wrong with purposely added music playing in the background, and for once, it's NOT from police trying to trip up copyright filters. And yet, the police STILL end up trying to cover up their wrongdoings with more shady actions and still come out looking like jerks!

  • On the post: Thursday Night Purge: Elon Musk’s Twitter Bans Tons Of High Profile Journalists

    Rico R. ( profile ), 15 Dec, 2022 @ 07:20pm

    Hey Elon! You know the freedom of the press is included in the first amendment you claim to hold near and dear to your heart, and Twitter's, right? Don't believe me? Look for yourself:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
    Not that it matters, as Twitter isn't the government. Still, the last time I checked, there is also no law against uttering the words "Elon Jet", so I suggest yo-- \\Account Suspended\\

  • On the post: Nintendo Copyright Strikes Video About Unreleased ‘Heroes Of Hyrule’ Game

    Rico R. ( profile ), 14 Dec, 2022 @ 08:23am

    Copyright infringement on what?

    Someone on the Lawful Masses Discord server shared this story a few days ago, and my response to this is still the same: On what grounds? Think about it… A third party company pitches a video game to Nintendo. Nintendo declines the pitch, and the video game is never made. Fast forward a few decades, a YouTuber makes a video documenting the history of the aforementioned pitch. And the resulting video receives a copyright takedown notice from… Nintendo? Now, I’m no gamer by any stretch of the imagination. So I don’t know the exact history of the pitched video game. But does Nintendo even have rights here to the pitch? The video game was NEVER made, so I would have to think the rights to the video game pitch still belong to the company that pitched the game to Nintendo and not Nintendo themselves. And even such a copyright claim may be untenable based solely on the pitch. You can’t copyright ideas, but only the form an idea takes. Any documents that aid in the pitch may have a thin copyright (again, belonging to the company that made the pitch and not Nintendo), but the game was never made by Nintendo. Does Nintendo even have any rights to authorize such a takedown? I have my doubts, and even if they hold some rights, as the author says, fair use almost certainly applies here. Nintendo doesn’t have a leg to stand on here, but this is Nintendo we’re taking about. They clearly care more about IP enforcement than their own fans. So this behavior is unsurprising. Disappointing, but unsurprising!

  • On the post: Canada Steals Cultural Works From The Public By Extending Copyright Terms

    Rico R. ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2022 @ 06:27pm

    Yeah, because heaven forbid a Canadian artist export something based on something in their public domain to the US while it's still under copyright in the US... This really is a distinction without a difference. Whether it's because of trade agreements (which have no business dealing with copyright anyway) or because some rich family wants to continue collecting royalties from their ancestor's creations for a longer period of time, there's no good reason to extend copyright retroactively for another 20 years. I'd suggest following the US's lead in an attempt to fix this problem, but that's really just the whims of an insurrection-supporting senator trying to punish one media conglomerate for (checks notes) "being too woke".

  • On the post: The Elon Speedrun Continues; Apparently Comedy Is Not Quite Legal On The New Twitter

    Rico R. ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2022 @ 05:59pm

    Freedom to speak also includes the freedom to not speak. Freedom to assemble includes the freedom to not assemble.
    I agree that the first amendment gives Twitter the ability to choose what/who to allow on their platform and what/who not to. My point could have been made a bit clearer. What I was getting at was this: Say Elon isn't inclined to moderate or take down something protected by the first amendment. For example, let's say vaccine misinformation. Elon says he would start taking action on it if Congress passed a law making vaccine misinformation illegal. The problem with such a law is that vaccine misinformation, as dangerous and harmful as it is, is protected by the first amendment. Almost any court would strike down such a law as unconstitutional on first amendment grounds. And once the law is struck down, vaccine misinformation is declared legal, and Elon won't be taking it down. Therefore, Elon's stance that only illegal content should be banned, and that if you want Twitter to take action, have Congress pass a law to make something illegal, is untenable. Of course, there's nothing stopping Twitter from taking down and/or putting up disclaimers on content (such as vaccine misinformation), and such activities would be protected by the first amendment. But requiring the government to make certain kinds of speech illegal just so Twitter will ban it violates the first amendment. That is what I was getting at. Hopefully, that clears up any misunderstanding.

  • On the post: The Elon Speedrun Continues; Apparently Comedy Is Not Quite Legal On The New Twitter

    Rico R. ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2022 @ 11:35am

    Elon, Meet the First Amendment.

    If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
    One small problem with that, Elon. If people need to pass a law making certain speech illegal for Twitter to take action, such a law would in and of itself violate the first amendment. That means that Twitter will allow anything the first amendment will allow (i.e., everything). Such a catch-22 would make Twitter's moderation turn into a hellscape overnight. And this is before we even get into Elon's backpedaling when it comes to parody accounts!

  • On the post: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Has Really Bad Ideas About Section 230

    Rico R. ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2022 @ 01:08pm

    Why stop at notice-and-takedown for illegal speech? The copyright industries are also saying it isn't working. Everything, the DMCA, section 230, etc., should move to a notice-and-staydown regime! That way, social media companies can become more proactive in policing their platforms, and the internet becomes a better place for all standpoints! /s

  • On the post: Before The Supreme Court Destroys The Internet, It Might First Destroy Art

    Rico R. ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2022 @ 09:52am

    As long as I've been reading Techdirt, it has always been opinionated. And since when is copyright a "social justice" issue in that sense of the word? Copyright has typically been apolitical. Both good and bad copyright policies come from both sides of the aisle. Besides, no news article can be "unbiased". Every article's author will have some feeling of bias towards that particular issue, and even if they try to filter out their own opinions, their bias will still be present to some degree.

  • On the post: There Are All Sorts Of Problems With Ruling That YouTube Ripping Tool May Violate Copyright Law

    Rico R. ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2022 @ 10:12pm

    Breaking TOS is NOT necessarily copyright infringement

    A few problems with your attempted distinctions, point for point:

    1) youtube’s watch page is working exactly how google designed their web site to work.
    Can't disagree there.
    2) youtube-dl on the other hand, does something that youtube’s terms of service are explicitly forbidding, i.e. moving the videos outside of youtube platform
    Yes, YouTube's terms of service prohibit downloading YouTube videos. But that doesn't make it an inherent copyright violation, be it infringement or circumventing technical protection measures.
    3) The reason for the TOS forbid is because google has only required video authors to give a license to use the videos within the youtube system. Video authors do not need to give any more flexible licenses to google than whatever the upload button paperwork requires. Thus taking videos outside of youtube platform is illegal, because google does not have permission to do it. If google doesn’t have permission to do it, then youtube’s end users don’t have the permission either.
    Uh, no. YouTube's terms of service gives Google a license to the content uploaded to their platform, but that doesn't mean it's copyright infringement if a third party (i.e., a user using youtube-dl and ISN'T Google) downloads it. In fact, YouTube has an option that enables you to release your YouTube video under a Creative Commons-Attribution license. Not the default option, I know, but even the CC BY videos designated as such on YouTube don't have a download button that enables the same functionality as youtube-dl. Using youtube-dl or any other tool to download those videos is permitted under those terms. And if YouTube says its TOS still trumps the terms of the Creative Commons license, then THEY are breaking the license terms. Under the logic of this lawsuit, YouTube is adding a TPM to CC-licnesed videos uploaded to their platform, and CC licensees may NOT add TPMs according to the license terms. But still, let's say we're talking about the larger subset of YouTube videos under the "Standard YouTube License." Google has a license to the content when people post their videos on YouTube. The TOS covers what they can and cannot do with that content. But whatever rights Google may have doesn't affect whether or not a third party can download the video without infringing copyright. Remember, breaking YouTube's terms of service does not automatically make it copyright infringement. At most, it's a contract violation between Google and the end user who downloaded the content.
    4) there is alternative that users who want to download the videos from youtube, will separately ask for permission from the video authors. Unfortunately, the contact addresses are generally not available for videos, so side-channel permission requests are generally failing in youtube platform.
    This logic assumes the only way you can legally download a YouTube video (assuming you're not breaking the TOS or the so-called "TPM") requires permission from the video's uploader/creator. But there's many non-infringing reasons to download YouTube videos. Perhpas to download the video to watch later (time-shifting). Or perhaps you have a slow Broadband connection wherever you live, and you want to watch the YouTube video in the highest possible quality without interruption. Or perhaps you want to listen to a YouTube video's audio on the go without displaying the video. Or perhaps you want to make a fair use of the video's content. None of those require permission from the creator. And if you wanted to use the content in a way that required permission, there's no reason why you should have to also ask the video's creator to send a copy of the video to them. The fact that YouTube doesn't provide an easy way to contact any user privately is irrelevant to this discussion.

  • On the post: There Are All Sorts Of Problems With Ruling That YouTube Ripping Tool May Violate Copyright Law

    Rico R. ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2022 @ 05:54pm

    Same technology, different programs, different legal result

    But, the judge here is basically saying that not providing a feature in the form of a button directly means that there’s a technological protection measure, and bypassing it could be seen as infringing.
    I think it's a lot more dangerous than this... I could be wrong, as I'm not Yout and I'm no programmer by any means, but I believe Yout's backend is youtube-dl (a command line tool that RIAA tried to take down from Github and is suing a German web host for hosting its website). And from what I understand, youtube-dl essentially fetches the same thing a browser would access when watching a video on YouTube (and more or less automates the process that Yout describes doing in developer tools). YouTube's watch page does the same thing youtube-dl does; the only difference between the watch page and youtube-dl is the latter downloads the video to a file, while the former streams the video in a player within the browser. Technologically and functionally, it is doing the same exact thing. But the judge here is saying that you circumvent a TPM just by doing the same exact thing with a different tool. Using the YouTube watch page to access a YouTube video in Chrome? 100% legal. Using youtube-dl to access the same exact video? Illegal. How does that make sense? It's like making it legal to drive down a freeway in a Ford vehicle but illegal to drive down the same freeway in a Kia. According to TorrentFreak's article, Yout plans to appeal this ruling. I hope it does and wins, because should this ruling stand, section 1201 of the DMCA shifts from merely being an unconstitutional copyright law to an unconstitutional attack on the free and open internet.

  • On the post: Book Publishing Giant Pulls Nearly 1400 Ebook Titles From GW Library; Forcing Students To Buy Them Instead

    Rico R. ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2022 @ 09:16pm

    AFAIK, some of their more maximalist policies (i.e., using DRM, region restrictions, etc.) only comes from the requirements imposed by the people that license the content they put out. For example, their Thomas and the Magic Railroad 20th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD is region locked to Region code A/1, simply due to the fact they licensed it from Sony, which only has distribution rights to the film in the US and Canada. Not exactly the polar opposite of copyright maximalism, but compared to Disney (in your previous comment), Shout! Factory is far better!

  • On the post: Book Publishing Giant Pulls Nearly 1400 Ebook Titles From GW Library; Forcing Students To Buy Them Instead

    Rico R. ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2022 @ 03:37pm

    And when the SCOTUS said, "Of course, the first sale doctrine applies to foreign sold-works," the publishers (like Wiley) responded by jacking up the prices on foreign works to match their domestic counterparts. The attitude around copyright has shifted from incentivizing creativity to incentivizing corporate greed at the expense of public knowledge. So much for "the encouragement of learning"...

  • On the post: Book Publishing Giant Pulls Nearly 1400 Ebook Titles From GW Library; Forcing Students To Buy Them Instead

    Rico R. ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2022 @ 03:33pm

    If you don't mind me asking, why exactly the MST3K part of Shout! Factory? Is it just because of the show's "Keep Circulating the Tapes" attitude, or is there a problematic portion of Shout! Factory not connected to MST3K? There was an article a few years ago where Shout! explained how copyright maximalism actually hinders some of their old TV show re-releases due to music copyright. Shout! Factory seems like the least problematic home video label in the digital age, but maybe that's just me.

  • On the post: Publishers Lose Their Shit After Authors Push Back On Their Attack On Libraries

    Rico R. ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2022 @ 12:02pm

    The MPAA, RIAA, and the Author's Guild have 1 thing in common...

    The biggest trick these legacy publishing corporate coalitions did is convince the general public that getting their works released through them is proof that they made it as a filmmaker/musician/author. Every filmmaker wants a major studio to pay for them to get their dream project made. Every indie band and artist dreams of signing with a major record label. And every author dreams of having their work published by a major publisher. Somehow, partnering with a major studio, label, or publisher gives them a sense of accomplishment, like they made it in their respective industry. However, then these same entities push for policies they want even if the creator disagrees with them. They push for draconian copyright laws, push for the destruction of the free and open Internet, and complain about the money they "lost" to piracy. All while the creators they supposedly "support" get pennies while the publishers rake in millions. At the same time, the next generation looks up to these creators as their idols and inspirations, and they dream of making it one day just like them. And the cycle begins again. At the same time, the public gets worse off, all because the copyright law the publishers want continues to get mistaken as the copyright law the creators want. The publishers win, the creators and the public loses, and nothing ever changes.

  • On the post: New Data From The Bureau Of Prisons Indicates Bail Reform Won’t Make Americans Less Safe

    Rico R. ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2022 @ 10:02pm

    Meant to reply to your post, see my comment below...

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