Yakko Warner 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (227) comment rss

  • On the post: UK Parliament Recommends Websites Be Liable For Anonymous Comments If They Won't Reveal Identities

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2011 @ 11:05am

    The new DOS attack for British websites

    Get a botnet to post anonymous defamatory comments en masse. The site owner will have to spend considerable resources identifying the comments and deleting them, or shut down their comment system completely (which, depending on how valuable the forums are to the site, could hurt or kill it).

    The trick may be getting the botnet to come up with comments with enough variety so they can't be caught with a simple pattern match, but there are plenty of forums that offer a rich source of defamatory comments.

  • On the post: Court Rules Gamers Are Not Idiots And Not Likely To Be Confused Over 'Scrolls'

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2011 @ 01:45pm

    Not *all* gamers are idiots...

    ...but a whole lot of them seem to end up in online multiplayer.

    I still think that Quake match is a bad idea for Mojang, given ZeniMax owns the game. Notch is lucky it went to court instead. ;)

  • On the post: Email Is 40 Years Old

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2011 @ 07:56pm

    I still find it odd...

    I still find it odd when someone refers to email as "old-fashioned".

  • On the post: Lady Googoo Gone Gone After Lady Gaga Gets Injunction Against Parody

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2011 @ 09:18am

    Re: Re: Sigh

    There's a bit more to it than that. In his effort to get permission, he was told he had to actually go and record the song first (not just write it, but go through all the effort of making the recording). It was only then that he was told "no" (by her manager, although he didn't know it at the time). He posted the song on YouTube as a sort of protest of having to waste his time recording the song before being denied.

    From the horse's mouth: http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/the-gaga-saga/

    He did something similar with "You're Pitiful" (parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" -- although, in that case, the artist had given permission, and it was the publisher that told Al no, so his internet release was to spite the label, not the artist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Pitiful

  • On the post: Supreme Court Won't Hear Case Saying That You Have No First Sale Rights With Software

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2011 @ 02:44pm

    Re: Games

    I believe they already have, although it is an interesting question why they haven't bothered to try suing used game marketers.

    Didn't Netflix (or was it Redbox?) win a ruling that the First Sale Doctrine gave them the right to rent out DVDs that they purchased? I'm curious how the digital bits on a DVD movie disc are supposed to be subject to different rules than the digital bits on a DVD software disc...

  • On the post: Bethesda Turns Down Quake Fight Over Scrolls Name; Takes Guaranteed Loss By Going To Court

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2011 @ 02:36pm

    Re:

    Not to mention, considering Bethesda parent company ZeniMax bought id Software, makers of Quake, two years ago, it's likely they could've brought in some top players and mopped the floor with Notch & Co. in such a contest.

    They went from a sure win to a sure loss.

  • On the post: Chinese Gaming Company Recognizes That 'Pirates' Are Underserved Customers

    Yakko Warner ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 08:12am

    Re:

    I doubt that any major game company could emulate this system. They are too over-managed and over-organized to respond to the market.

    Actually, the first thing I thought of when I read this story may surprise you: Microsoft. Hackers had broken the Xbox security system to install homebrew software. While Microsoft did take steps to ban modified consoles from the network, when Bill Gates was shown a demo of a modded Xbox, his response was, "How can we engage this community?" The Indie Games Marketplace may owe its existence to this.

    Microsoft's reaction to Windows Phone 7 hackers is similar, inviting them to Redmond and treating them to donuts.

    Granted, it may take them years to truly incorporate any of the ideas, and they might not be as "open" as the results a dedicated hacker comes up with, but it's a far cry from the "shut down and litigate" reaction we see a lot.