Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the a-better-sunday-read-than-the-times dept

The Sunday Times got hammered this week over its article that simply parroted the government’s talking points, and its responses were less than stellar. After they attempted to shunt all the blame onto said government, rw won most insightful comment of the week by pointing out the other side of the complicity coin:

This is why governments want to define “Journalists” as only those working for major media outlets.

In second place, we’ve got a comment that brings up a point I’ve never really thought of (and one that I admit I’m not sure about, but need to consider more) from Lane D on the subject of biometrics:

This is just my opinion
But I wish people would stop thinking of biometrics as a replacement for passwords. Think of them as a replacement for your username, but not as a replacement for a password.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start with a comment from last week’s Techdirt History post, which is technically outside the boundaries for this week, but comments on those posts rarely get a shot, so why not? After we pointed to an older post asking if intellectual property was fundamentally immoral, one anonymous commenter made a pretty excellent case for “yes”:

Intellectual property must give people the brainpower of a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal.

It does. It’s the word “property” that does it. It’s like gold fever, but for imaginary property.

Is intellectual property immoral?

Yes it is. First of all, it misrepresents the Constitutional limits of a temporary monopoly privilege as a thing that can be owned, and should therefore be owned permanently like actual property.

Secondly, it creates a breed of froth-mouthed adherents who not only disregard everyone else’s rights, they insist on getting laws passed that actively infringe upon them.

Thirdly, it facilitates theft from the public domain via expansion, locking up works that were formerly free to use.

Fourthly, it robs us of our cultural heritage by letting unprofitable works on celluloid film decay instead of enabling them to be copied and saved for future generations.

Seriously, don’t get me started on how utterly offensive and morally bankrupt “intellectual property” is. You can call it intellectual output if you will but if I see anyone calling it property or describing the experience thereof as “consuming,” believe me I will put you straight. Let’s not be using words from the real thieves’ lexicon.

/End rant

Next, we’ve got a comment on our cross-post from the new Copia Institute website about hacking policy through innovation, not lobbying. After one commenter suggested that was difficult verging on impossible, another anonymous commenter composed an excellent response:

The Internet upsets information monopolies. (Encyclopedias)

And yet Wikipedia has come to dominate without requiring any policy changes.

But I could also repeat: Netflix, Amazon Prime

Netflix has also come to dominate without requiring any policy changes.

Innovation like SpaceX threatens fat dinosaurs

SpaceX is doing just fine without any policy changes.

Of all the things you’ve mentioned, only Uber and Lyft are hindered by current regulations. Your examples most contradict your premise that “you must convince the ruling class to allow us mere peasants to create innovation.”

Over on the funny side, first place comes from our post about Comcast’s use of misleading polls in a misguided attempt to fix its horrible reputation. DannyB did a hilarious job of imagining what one of these polls might look like:

1. How many problems have you had with your Comcast service?
[x] Zero
[_] Less than one

2. Which of the following problems have you experienced with Comcast? (Please check all that apply.)
[_] Was unable to express in words how happy I was with Comcast service!
[_] Could not reach enough Comcast people to express my joy with Comcast service.
[_] The online payment system has a bug that will not allow me to pay more than the actual price for the service.

3. How would you rate your Comcast service?
[_] Fantastical
[_] Amazing
[_] Wonderful
[_] Marvelous
[_] Good

Thank you for your feedback. As a reward for sending us feedback, would you like to receive craptacular email offers from selected Comcast partners?
[_] Yes! Please fill my inbox to overflowing!
[_] No. (but fill my inbox anyway)

For second place, we head to a post we titled “Designer Knockoff Enthusiast Issues DMCA Notice Targeting Half The Internet, Fails To Remove A Single URL.” Did you catch the error? No? Thankfully, one anonymous commenter did:

FYI, you have a typo in your headline. It should read:

DMCA Notice Enthusiast Issues Blog on Designer Knockoffs …

For editor’s choice, we return to the Sunday Times saga, where CNN asked the reporter some tough questions and got some unimpressive responses. Agonistes pointed out the other big story here:

Ubelieveable
I’m absolutely shocked that a CNN employee asked relevant and coherent questions of a guest.

(To be honest, I watch so little TV news these days that I don’t even know if it’s fair to target CNN specifically — but given the general feebleness of that entire journalistic medium at the moment, the sentiment seems right.)

Finally, we’ve got a comment in response to the news that the European Human Rights court declared sites liable for user comments. Jigsy offered up the only thing that can safely be said about this bad decision:

[ This comment cannot be viewed due to disapproval by the European Human Rights Court. Sorry about that. :/ ]

That’s all for this week, folks!