Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the chat-room dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side That One Guy responding to various portions of the letter from members of Congress telling a private organization not to comment on copyright law:

Lots of assertions, but not so much on the evidence

“For more than 200 years U.S. copyright law…”

… Has been quite a bit different, as it has changed significantly over time both in duration and scope, to the point that current copyright law has only a passing resemblance to it’s original form, and almost nothing with the original intent, that of serving the public.

“…has served as a crucial incentive to publishers, authors, composers, and countless other artists, enabling the creation and dissemination of works that improve our lives, enhance our culture,…”

Gonna need a [Citation Needed] for that one. Automobiles have also been around a lot, as have phones and the internet more recently, does that mean that any or all of those factors have been a boon to all those things? The fact that copyright has been around does not automatically mean that it’s copyright that did any of that, that’s a link that would need to be demonstrated rather than merely asserted.

“…and drive an economic engine that delivers $1.3 trillion in annual value to U.S. GDP.”

And gonna need a really big [Citation Needed] for that one, given I distinctly remember a ‘study’ a number of years back that tried to lump grocery stores as part of the ‘IP economy'(or whatever term would be appropriate).

“… a back door effort to circumvent the authority of Congress and undermine the copyright system that fuels our creative economy.”

The projection is strong with this one.

In second place, we’ve got Thad responding to an all-too-common line of mockery regarding cops who actually face criminal charges:

Making light of prison rape serves the interests of authoritarians like Wilkey. It implies that it’s okay for criminals to have their human rights violated, and for people in power to allow it to happen.

If you think it’s okay for Wilkey’s rights to be violated because he’s a bad person — well, that’s what he was thinking every time he violated someone’s rights.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of anonymous comments, first regarding misallocated anger about privacy and data collection:

It’s funny how the politicians quoted are blaming this on “big tech” when it’s actually “big telecom” that’s accumulating and selling the data.

Next, it’s another comment about Congress’ copyright letter:

I guess it’s totes cool though when corporations or their interest-group orgs write actual law on which Congress just basically signs off. But damn you to hell if you want to have a scholarly discussion about its historical use and interpretation!

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is That Anonymous Coward with a response to the lawsuit against the Sons of Confederate Veterans over a bogus DMCA takedown:

I wish the stupid villains would give up… I’m starting to not enjoy popcorn.

In second place, it’s a response to a commenter who offered up an edited version of a defense of Devin Nunes’ defamation lawsuits. ArkieGuy was prompted to supply a simpler edit, replacing the entire text:

“[Moo]”

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous commenter who chose an amusing means of alerting us to a typo in our reference to “Norther California”:

Norther California: when North California isn’t north enough, but Northest California is too far north.

And finally, it’s one more anonymous commenter with a response to the notion that “piracy is officially dead in the US now”:

I’m in the US. I just right-clicked an image from a website and saved it to my computer. I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

Yo ho ho.

That’s all for this week, folks!