Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?
I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.
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I’m constantly pointing out how New Zealand is making it itself into a bit of an anti-American legal haven, but they’re not the only ones who have a history of that. Thailand has had issues, so many that the government had to declare a Year of IP Protection, with renewed enforcement to go with it. And as it turns out, they have a long way to go, but even US industry groups recognize the progress. That’s good to see.
I imagine they don’t harbor fugitives like Kim Dotcom, either. Who may or may not drink 10 liters of Coke every day, then blame the eeevil Americans for the consequences.
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The UN’s WIPO is an established, but controversial, arbiter of Internet domain name/trademark disputes. So I find it absolutely hilarious that Ron Paul is using it to go after his own supporters. This is even sillier than Hasbro shutting down My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, the game that raised thousands of dollars for cancer research.
Just because we have the right to do something, it doesn’t mean that it is right to do that thing. Sometimes exerting your rights to their fullest extent just isn’t the right thing to do, and some sort of solution should be found that’s win-win. Especially when we’re raising money for cancer, as in the case of MLP: Fighting is Magic in the Evo contest.
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Been a while since we started with some Google. Taking fire from two directions right now: I’ve pointed out that we need to watch them to see if they end up as politically even handed as they now claim to be. Microsoft is also after them by attempting to discredit their privacy policies.
Here’s the problem though. Microsoft’s ad campaign assumes people actually care about privacy. They don’t. Their actions in the marketplace indicate otherwise. That’s the real reason people don’t care about long privacy policies. Which is also why the only net effect of a California simplified privacy policy rule, would be to drive job creators out of the state.
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The anti-copyright crusaders are going to try to use this latest DMCA horror story as a reason to eliminate DMCA. I disagree. Of all the DMCA uses that go on in this country, most of them fly under the radar. How many are correct? Probably most. Will mistakes happen? Yup. Are copyright holders overzealous? Yup. Is this reason not to strengthen the system? Yup. But it’s not reason to repeal it. It’s a tradeoff and a compromise.
Of course, the real motive of the typical Slashdot left-anarchist DMCA critics is to open the Internet to mass copyright infringement on free services like WordPress.com, Youtube, and others. These are the same people who think abusers should be able to go onto MIT’s network and abuse MIT’s JSTOR access to commit mass, premeditated copyright infringement, and then blame MIT, JSTOR, and the government for the crime.
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So, the President and other Democrats seem to think more government is the answer to our cybersecurity problems. the Chinese are attacking us, and will continue to do so going forward. Hard to see how more regulation on our wend will help that. Fighting back might make more sense, so long as we don’t make the Internet unusable in the process.
Of course, some threats are domestic. Gangs like Anonymous need to be found and jailed. Again, regulation isn’t the answer there. Police work is. Especially since this Anontard attack was on… the Federal Reserve. Oops.
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Hey Mark Cuban: We both know that when Obama signed the American Invents Act, crushing small businesses was a feature, since it meant a) more work for lawyers who backed the bill and b) easier competition for the big businesses who backed the bill.
I see the vultures using Aaron Swartz’s dead body for political purposes are now going full Weekend at Bernie’s on this. It’s amazing.
And yet nobody reconciles the Democrat outrage at this, with Democrat plans to ignore the Constitution and use Executive Orders on cybersecurity. If we allow stuff like what Swartz did, we’re letting cybersecurity threats go unpunished, sorry.
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Justice is impeding the Sprint/Softbank merger. Gee, whoever could have predicted that if Sprint funded the left-wing effort to embolden Obama administration action, then Sprint itself could suffer bad consequences? I wonder. It wasn’t me, was it? I didn’t point out that Sprint Nextel itself had a history of mergers, such as the Sprint-Nextel merger, did I? Hmm.
Hey Chuck Grassley: The first amendment is not a suggestion any more than the second amendment is. There is no Video Game exception that I saw. You’d have to be as special as the Vice President to think think citing the words of a crazed murderer as an authority helps you make a point, anyway.
Besides, it is not your job to dictate ‘artistic value’ to others, nor does your own job have ‘artistic value.’ So if you would silence others who do not have ‘artistic value,’ then that do we conclude about your right to speech? Everybody knows you never go full Biden, Senator.
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Sorry for the lack of Tech on Friday. I was sick and doing my best to sleep it off. I’m at about 95% now, so let’s catch up.
How do I know privacy regulation and legislation are bad ideas? Nobody actually cares. Sure, they talk like they care, but until people start taking proactive steps and act like they’re taking it seriously, I know it’s just talk. Just like how everyone says they hate Congress, but love their own representation.
So yeah, if you’re moaning about Google on your Blogger site, and emailing to your friends about it from your Gmail account, and using Google Maps to get directions to your privacy rally… I don’t take you seriously.
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Quickly tonight, as I’m beat. Here’s more on the Netflix/Net Neutrality controversy, and how they’re making war on ISPs while regulations prevent ISPs from fighting back. A key point Fred Campbell makes: Net Neutrality does not protect and cannot even be invoked by consumers.
Just another reason we need to oppose Democrat plans to legislate Net Neutrality should the courts overturn it.
Yeah, their definitions of free and open are warped.
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