This week, our top comment on the insightful side is, it seems, the fulfillment of a long-running hope — Miles won first place with thoughts about the Techdirt community:
Every time this subject comes up I think that the community here at Techdirt is remarkably civil. There is some trolling and some heated discussions, but all in all, not too bad.
I think part of the reason is the tools you’ve given us. We can hide (but not remove) the posts we find offensive, and vote for the ones we particularly like. I always look forward to Sunday afternoon to see who won (I’ve never made the cut, sigh.)
No sighing this week!
In second place, we’ve got Arthur Moore with a simple explanation of why trademark disputes between private companies do indeed have First Amendment implications:
Remember that IP laws themselves are a “temporary” monopoly granted by the government. They are, fundamentally, a government authorized restriction of speech.
We don’t normally consider IP laws as an exception to the First Amendment, but there’s no other way to look at it. Which means any sort of overly broad claim runs smack dab into the issue of free speech.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from That One Guy about the FCC’s denial that there is a broadband competition problem:
As the saying (roughly) goes…
‘It is difficult to get an FCC commissioner to understand something, when his future employment/’retirement’ opportunities depend on him (claiming not to) understand it.’
Next, we’ve got an anonymous comment outlining why big tech’s “monopoly” problem aint got nothin’ on telecom:
Just this morning, I looked up an item at Amazon, and yet, placed an order through a competitor because it was cheaper.
Don’t want an iPhone…. Samsung actually makes some pretty good gear too.
Don’t want to use Google for search or email or anything? Use DuckDuckGo and Mail.com and install an ad blocker and whitelist everything but big G.
Need to sign up for an ISP not called Comcast? To F** Bad! They are, despite me living in large city, my ONLY option. And somehow THEY’RE the ones not violating any antitrust rules.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is That One Guy with a summary of the CJEU’s worrying and messy statements about content monitoring and filtering:
An advocate general with cognitive dissonance, lovely
‘General monitoring requirements are bad and prohibited.’ -CJEU Advocate General
‘If however a court were to require a platform to keep specific content from being re-posted, either by the original poster or other users, something that could only be done via general monitoring/filters, that’s okay.’ – Also CJEU Advocate General
In second place, we’ve got an anonymous solution to Activision’s trademark dispute:
Well, they could just patch the dialogue to say “Get in the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle!! *shots fired* JOHNNY NOOOO!!!! He didn’t know what to do because it took me too long to say it! CURSE YOU TRADEMARK LAWYERS! *cries*”
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a brief anonymous skit all about antitrust:
Judge: Why did you break the law?
Defendant: Well, your Honor, I was hoping for an AT&T deal. You know, where you separate me from the rest of my family for little while, then make me above the law in the future and I come out rich and reunite with my family. Is that too much to ask?
Judge: Depends on who you are.
And finally, we’ve got an anonymous commenter who found a use for Trump’s anti-AT&T tweet:
I was going to use this as my (cord cutting) excuse when I call to cancel DirecTV next month. “Well, the president said I should…”
That’s all for this week, folks!
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Author: Leigh Beadon