Ringo Starr Drops Trademark Challenge Against 'Ring O' Sex Toy

from the missed-opportunities dept

First, an apology. I tend to cover much of our trademark beat here at Techdirt. And regular readers here will know that my sense of humor trends towards the juvenile and vulgar. It is with a solemn and heartfelt apology, therefore, that I must report to you all that I somehow missed that there was a trademark fight between famed drummer Ringo Starr and Pacific Coast Holdings IP, LLC, makers of a Ring O -- wait for it -- sex toy. I really should have caught this, but missed it.

The background on this is that Starr's legal team opposed the "Ring O" trademark Pacific Coast Holdings applied for, claiming that the public would be confused into believing that Starr was now somehow in the sex toys business.

Documents filed by his lawyers in 2019 said: "Consumers will likely believe that Opposer's [Starr's] newest venture is sex toys - and this is an association that Opposer does not want."

It must certainly be true that Starr did not want this name on a sex toy. He may have even believed people would think he was somehow associated with sex toys as a result. But his legal team very much should have explained to him that a product name like this doesn't actually constitute trademark infringement, given that there was no other association made with the drummer and that they don't compete with one another in commerce.

While that apparently wasn't done up front, this is all now once again in the news because Starr and Pacific Coast Holdings have entered into a co-existance agreement, part of which includes Starr dropping his opposition.

Now, according to the settlement, Pacific Holdings and Momentum Management have agreed to "avoid any activity likely to lead to confusion" between their product and the musician.

The deal says the companies can only use the name for adult sex aids and desensitising sprays, and must have a space between the "Ring" and the "O".

The companies have pledged not to "degrade, tarnish or deprecate or disparage" Starr's name or image. They also said they wouldn't make any reference or innuendo associating the product with Starr, or give the impression that he's associated with it.

In other words, the company will continue to use the name as it had been, but now stipulate that it won't in the future make any other reference to Ringo Starr. If that's a win, it is certainly a meager one.

It sure would be nice, however, if the famous didn't walk through life with IP rabbit ears attempting to pick up any real or imagined reference to themselves, just waiting to pounce over intellectual property concerns that don't actually exist.

Filed Under: ringo star, sex toys, trademark
Companies: pacific coast holdings

Creating State Action Via Antitrust Law And Making The People Who've Been Wrong About The Constitutionality Of Content Moderation Suddenly Right

from the stopped-clocks dept

The challenge of a 24+ hour legislative session covering multiple bills is that it's hard to keep track of everything that happens. In my last post I wrote about a few impressions and examples that I happened to catch. This post is about another.

Plenty of people on both sides of the aisle have been plenty wrong about content moderation on the Internet. Many Democrats get it very wrong, and so do many Republicans. In the case of people like Reps. Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz, their particular flavor of wrongness has been to rant and rave about the private editorial decisions platforms have made to remove the speech they think they should have the right to make on these services, no matter what. They complain that what these platforms are doing to their posts must somehow be violating their First Amendment rights—and they are completely and utterly wrong on that point. Platforms are private actors with their own First Amendment rights to choose what speech to associate with. Making those decisions, even in ways some people (including these Congressmen) don't like, is entirely legal and THEIR constitutional right to exercise. It in no way impinges on the First Amendment rights of any would-be user of their service to refuse their expression.

But these Congressmen and some of their similarly-minded colleagues have noticed that if these antitrust bills should become law in anything close to their current form their speech will continue to be denied access to these services. And this time that denial may well represent an unconstitutional incursion on their speech rights. Because it's one thing if the platforms make their own independent editorial decisions on whether to facilitate or deny certain user speech, including these Congressmen's speech. But it's another when government pressure forces platforms' hand to make those decisions in any particular way. And that's what these bills threaten to do.

One such way that they flagged is through the bills' demands for interoperability. Interoperability sounds like a nice idea in theory, but in practice there are significant issues with privacy, security, and even potentially content moderation, especially when it is demanded. Because one of the problems with an interoperability mandate is that it's hard to tell if, in being interoperable, one platform needs to adopt the same moderation policies of another platform they are trying to interoperate with. If the answer is yes, then suddenly platforms are no longer getting to make their own editorial decisions; now they are making editorial decisions the government is forcing them to make. Which means that when they impose them against certain user speech it now is at the behest of the state and therefore likely a violation of those users speech rights, which are rights that protect their speech against state action.

But even if a platform opts not to conform its moderation policies, the constitutional problem would remain. Because if these bills were to become law in their current form, the decision not to conform moderation policies might still be seen to flout the law's requirement for interoperability. And, at least initially, it would be up to the FTC to decide whether it does and thus warrants taking an enforcement action against the platform. But that means that the FTC could easily be in the position of making content-based decisions in order to decide whether the platform's content moderation decision (in this case not to conform) looks like an antitrust violation or not. This situation deeply concerned these Congressmen, who also happen to be of the belief that the FTC is a captured agency prone to making content decisions that conflict with their own preferred viewpoints. While their concerns generally seem overwrought, bills like these start to give them an air of legitimacy. Because regardless of whether the FTC actually is captured by any particular point of view or not, if it is going to make ANY enforcement decision predicated on any expressive decisions, that's a huge Constitutional problem, irrespective of which point of view may suffer or benefit from such government action.

So while it is very difficult to credit the particular outrage of these Congressmen, their alarm illustrates the fundamental problem with these bills and other similar legislative efforts (including some anti-Section 230 bills that these Congressmen favor): these targeted businesses are not ordinary companies selling ordinary products and services where market forces act in traditional market-driven ways. These are platforms and services handling SPEECH. And when companies are in the speech-handling business we can't treat them like non-speech businesses without impinging on those speech interests themselves in an unconstitutional "make no law" sort of way.

But that is exactly what Congress is deliberately trying to do. It is the government's displeasure with how these companies have been intermediating speech that is at the root of these regulatory efforts. It's not a case of, "These companies are big, maybe that's bad, and oops! Our regulatory efforts have accidentally implicated a speech interest." The whole acknowledged point of these regulatory efforts is to target companies that are "different," and the way they are different is because they are companies in the online speech business. Congress is deliberately trying to make a law that will shape how companies do that business. And the fact that its efforts are running headlong into some of the most provocative political speech interests of the day is Exhibit A for why the whole endeavor is an unconstitutional one.

Filed Under: antitrust, content moderation, interoperability, jim jordan, matt gaetz, state action
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google

2nd Circuit Upholds Non-Monetary Sanctions Against Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz

from the lying-liebowitz dept

Here's a quick update on infamous copyright troll Richard Liebowitz. As you may recall, after tons of stories about Liebowitz's horrendously bad activities in and out of court, federal district court Judge Jesse Furman finally threw the book at Liebowitz in an incredible ruling that literally catalogued dozens upon dozens of examples of Liebowitz lying to his and other courts. Furman issued both monetary and non-monetary sanctions. Among the non-monetary sanctions was a requirement that Liebowitz file a copy of this particular benchslap in basically every court where he is representing a client.

Liebowitz whined about how unfair it all was, and appealed the ruling. On Friday, the 2nd Circuit Court of appeals upheld the non-monetary sanctions, saying it will release its opinion on the monetary sanctions shortly. The ruling is pretty short (unlike Furman's explanation of all of Liebowitz's wrongdoing), but the general conclusion is: all the evidence says that Furman was exactly right, so his sanctions order was fine.

In this summary order, we focus on the court’s non8 monetary sanctions. “We review a district court’s imposition of sanctions for abuse of discretion”; however, because the district court is the “‘accuser, fact finder and sentencing judge’ all in one” when imposing sanctions, “our review is ‘more exacting than under the ordinary abuse-of-discretion standard.’” Wolters Kluwer Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Scivantage, 564 F.3d 110, 113 (2d Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). A district court abuses its discretion if its sanctions are based on “an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence,” and where its sanctions “cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” Id. (citations omitted).

Appellants’ arguments that the district court abused its discretion in imposing the non-monetary sanctions are unavailing. First, the court’s findings that Liebowitz lied and acted in bad faith when he represented to the court that the mediator gave Usherson permission to attend the mediation by phone and when he alleged in the complaint that the photograph was registered were not clearly erroneous. The evidence in the record––for example, the mediator’s testimony and the email exchange between the mediator and Bandshell’s counsel the night before the mediation––supports both conclusions. United States v. Iodice, 525 F.3d 179, 185 (2d Cir. 2008) (“When . . . credibility determinations are at issue, we give particularly strong deference to a district court finding.”). Liebowitz’s conduct was also not “colorable” as required to contest the court’s bad-faith finding. See Wolters Kluwer Fin. Servs., Inc., 564 F.3d at 114. There exists no “legal or factual basis” to excuse Liebowitz of his duty to reasonably investigate the claims in his complaint. Id.

Second, Appellants’ arguments that the non-monetary sanctions are overbroad because of their nationwide scope fail to persuade. Appellants rely on our decision in Enmon v. Prospect Cap. Corp., 675 F.3d 138 (2d Cir. 2012), where the law firm made several misrepresentations and the district court only required the firm to file a copy of its sanctions order with future pro hac vice applications in the Southern District of New York. See id. at 148. However, unlike the law firm’s misconduct in Enmon, Liebowitz’s misconduct in this case––including violating multiple court orders, repeatedly lying to the court, and filing a complaint with a false allegation––justify the nationwide scope of the court’s sanctions. Moreover, Liebowitz’s pattern of misconduct before many judges of the Southern District of New York and across the country, described at length in the district court’s opinion, squarely defeats Appellants’ suggestions to the contrary. See, e.g., In re Martin-Trigona, 737 F.2d 1254, 1262 (2d Cir. 1984) (affirming “restrictions placed upon [attorney’s] bringing of new actions in all federal district courts” (emphasis added)). See generally Usherson v. Bandshell Artist Mgmt., No. 19-CV-6368 (JMF), 2020 WL 3483661 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2020).

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by ordering Liebowitz and his firm to include a copy of the deposit files with each copyright infringement complaint they file for a year. Requiring Appellants to include a copy of the deposit files does not impermissibly shift the burden of proof. Although the party challenging the validity of a copyright registration bears the burden of proof, that burden attaches only for presumptively valid copyrights; plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing that presumption. See Urbont v. Sony Music Ent., 831 F.3d 80, 88–89 (2d Cir. 2016); see also Carol Barnhart Inc. v. Econ. Cover Corp., 773 F.2d 411, 414 (2d Cir. 1985). Courts cannot rely on the face of the complaint to establish this presumption in the cases Appellants bring, given that Liebowitz’s associate “admitted that it is the regular practice of [their firm] to file copyright infringement cases without verifying that the works in question are properly registered.” Special App. 19–20; see also Joint App. 483.

There's also a fun footnote dismissing one of Liebowitz's classically silly arguments:

Appellants’ argument that the sanction would impose a substantial burden because deposit files are expensive to obtain is unpersuasive. As the district court noted, Liebowitz often settles cases “‘in the low thousands or tens of thousands of dollars’ . . . a far cry from the $200 to $1,200 cost of obtaining a deposit copy.”

Liebowitz made some other arguments as well, but the Court notes: "We have considered Appellants’ remaining arguments and find them to be without merit." Nice try, Richard.

Filed Under: 2nd circuit, copyright, copyright troll, jesse furman, richard liebowitz, sanctions

Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin Sentenced To Twenty-Two Years For Killing George Floyd

from the beating-out-his-19-years-as-a-cop-by-a-narrow-margin dept

The police officer who set off months of anti-police violence protests has been sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly ten minutes… and for more than two minutes after another officer said he couldn't detect a pulse.

This murder was carried out in broad daylight in front of several witnesses. Perhaps the most important witness was the one who filmed the entire killing: 17-year-old Darnella Frazier. Largely because of this recording, Chauvin was unable to elude justice.

Two months after Chauvin's conviction on murder charges, Judge Peter Cahill has handed down a sentence nearly a decade longer than the 10-15 years recommended by state sentencing guidelines. This sentence is far more than Chauvin's lawyer felt was justified. His attorney asked for time served and probation. (Chauvin had been incarcerated for 199 days by the time he was sentenced.) But it's also less than what prosecutors had asked for: a 30-year sentence based on several aggravating factors.

Judge Cahill didn't just hand down a sentence. He also issued a written order [PDF] explaining his decision to depart upwards from the sentencing guidelines. The order is thorough. And the list of aggravating factors includes the public nature of this killing and a reference to the witness who filmed the incident, creating an undeniable version of the facts that made it impossible for Chauvin to walk away from this.

Here's the short version of the court's explanation for its sentencing variance:

[T]he Court found that the evidence at trial proved beyond a reasonable doubt the following four aggravated sentencing factors:

(i) That Mr. Chauvin abused a position of trust and authority;

(ii) That Mr. Chauvin treated George Floyd with particular cruelty;

(iii) That children were present during the commission of the offense;

(iv) That Mr. Chauvin committed the crime as a group with the active participation of three other individuals, former Minneapolis Police Officers Thou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng, who all actively participated with Mr. Chauvin in the crime in various ways.

These are presented in more detail later on in the order.

Mr. Chauvin “abused his position of authority” by using unreasonable force to hold “a handcuffed George Floyd in a prone position on the street”—“a position that Defendant knew from his training and experience carried with it a danger of positional asphyxia”—for more than nine minutes and forty seconds, “an inordinate amount of time.”

“Defendant’s placement of his knee on the back of George Floyd’s neck was an egregious abuse of the authority to subdue and restrain because the prolonged use of this maneuver was employed after George Floyd had already been handcuffed and continued for more than four and a half minutes after Mr. Floyd had ceased talking and had become unresponsive.”

[...]

That “failure to render aid became particularly abusive after Mr. Floyd had passed out, and was still being restrained in the prone position, with Mr. Chauvin continuing to kneel on the back of Mr. Floyd’s neck with one knee and on his back with another knee, for more than two and a half minutes after one of his fellow officers announced he was unable to detect a pulse.”

Also factoring into the upward variance is the fact that this was no ordinary killing. As the court points out, this was an protracted, painful experience that ended in death -- one that was far crueler than the acts normally associated with murders and assaults.

Mr. Chauvin’s prolonged restraint of Mr. Floyd was also much longer and more painful than the typical scenario in a second-degree or third-degree murder or second-degree manslaughter case. The “prolonged nature of the asphyxiation” makes this offense different in kind than, for example, a near-instantaneous death by gunshot, which is one typical scenario for this type of offense.

[...]

The conduct this Court has deemed particularly cruel also occurred over a longer period and was substantially more painful than a typical third-degree assault, the predicate felony offense for Mr. Chauvin’s second-degree murder conviction. [...] . Chauvin’s conduct went beyond just inflicting “substantial bodily harm.” It “kill[ed] George Floyd slowly”—over the course of almost ten minutes—by inhibiting “his ability to breathe when Mr. Floyd had already made it clear he was having trouble breathing.” Indeed, Mr. Chauvin’s continuation of the assault after Mr. Floyd was no longer conscious and no longer had a pulse—Mr. Chauvin “continu[ed] to kneel on the back of Mr. Floyd’s neck . . . for more than two and a half minutes after one of his fellow officers announced he was unable to detect a pulse”—plainly sets Mr. Chauvin’s conduct apart from the typical case involving a felony assault that results in substantial bodily harm and death to the victim.

For that, the judge tacks on another ten years. Chauvin -- the second Minneapolis police officer to be convicted of murder in the last two years -- will spend most of the next 15 years in jail and another eight years under supervised release. Nothing done here will bring George Floyd back to life. But the court's willingness to depart upwards when sentencing a former cop should hopefully act as a deterrent towards future police violence.

Filed Under: derek chauvin, george floyd, police brutality, sentencing

Marco Rubio Jumps To The Head Of The Line Of Ignorant Fools Pushing Dumb Social Media Regulation Bills

from the sit-down-marco dept

It seems like we can't have even a peaceful week go by without yet another grandstanding fool in Congress introducing yet another terrible bill to destroy the internet. The latest comes from Senator Marco Rubio, who, last week, excitedly released a ridiculous bill that he claims will "crackdown on big tech algorithms and protect free speech." Of course, cracking down on algorithms is, itself, an attack on free speech. And the rest of his bill is nothing but an attack on free speech.

The actual bill is a clusterfuck of bad ideas. It's called the "Disincentivizing Internet Service Censorship of Online Users and Restrictions on Speech and Expression" or "DISCOURSE" Act, and the only thing clever about it is the name.

So what does the bill do? It says big internet companies can no longer moderate "viewpoints." Specifically, it says you no longer get Section 230 protections if you're a firm with a "dominant market share" who...

... engages in a content moderation activity that reasonably appears to express, promote, or suppress a discernible viewpoint for a reason not protected from liability under subsection (c)(2), including reducing or eliminating the ability of an information content provider to earn revenue...

In other words, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are no longer allowed to kick Nazis off their platform or even to demonetize them. This is basically "the Marco Rubio wants to make sure Nazis get free services Act."

And from there it gets worse. It says you don't get 230 protections for anything an algorithm recommends. You lose 230 if your firm with a dominant market share...

... amplifies information provided by an information content provider by using an algorithm or other automated computer process to target the information directly to users without the request of a sending or receiving user...

So, Facebook or Twitter trying to make your feed more relevant means they have to take on liability for everything in your feed.

For all the talk of how this is protecting "free speech," it's the opposite. It's an out and out attack on the free speech of these companies to recommend to their users what they think is most relevant to them and not to be associated with assholes, trolls, Nazis and the like.

Believe it or not, the bill gets even worse and becomes an even bigger attack on free speech. It also says that if you comment upon some other content, you lose 230 protections over that content. I mean, that's just a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment, as the entire purpose is to disincentivize companies from adding their own commentary, fact checking, and the like. The bill says you lose 230 protections if a market dominant firm...

... solicits, comments upon, funds, or affirmatively and substantively contributes to, modifies, or alters information provided by an information content provider...

Got that? Fact checking now makes you liable for the underlying thing you fact checked. That's... both unconstitutional and ridiculous at the same time.

And it gets worse. It would only exempt a very narrow class of content, by limiting it to a revised version of (c)(2)'s classifications -- taking away the subjective ability of a platform to decide what is objectionable on their platform and limiting it to:

any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user has an objectively reasonable belief is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, promoting terrorism or violent extremism, harassing, promoting self-harm, or unlawful, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected

The wider net of "otherwise objectionable" is removed, and a few new categories are added ("promoting terrorism or violent extremism, promoting self-harm, or unlawful"). Of course, locking it to just these categories is problematic. Unless you consider Nazism to be "promoting violent extremism" then you probably can't ban Nazis. Spam... totally allowed under this bill. Being an asshole, as long as it's not "objectively" deemed to be harassing... must be allowed.

The bill also has a transparency clause whose only real purpose is to allow Nazis and trolls to insist they were treated unfairly, by insisting that their harassment of someone was nothing of the sort, and that they were treated unfairly.

Finally, it makes a huge additional change by saying that Section 230 is no longer an immunity, but rather "an affirmative defense." This may not sound like much, but it gets rid of the main procedural benefit of Section 230 as an immunity. As an immunity, it means you get cases dismissed much faster. As an affirmative defense, in many cases you don't get to assert that until much later in the case, after you've gone through expensive discovery. So this takes away the most useful part of Section 230 and makes it an expensive burden.

It's hellishly weird to see someone like Marco Rubio, who pretends to be a traditional "conservative," pushing a bill that will be a massive boon to tort lawyers, and will clog up the courts with vexatious lawsuits. But, hey, it seems that Marco has realized the only way for him to stay relevant these days is to culture war with the best of them, and thus he has to pretend that social media really is out to get conservatives (it is not) and that he has to pass an unconstitutional law to attack the 1st Amendment rights of websites. It's a pitiful move by an increasingly pitiful politician.

Filed Under: bias, content moderation, marco rubio, section 230, social media, transparency

Daily Deal: The 2021 Ultimate Learn To Code Training Choose A Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

If you're interested in learning the very basics of coding and programming, your journey starts here. With the 2021 Ultimate Learn To Code Training Choose A Bundle, you can get up to 25 courses covering popular programming languages. Courses cover Java, Python, and Matplotlib, as well as the Unity and Blender platforms. They also cover Amazon Honeycode, Selenium, Flutter, and Dart. You will learn how to build your own websites, apps, and games from scratch. These courses are packed with helpful materials and are created for complete beginners. Choose from a variety of bundles. The first 3 courses covering CSS, JavaScript and HTML are free. 5 courses are on sale for $3, 10 courses for $8, 15 courses for $10, or all 25 courses for $15.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Cable Giant Altice Demonstrates Why A Lack Of Broadband Competition Matters

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

So, we've noted for a long time how US telecom giants, facing neither competition nor meaningful oversight, never have to try very hard. Thanks to their regional monopolies and duopolies over broadband access, competitors in many areas never really force them to compete on price, expand access into lower ROI areas, or shore up atrocious customer service. And thanks to the federal and state corruption that protects these regional monopolies, lawmakers generally don't much care -- outside of some occasional empty lip service to that nebulous, causation free "digital divide" they all profess to care so much about.

This week French-owned US cable giant Altice once again showcased what this apathy looks like in practice. The company announced it would be cutting the upload speeds on its broadband tiers by 86 percent, while still charging users the same rate. Why? Because with no decent options for most of its subscribers to flee to, there will be absolutely no penalty for it.

Of course Altice can't be candid about that fact, so it tried (and failed) to find some other justification that sounded at least marginally coherent:

"Altice claimed that its cable network isn't having any trouble offering its current advertised speeds. "Our network continues to perform very well despite the significant data usage increases during the pandemic and the speed tiers we offer," the company said. The upload-speed change is apparently being implemented not to solve any network problem but to match the slower upload speeds offered by other cable ISPs. Altice told Ars that it is changing its cable upload speeds to bring them "in line with other ISPs and aligned with the industry."

So there's no technical reason to be doing this, they're just exploiting an uncompetitive market. So for example whereas the company used to offer a tier of 100 Mbps downstream and 35 Mbps upstream, new users now get to pay the same money for speeds of 100 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream. Existing customers will be able to keep their existing tiers, but the second they go to change their plans (which will be mandatory if they're seeking new bundle promotions) they'll lose their faster speeds and be shoveled off to inferior product.

To be clear this is a regional mono/duopoly abusing a lack of competition in its service area to actively make its service worse during the tail end of the pandemic. And because US regulators are so feckless and/or corrupt, not only will there be no action taken here, you'll be lucky to even see a single regulator or politician even mention that it ever happened. After all, with "big tech antitrust reform" sucking all the policy oxygen out of the room (something telecom has actively encouraged), there's just no energy left for reform in any of the countless other heavily consolidated US business sectors.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, upload speeds
Companies: altice

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the conversation-pieces dept

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from our story about how a stupid patent is interfering with a new crowdfunded toy. In first place, it's samuelhopkins, who got lots of well-deserved votes for tracking down the specific patent:

found it

US10,850,205 - Marble track piece with triggered light and/or sound
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10850205B2/en?oq=10%2c850%2c205

In second place, it's an anonymous comment raising the obvious question:

Could that patent be invalidated by pin ball machines, where balls hit triggers that start sound and light displays?

That question got an answer from Rocky, which is our first editor's choice for insightful:

There are certainly a plethora of prior art, but as we know, invalidating patents is expensive and this guy has to comply or being sued which is also expensive and spending kickstarter-money on a lawsuit isn't really what the backers paid for.

It sucks.

For our next editor's choice, it's That One Guy with some thoughts on the failures of FOSTA:

It all depends on the metrics used...

If you take the supporters of FOSTA at their word for what the bill was supposed to do it is worse than an absolute failure, as not only did it not accomplish it's goals it made things drastically worse for the very people that were being held up as 'victims in need of rescue!'

On the other hand if you look at it as nothing more than a 'Look at what I've done!' PR stunt it worked out great, the people writing and supporting it got to brag about how they super-duper cared about people being exploited and sex trafficked and since the number of press outlets that are likely to call them out on this report could be counted on a single hand it's not like it cost anyone who matters anything, so it's a win-win from their perspective.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous suggestion for a new Peloton slogan:

Peloton: We don't give you a run for your money.

In second place, it's another anonymous comment, this time responding to someone who tagged their comment with the assertion that "any counter-argument is plainly illogical, denialist, and short-sighted":

That’s the adult version of no touchbacks

For editor's choice on the funny side, we go back to last week's top comments post for a brief exchange, starting with this comment from Bobvious:

About that cow

Now expecting Devin Nunes and/or family to have the farm declared an amusement park.

And finally, it's the anonymous rejoinder to that comment:

They're certainly in the entertainment business.

That's all for this week, folks!

This Week In Techdirt History: June 20th - 26th

from the so-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, the Supreme Court was chipping away at the Fourth Amendment while the FBI was continuing to use its bad facial recognition database and getting away with problematic warrants and hacking — and congress was seeking to legalize more FBI abuses (in an attempt that narrowly failed). The DOJ was fighting against privacy advocates, and CIA director John Brennan was bizarrely claiming that only the US had encryption technology. We were also disappointed to see Twitch bring CFAA and trademark claims against bot operators.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, Righthaven was losing lawsuits left and right, and the CEO was not taking it well. Sony was fighting against PS3 modding and Microsoft was claiming it could use the DMCA to block competing Xbox accessories, while Universal launched a war on popular hip-hop sites and blogs, which even swept up 50 Cent's own website. A new court filing explained how ICE's domain seizures violate the First Amendment, while Senator Leahy was praising the agency's initiative. We also took a look back at the many things that people thought would kill the music industry in both the analog and digital eras.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, the NY Times was in the midst of one of its many paywall experiments while the LA Times was subjecting reporters to stifling web filters. Blockbuster was fighting against Netflix's patents while GoDaddy was sued over a patent on server auto-configuration. We wrote about how ISPs were screwing everyone, and how their cooperation with the NSA was boosting the encryption market. Meanwhile, social media sites were booming but struggling to figure out how to make money, and of course still facing a variety of vague freakouts.

Filed Under: history, look back