Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, almost all of the top comments came in response to the various posts about our Copying Is Not Theft gear. First, it's an anonymous commenter who won the top spot on the insightful side by examining the root of the rage that came in response to the shirt:

The problem is...

People assume the statement "Copying is not theft" is akin to saying: "Copying is not wrong".

What they refuse to see or admit is that theft and copyright infringement are different things - the copyright-maximalist propaganda has done its job well.

It's all rather sad, really... that people have come to assume that copying is somehow as bad (or worse?) than stealing. It's almost incomprehensible that we've reached this point.

In second place, we've got Go5 with a creator's perspective:

I'm a creator. And I collaborate closely with other creators. Our stuff gets copied all the time.

There's even one guy who word-for-word, shot-for-shot, copies lots of our content, in Chinese, within hours of release. I appreciate his perseverance. Our stats prove we get more traffic with him than without.

Thanks to the internet, the whole English-speaking world is our market. Copying is what happens when you create in a public arena.

Sometimes it's flattering, usually it's just someone trying to cash in. Occasionally there's a useful insight into our product or process.

Altogether, copying might account for a few bucks of revenue we'd otherwise receive. Is this "stealing?" Nope. First, the copy doesn't stop anyone from seeing our original, in fact it often drives them to us so we get the revenue (plus SEO) anyway. Second, copies increase the appetite for our work and the venues to promote it, both vastly more valuable than a few extra views.

Creators' jobs are to be unique and relevant. I'd be worried if we weren't being copied.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, just for a change of pace and because it fits so well with the last comment, we're going to grab a comment from our Facebook page, where Dariusz G. Jagielski shared another creator's perspective:

I am a game developer. Working on my first indie game under nickname of "Darkhog". I won't tell you what it is as I don't want to spam Techdirt. Use google if you want to get to it. It's on TigForums.

Anyway, the thing is that even though I intend to sell this game, I don't care about people copying it if they can't afford it or their stupid government banned it (happened before to totally innocent games such as Pokemon). I don't intend even to try to "protect" it (as in, putting expensive, invasive, broken already anyway and potentially damaging DRM, a.k.a. Denuvo or any other kind of DRM).

Because DRM is bullshit and copying is not theft. Filesharers who will like it, will buy it, jerks wouldn't buy it anyway just to spite me and people who can't buy it because of their financial situation and like it will spread the word about game which will lead to more legitimate sales. Let the games begin.

(If you want to check out his game, you can find it here here.)

Next, we pivot away from the Copying Is Not Theft gear briefly, for a response from Anon E. Mous to AT&T's attacks on Google Fiber, supposed beneficiary of "government favoritism":

Gotta love the irony here. We have a AT&T VP criticizing Google for it's short comings when AT&T's own failure have been going on for years with failure to deploy and even bring better broadband services to various states.

Meanwhile this AT&T VP is forgetting is they and other providers teamed up to deny Google access to their poles, and have gone to great lengths to get cities, and state governments to pass stautes that would thwart competitiors and limit what municipalities could do on their own to bring a company like Google into build out in their town/city.

So it's more than a little rich that the AT&T VP is knocking Google when AT&T history isnt exactly a beacon of light. All it shows is how much of an irritant Google was to them in the cities and states where AT&T had to actual do something to compete with another provider.

Not to worry though I am sure AT&T will continue to pillage the consumers pockets while doing the least possible in the way of improvements and satisfying the customer

Over on the funny side, the first place winner is another anonymous commenter, this time with an excellent quip in response to James Comey's request for an "adult conversation" about encryption:

So, Comey wants an adult conversation. What adult will he choose to represent him in this conversation?

For second place, we return one last time to the Copying Is Not Theft campaign, where aethercowboy zeroed in on the irony of the anger:

I wonder where all these people got the idea that copying was theft. Do you think they came up with that idea on their own?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with an election debate where the assertion was made that Bush, Obama and both Clintons are "cancers". Regardless of how you feel about any/all of those politicians, you've got to tip your hat to this anonymous response:

That is plainly not true.

Yes, Bush was a Cancer.

But Bill Clinton and Obama were both Leos, and Hillary is a Scorpio.

Finally, after always-on PDF DRM was found screwing over consumers, Underprepared Hiker composed a piece of short fiction:

There I was stranded in the Alaskan wilderness freezing, I managed to gather up some sticks to make a fire but I had no idea how to make a fire.

No big deal I thought and grabbed my smartphone and opened up my copy of "Wilderness Survival Guide" only to be presented with some stupid message about how I had to be on the Internet to read it! I mean WTF, the time I need this e-book the most and it will not open!?!?!?!K!@#

So I yelled as loud as I could "F$*# you DRM!" fortunately some mountain man heard me and guided me to safety.

Thank god my e-book had DRM, without it I'd still be sitting there next to my fire following the books directions of "when lost, stay put, help will come"

Thank you DRM, you saved my life!

That's all for this week, folks!