Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week we, like most other websites, had to re-register with the Copyright Office for DMCA safe harbor protection. Our most insightful comment of the week came in response to our post about this, where aerinai suggested this system should work both ways:

So I have to register every 3 years for safe harbor protections... lets do the same thing for copyright!

... just saying...

Next, we head to our post about the Internet Archive's plans to back itself up in Canada just in case Trump messes with it. A lengthy argument broke out over accusations that the fears around a Trump presidency are "so crazy it is becoming comical", and Roger Strong won second place for insightful by providing some context:

a) It would have been "so crazy it is becoming comical" to suggest that President-elect Bush II would turn the country into a mass torture state. Or kidnap people by the hundreds from around the world - over 100 from EU soil alone - and hold them for years - some now halfway through their second decade - without trial. Or launch a pre-emptive war. That would last over a decade and only make things worse. Or that he'd do away with habeas corpus.

b) It would have been "so crazy it is becoming comical" to suggest that many of the very people responsible for a), would be telling people that the NEXT winning candidate from their own party was an unstable loose cannon.

c) It would have been "so crazy it is becoming comical" to imagine a winning candidate having openly bragged how he would punish the media for "negative" - meaning accurate - reporting. Openly and regularly pointing at the media during his rallies and declaring them the enemy and worse.

d) It would have been "so crazy it is becoming comical" to imagine a winning candidate choosing the leader of a white supremacist fake news site to be his new Karl Rove.

Nevertheless, here we are. With c) especially in mind, you're saying that it's "so crazy it is becoming comical" to take Trump at his word and based on his actions.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from nasch that digs into some constitutional nuance to explain why non-citizens still have rights:

The Constitution doesn't grant rights to the citizens of the US. To an extent it recognizes rights all people are considered to have (insert caveats about the time of the founding fathers), but primarily it specifies and limits the powers of the federal government. For example, the 1st doesn't say that US citizens have the right to freedom of religion, speech and assembly, it says the government may not make any laws abridging such rights.

Next, after we noted that the ongoing election recount fight is making everyone involved look bad, Michael wasn't especially surprised:

If you think the recounts make Clinton and Trump look terrible, you should have watched their campaigns.

Over on the funny side, we start out on our post about border patrol's aggressive handling of a Canadian journalist, where one commenter suggested that it's probably best to avoid travelling to the US at all right now, leading Jeremy Lyman to win first place for funny by shooting down that solution:

I dunno, not entering the US is suspicious behavior. CPB should probably investigate...

In second place on the funny side, we've got another more flippant response to the accusations of "crazy" Trump worries, this time specifically to the question of whether we "sleep under your beds in fear now". One anonymous commenter had an answer:

No, we're in our closets waiting for Obama to come take our guns...

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out on our story about some rightsholders brazenly referring to their trademark as a "lottery ticket", where crade found it hard to judge them too harshly:

People get rich using patents this way left right and center.. So it's understandable they got confused.

Finally, in response to a post raising concerns about the future of telecom megamergers under a Trump presidency, That One Guy defended the coming monopolies:

Having to decide between being ripped off by Company A or being ripped off by Company B is hard, a totally unnecessary hassle for customers. Mergers between already massive companies are therefor absolutely pro-customer as they remove yet another road-block between US customers and their 'Best In The World' internet service, and as such should absolutely be allowed.

It's all about how best to serve the public after all.

That's all for this week, folks!