3 ms·
On one side, we have a company using a shady business model, trying to pick a fight with a notorious internet personality. Sounds like a bad use of their time,
by toyg 5y ago
On one side, we have a company using a shady business model, trying to pick a fight with a notorious internet personality. Sounds like a bad use of their time, but if they were looking for visibility, well, they found it.
On the other side, we have an internet personality making a fuss out of trollish email he could safely answer with a single-line reply ("put up or shut up"). Sounds like a bad use of his time, but if he was looking for (renewed) visibility, well, he got it.
And then there is me reading about this nonsensical crap. Which was definitely a bad use of my time.
- stefan_ 5y agoSomeone deeply involved in Creative Commons writing about professional copyright trolls abusing it is "nonsensical crap" and a "bad use of time"?
- toyg 5y agoHe had already written about it, and it's a lot of noise over nothing - Pixsy are not going to sue him, today or tomorrow. Their continued trolling was effectively begging for this sort of reaction, which they duly obtained. This is the internet equivalent of political talk shows with people shouting at each other: nothing gets done, nothing changes, and it only benefits the shout-heads.
- philistine 5y agoPatent trolls have gotten a tougher time making money because we have kept talking about the problem. See this example here, which refers to the TC Heartland decision, and politicians saying a judge's decision is reprehensible: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/appeals-court-east-texas-cant-keep-patent-case-because-of-one-local-salesman/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/appeals-court-ea... There is such a thing as the court of public opinion, and legal progress is made by talking about debilitating legal crap.
- toyg 5y agoBut this isn’t that. This is not even a letter before action. This is just a bunch of inconsequential emails.
- tooltower 5y agoI'm curious what makes Doctorow notorious. I read some of his short stories, with mixed feelings. Agreed with your point on this article not being a good use of the reader's time.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoBeing in the right place at the right time during the internet boom, having hipster glasses, and writing so-so near-future scifi stories which appeal to the sort of people who write "GNU/Linux" non-ironically.
- toyg 5y agoHe helped put together a zine/blog that got popular in the early days of the web, and was an early blogger (when weblogs were few and novel). Then became a bit of a parody of himself.
- WalterGR 5y agoDoctorow's not notorious, he's just famous (in certain circles.) Emphasis mine: notorious - adj - famous or well known, typically for some bad quality or deed. I would call that definition prescriptive and not descriptive. In practice, people use the term mostly for someone who's famous or well-known because of some bad quality or deed, and sometimes for someone who's famous or well-known and who additionally has some bad quality or has done a bad deed.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoOn rare occasion I end up on BoingBoing or reading some post he's written, I'm reminded of why I still haven't read a single novel he's written, despite them being free.
- ftyers 5y agoThey're actually not that bad "Unauthorised Bread" made me laugh out loud a few times, and some of them are pretty short so if you find you don't like them it's not a huge waste of your time. Anyway, it's one of those things where up front you might think "bleh" but it's actually not bad.
- netsharc 5y agoWell, at least it'll be good that if anyone else got a letter from this company, googling the name will lead them to this takedown.