SayUncle thinks the problem of girly men is blown out of proportion. I tend to think as long as men are instinctively attracted to things that are loud, fast, sexy, and a little dangerous, we’re not in any danger of failing as a species. More on the subject here too.
Month: July 2010
Another PA Range Robbery Previously
This one was a few weeks ago, but the guy was robbed at gunpoint, also for his AR-15. I doubt these are connected, but any time I go to the range I’m carrying. Guns are valuable. I wouldn’t have 1000 dollars in cash on me unarmed, and that’s basically what you’re toting when you’re transporting firearms.
Righthaven’s Business Model
They pretty much admit it. Here’s the Wired article speaking about how they are pretty much buying up newspaper content in order to sue bloggers:
Gibson’s vision is to monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the internet for infringing copies of his client’s articles, then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement — to compel quick settlements. Since Righthaven’s formation in March, the company has filed at least 80 federal lawsuits against website operators and individual bloggers who’ve re-posted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, his first client.
Wired notes that the Recording Industry Association of America tried a similar tactic, and did not reap the rewards they had hoped. If you look at their business model, it breaks down if people stand up to them. The amounts they can reasonably claim are much smaller than what RIAA or the MPAA could claim. If 1000 people download a movie from you, that’s 20,000 dollars in damages. But what is the amount of money a paper makes off a single article in advertising? The amount for a few months can’t be more than a couple of hundred bucks for a really popular article.
Any newspaper adopting this tactic is going to lose out. If Stevens Media is really serious about cozying up to Righthaven, then fine — I already have Bitter searching through my archives to ensure that any links to their papers are removed, and I will blacklist them for the future. The Internet doesn’t work this way, guys. You have a right to protect your copyrights, and to prevent verbatim reproduction of your work, but one should do that with an strong eye toward fair-use, toward treating bloggers as reasonable people who don’t want to abuse someone’s copyright, and with an even stronger eye toward the PR implications of being bozos. In most cases, the minor amount you’re losing from advertising isn’t worth destroying good will among a community that’s capable of sending significant traffic, and thus advertising revenue, your way.
Update on Public Range Killing
It’s pretty certain at this point it was a robbery. The autopsy has determined he was killed from a distance. So someone out there is shooting people on public ranges to steal their guns. Authorities are looking for the following firearm:
Police are still looking for the shooter. Meantime they’re asking firearms dealers to check their inventory to see if they may have a custom built AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle with a Lewis Machine Company model Defender 2000 lower receiver equipped with a 30 HRT upper receiver and a Yankee Hill Machine Company Phantom model 308 caliber silencer.
Nice rifle, but killing someone for it? That person needs to be found. If you go to a PA public range, go with a spotter buddy. This guy who did this is dangerous as hell, and it would be a shame for the state to have to waste taxpayer dollars on him. Let’s hope this is an isolated incident.
A Little Gun Control?
This CBS News intern is well on her way to becoming a journalist, for sure, saying that the US could use a little more gun control, using England and Wales as the example. Perhaps one day she too can be on Journolist. How’s this for starters:
Since the 18th century, Britain has moved on from problems like taxation without representation, oppressive monarchy and overreaching empire. It has accepted its place in modern society as a progressive, First World nation.
Read the whole, sad thing. Implication is that we just can’t live up to their civilized example, because we don’t allow gun bans. Ms. Berg, you have a bright future ahead of you in journalism with that attitude toward gun ownership. I look forward to refuting more nonsense from you in the future.
I should note this comes to us via the Brady Campaign, who claims they don’t support gun bans (except scary looking guns), and that having gun bans off the table is a good thing for gun control. The articles they promote say otherwise.
Something Has Gone Horribly Wrong
PETA and HSUS are gonna love this. For that reason, I should probably approve, but really, it just freaks me out.
Clayton Hanging it Up
This is a shame. Not that I can blame him. It’s a lot to ask someone to take on that kind of legal risk for no financial reward.
Public Shooting Range Incident
Funny, I was just talking about this topic, but a person was found dead at one of the PA Game Commission public ranges in Cumberland County. Of course, there’s a great irony in this:
The man killed at a Cumberland County gun range Wednesday was a personal injury lawyer.
At first I thought it was one of the Cletii that Tam mentioned probably did him, and decided fleeing was the wise, if not ethical move. But other stories are calling it a homicide, since it’s unlikely he was shot accidentally multiple times. My guess would be robbery was the motive, since it would seem guns were missing. From yet another article:
Freed also said there was another crime on this rifle range earlier this month when a gun was stolen.
“Anybody who is going out to a gun range needs to take extra care cause we at least know that there’s somebody out there who was willing to steal a gun, and apparently somebody out there who was willing to shoot somebody today,” Freed said.
“Whether those acts are related, i can’t say, but it certainly is reason to take extra care,” he added.
It’s quite possible someone who has no regard for human life figures there’s not much risk on shooting a lone person out in the middle of nowhere to steal his firearms. Not much of a chance of getting caught. Be careful out there.
Standing up for Decency
There’s an old saying that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. The modern day equivalent of that should be never pick a fight with someone who has a Google Pagerank greater than 4.
All my uses of the sue happy newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal have been squarely and certainly within the realm of fair use, but because I do not wish to support the kind of shakedown they are doing of bloggers, I have removed all links on this blog to those sewer rats. I will be the first to admit that some blogs go over the fair use line, but I am a strong believer in trying to come up with a fair and equitable resolution before fighting with lawyers begins, and before taxpayer dollars are wasted filing lawsuits. The fact that there was apparently no cease and desist letter sent, no apparent attempt to make a reasonable settlement on the fairly minimal damage likely inflicted, and the fact that this is being done in federal court, tells me they are hoping to goad people into an unreasonable settlement beyond any actual damage inflicted on them. This is dirty, even if there is a legitimate copyright claim involved.
So let me first point out some of my handy work, for the pages I’ve transformed, in the hopes of raising awareness of the Las Vegas Review-Journals reprehensible tactics, starting with my favorite:
- Reid’s Opponent on Guns
- More Criticism of Alan Gura
- Expect More Praise of Harry Reid
- The Myth Continues
So rather than having links back helping out the web presence of their crappy paper, they will always be associated with being the grimy sewer rats they are as far as this blog is concerned. I have always been conscientious about giving fair credit, and only posting as much of the story as I need to in order to comment or criticize. I absolutely support newspapers pursuing copyright violators in good faith, with an aim to recover fair costs in proportion to the harm. But I would expect decent human beings to try to resolve the situation without resorting first to life ruining lawsuits. The Las Vegas Review-Journal is engaging in bully tactics, plain and simple, regardless of whether the law is on their side or not.
Why the Dems are Losing
Chris Byrne points out it’s because they seem to think the population is angry at them for not trying hard enough to get things done, rather than the fact that they are bankrupting the country, and misappropriating our tax dollars.