there are days without highlight

[kaigou]

and then there are days in which you read something and say to yourself, my god, I love this writer.

Today the love is for snark about an anonymouse's claim regarding blog-comments and the first amendment, brought to you by the ever snarkalicious John Scalzi:

Reading this person’s understanding of how the First Amendment applies in these instances is like being slathered in a thick coat of ignorant, and then being put out into the sun to dry out before a second coat is applied, which itself will be topped off by a sealant of complete and utter stupid, and lightly drizzled with a glistening varnish of epic fail.

From the post, Another Entry in the Annals of “People Who Haven’t the Slightest Idea What They’re Saying”, in Scalzi's Whatever.

Comments

[maldoror-gw.livejournal.com]

It's always fun to see a rant from someone who can actually spell and use concepts that aren't found by accident in a Happy Meal, and of course (s)he's right about the First Ammendment and its non-applicability in this case, but one thing - unrelated to the main theme of the rant - intrigues me...can blogs be considered private property? In this case it probably can, since this person has their own website, but LJ for one tends to show us that LJ blogs are definitely not our property, or else those properties happen to be situated in a police state (mind you, they've gotten better...). Are blogs protected by copy right? Are they considered 'property'? Websites can, since I imagine you can sue a hacker who defaces it (if you can get him extradited from Belarus or wherever)- Gah, this totally irrelvent question is going to be pestering me all evening.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

The best (if rough, but still workable) analogy for shared-blog environments like LJ, Facebook, etc, is that it's a landlord-tenant setup. We technically have some right to non-interference from the landlord so long as we aren't breaking any laws, but we're also expected to conform to the landlord's general expectations of members of the community -- no parking on the law, terms of behavior, no loud music after 10pm, whatever.

Blogs are definitely protected by copyright; technically, everything you write is protected, regardless of whether or not you stick a (c) on it or even send it in to some registering body (Library of Congress or I guess your country's equivalent). What makes that sticky is that if I quote from your blog entry, I'm within fair use, just as I would be in quoting from a book or a movie.

I dunno of anyone managing to sue a hacker successfully -- when you get into issues of intent, then it's more of a criminal offense, isn't it? At least, the hacker cases I've seen have criminal veneers, and you can't sue, then, you can only be a witness for the prosecution.

Like I'm a freaking lawyer, anyway. Just repeating what I've been told, read, heard, researched myself. With a dose of analytical pondering thrown in.

[talheres.livejournal.com]

Just... wow.

[haya5h1.livejournal.com]

Best. First Amendment Explanation. Ever.
On a somewhat related note, I was just reading Scalzi's account of taping bacon to his cat a couple days ago.