Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

cyclingtips.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 144 posts

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#21

Post by Talanes »

javajosh wrote: post #16
dpifke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you also arguing it's "dangerous" for Michael Hall (aka notorious serial killer Dexter Morgan) to walk through an airport?

It's the unknown people who say or do unusual things that risk running afoul of the authorities. Hall is famous enough and what he does is "usual" enough he's probably okay. But writing a public website that declares you're a bike thief in the headline? I'm thinking that a lot of LEOs aren't going to bother reading the rest of it, call it probable cause and grind up another person's life in the pre-trial torture mach…

Law enforcement isn't reading random cycling blogs looking for admissions of crime. It's hard enough to get their attention with a call of "Hey, there's this crime happening right in front of me and it's causing a pretty big scene."

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#22

Post by charlieyu1 »

wpasc wrote: post #5

I think it makes more sense than the author expects. Bike thefts probably are not frequently caught with a high wuality camera, still pose, proper lighting, photogenically bland clothing choice, etc. such that it seems like a stock photo for bike theft. Only another purposeful photo of bike theft that is similarly or moreso staged should outdo it, but for general purpose image use (like a powerpoint or something) the…

Buying a stock photo for commercial use costs like $0.3 each if you are buying in bulk, which I assume that’s how it should work for a media company.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#23

Post by boomboomsubban »

claviska wrote: post #3

> And the irony, of course, is this: the pictured bike itself was never stolen, but the rushed magazine photo has been – by hundreds of people, perpetuating a fake crime over and over. At what point (if ever) would using a photo like this fall under fair use? The author doesn’t seem to care, but I’m curious if copyright is ever forfeited due to widespread use or inaction of the copyright holder.

The now defunct magazine presumably held the copyright, and it's entirely possible the licensed the rights to a third party.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#24

Post by bryanrasmussen »

dpifke wrote: post #13
javajosh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an expression of contempt for authority, and is not a criticism of the OP. The fear I recommend is not tinfoil hat stuff, it's just an unfortunate byproduct of broken minds running a broken justice system. You should also know that posting on a forum with "hacker" in the title is dangerous.

Are you also arguing it's "dangerous" for Michael Hall (aka notorious serial killer Dexter Morgan) to walk through an airport?

probably not dangerous, but I do remember reading an article maybe 20 years ago where some lady playing a villain in a soap opera complained about being accosted at the supermarket and yelled at for their onscreen shenanigans.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#25

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Talanes wrote: post #21
javajosh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the unknown people who say or do unusual things that risk running afoul of the authorities. Hall is famous enough and what he does is "usual" enough he's probably okay. But writing a public website that declares you're a bike thief in the headline? I'm thinking that a lot of LEOs aren't going to bother reading the rest of it, call it probable cause and grind up another person's life in the pre-trial torture mach…

Law enforcement isn't reading random cycling blogs looking for admissions of crime. It's hard enough to get their attention with a call of "Hey, there's this crime happening right in front of me and it's causing a pretty big scene."

Our new product - The Inditer Pro - uses state of the art machine learning to crawl the web and identify travelers coming into your country as criminals! You will be able to proactively lock up potential threats and keep the population safe, all thanks to the expertise of the Inditer Pro.

All the world's bad guys under your thumb! (Rolling Stones 'Under my thumb' starts playing as a border guard presses Inditer Pro search button - identifying tourist as BIKE THIEF!)

on edit: yes, it should be Indicter, but ours is a web 4.0 company.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#26

Post by ThePhysicist »

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unfortunately. It's really quite ingenious from a technical point of view. It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#27

Post by aigo »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work.

All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets.

If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably be alright.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#28

Post by maeln »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

With e-bike costing over thousand euros, bike stealing has become way more lucrative, attracting more and better thief ...

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#29

Post by usrusr »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #23
claviska wrote: post #3

> And the irony, of course, is this: the pictured bike itself was never stolen, but the rushed magazine photo has been – by hundreds of people, perpetuating a fake crime over and over. At what point (if ever) would using a photo like this fall under fair use? The author doesn’t seem to care, but I’m curious if copyright is ever forfeited due to widespread use or inaction of the copyright holder.

The now defunct magazine presumably held the copyright, and it's entirely possible the licensed the rights to a third party.

Given bankruptcy law, how much choice would they even have?

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

jeroenhd wrote: post #11
nash wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never is the simple answer. Otherwise all copyright would have pretty much been eliminated by the pirate bay. Enforcement and collection of the damages is a totally different issue.

In the US, the picture would become public domain 70 years after the death of the author. As for fair use: if you were to criticise something related to the image (say, you make a whole youtube video criticising the blog posts on this website and this image scrolls by when you do a quick lookaround on the website) or make some kind of transformative art out of it and the author would sue under DMCA or similar and the…

> Fair use is a defence to use in a lawsuit, after all, not a right

The statutory fair use defense codifies a Constitutional (First Amendment) limit on the copyright power found by the courts prior to the existence of the statutory defense, so it is both a defense and a right, specifically, the Constitutional right of free speech.

Lawsuit defenses, more generally, are assertions of rights, whether statutory, common law, or Constitutional.

Post reply on HN