I don't completely agree with the point of Bitcoin Magazine, but the blatant attempt to suppress satire and criticism is deeply troubling.
This is a routine trademark enforcement case.
Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
51–60 of 91 posts
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#52I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the undemocratic, nightmerican system of goverence with non-existent to weak checks and balances across the entire polis and an outdated constitution. That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, and only someone riding the coattails of early adoption and espousing permanent oligarch rule through its lack of taxation could e…
First paragraph is on point. Sad about the second paragraph. That isn't a brave or impressive thing to say, it is a common and misinformed perspective. Regarding Bitcoin, it's important to recognize that it's fundamentally about decentralization of financial control, not necessarily decentralizing value hoarding (though it largely does that too). It uses a distributed ledger technology, where the minting process (min…
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Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#53I don't completely agree with the point of Bitcoin Magazine, but the blatant attempt to suppress satire and criticism is deeply troubling.
This is a routine trademark enforcement case.
That might be the case. However, the point is the motivation of the Fed to pursue this case. Most countries in the West might not nominally apply censure, but copyright, trademark, and libel laws are a complex minefield that the press and anyone politically active must carefully navigate, lest the Powers That Be use it to gleefully sue their opposition and pesky dissenters into oblivion.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#54I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the undemocratic, nightmerican system of goverence with non-existent to weak checks and balances across the entire polis and an outdated constitution. That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, and only someone riding the coattails of early adoption and espousing permanent oligarch rule through its lack of taxation could e…
First paragraph is on point. Sad about the second paragraph. That isn't a brave or impressive thing to say, it is a common and misinformed perspective. Regarding Bitcoin, it's important to recognize that it's fundamentally about decentralization of financial control, not necessarily decentralizing value hoarding (though it largely does that too). It uses a distributed ledger technology, where the minting process (min…
> It's designed to be a deflationary currency to counteract inflationary fiat systems,
Even if you take this conceit, we have to step back that bitcoin has irrevocably failed. Governments have definitely proved that they can regulate bitcoin transactions through various mechanisms. In China, mining is banned. In US, they are considered securities and regulated. No use case has emerged to truly transact in bitcoin. The only deflationary aspect is it's value in relation to fiat currency, which is still downstream to the supply of money controlled by central banks.
Personally, I don't think bitcoin is viable. The root of the problem is that no one is willing to transact in it. But beyond that, looking at it's implementation, I am not convinced that it accurately models the relationship between demand for the currency and the people willing to mine it. It seems very dogmatic to assume that it is just a logarithmic relationship between computing power and money supply. At the end of the day, there might not be a more efficient solution to establish demand for money than some kind of political process.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Fed is why America can send pieces of papers and bits and receive trillions of dollars worth of goods and services. Next year, and every year forward, arguably in part because of the Fed, America will be able to receive less dollars in goods and services for the same agreement, due to US' objectively-falling creditworthiness, as rated by the large institutions and nations who are willing to lend to us.
That's the treasury's fault not the fed
He's not talking about literal printing of pieces of paper.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#56I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the undemocratic, nightmerican system of goverence with non-existent to weak checks and balances across the entire polis and an outdated constitution. That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, and only someone riding the coattails of early adoption and espousing permanent oligarch rule through its lack of taxation could e…
Cryptocurrencies have no value, what do you intend on taxing?
I suspect you're aware that your rhetorical question rather neatly makes the point that taxing in crypto would immediately (and for crypto-bros, ironically) imbue them with value.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "End the FedNow!" merchandise is pretty clearly parody. The stuff that just has the "FedNow" logo is borderline. I wonder why organizations do this, highlighting the logos of organizations they oppose. I have an EFF hoodie that says "National Security Agency" on the front and "Defund Big Brother" on the back, and I get questions all the time of "Do you work for the NSA?" and then have to turn around and show them…
I think even just the "FEDNOW" standalone stuff could be considered parody. It's different from the real logo and I'm pretty sure the "O" is supposed to imply surveillance or that the fed is watching you.
I thought it might have had something to do with CBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cbs) but I think you're probably right. Different Eye.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#58FedNow: https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow Apparel: https://store.bitcoinmagazine.com/products/fednow-shirt-1?_p... Not a trademark attourney, but the styling is distinct enough. The use of identical name could be problematic I would think? However, I don't see how this is a "parody" -- I thought parodies have to be clearly different but use similar styling, i.e. call it "FedThen" and cleverly incl…
The "End the FedNow!" merchandise is pretty clearly parody. The stuff that just has the "FedNow" logo is borderline. I wonder why organizations do this, highlighting the logos of organizations they oppose. I have an EFF hoodie that says "National Security Agency" on the front and "Defund Big Brother" on the back, and I get questions all the time of "Do you work for the NSA?" and then have to turn around and show them…
Given that the NSA was created in secret and did not become public knowledge for many years after it's establishment I can see the subversive side of spelling out it's name on a hoodie. They still want to be No Such Agency.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#59I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the undemocratic, nightmerican system of goverence with non-existent to weak checks and balances across the entire polis and an outdated constitution. That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, and only someone riding the coattails of early adoption and espousing permanent oligarch rule through its lack of taxation could e…
> I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the Also, just stop there !, because the rest of that sentence will change every 5, 10, 50 years, no matter what anyone does. Don't start any program within your home that you don't want your enemies to have access to use against you while they're in power.
Except that I want my "enemies" to be able to conduct surveillance. There are genuine reasons for surveillance where it's honestly the best tool for the job. I also want the oversight and accountability to ensure that nobody (especially not my "enemies") are abusing that power.
Very few people would be happy with their lives if there were suddenly no surveillance at all. There would be crime, corruption, disease, pollution, extinction, and abuses of authority everywhere. We'd be totally blindsided by extreme weather, incoming asteroids, solar flares, and earthquakes!
One of my favorite forms of surveillance is body cameras on police officers. Body cams are amazing tools! They help protect the police from false claims of abuse and aid them in training, while at the same time they help protect the public by helping us find tyrants and corrupt cops. Body cam systems aren't perfect (tapes "go missing", some cops can turn them off) but they can be improved, and they should be because surveillance (like most valuable tools) isn't all good or all bad. Don't throw away powerful tools because you fear how they can be abused. Develop robust systems of transparency, accountability, and (ironically) surveillance to make those tools work for our benefit.
Re: Federal Reserve is threatening to sue Bitcoin Mag over parody product
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Federal Reserve is a de facto branch of government. To the extent that it manages to legally and politically suppress this fact, and perhaps even has a plausible claim to create "trade" marks and whatnot, is just part of the general corruption surrounding it.
> Is the Federal Reserve a privately owned corporation? > > Yes and no. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) enjoys a unique public/private structure that operates within the government, but is still relatively independent of government to isolate the Fed from day-to-day political pressures in fulfilling its varying roles. > > The Federal Reserve System is considered to be an independent central bank. [0] [0]: https://www.f…
Sure, so not like Federal Express at all. Just because a part of the government is insulated and less accountable than the rest of the government, doesn't mean it isn't government - regardless of this "independence" it's still setting inescapable policy.