Live data from Hacker News

Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

imgur.com

41–50 of 124 posts

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#41

The EU is a nightmare of over regulation. No wonder the U.K. is leaving. They can’t just leave people well enough alone. Imgur has recently started displaying a GDPR cookie notice modal over the entire page on their image only URLs. I feel like I can’t escape the EU’s ruination of the Internet and I have never stepped foot in the bloc.

I strongly disagree. There might be a tendency to over-legislate in some areas (after all, there is now an exposed central authority that can be lobbied by special interest groups) but on the whole, the EU has been a strong positive influence on the continent of Europe and Britain is facing a serious self-inflicted wound as a result of Brexit. I say this as somebody who has dual citizenship in both a EU country (Italy) and the UK.

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#42

there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things. This is a great example. Additionally today they announced that while profits on stock trading (specifically derivatives) can be taxed fully, losses can only be accounted for upto 10.000€ Berlin is trying to freeze rents for the next 5 years and make it possible to retroactively lower rents to the level of 2013.…

I'm pretty sure this is just a consequence of that EU copyright reform that passed some months ago (article 11&13/15&17). At least the linked article talks about it (in German). The EU can't make laws themselves. The way they work is by requiring member states to make laws and this is Germany's.

You are correct

But the implementation details are left to the member states and of course Germany came up with this in their interpretation of the link tax

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#43

The EU is a nightmare of over regulation. No wonder the U.K. is leaving. They can’t just leave people well enough alone. Imgur has recently started displaying a GDPR cookie notice modal over the entire page on their image only URLs. I feel like I can’t escape the EU’s ruination of the Internet and I have never stepped foot in the bloc.

> Imgur has recently started displaying a GDPR cookie notice modal I find it hilarious how companies allegedly afraid of the big bad fines by the EU continue to use a non-compliant solution for a problem they created themselves. It's cargo-culting of the stupidest way of (barely) solving the problem. American lawyers trying to interpret EU regulations never worked well it seems. > I have never stepped foot in the blo…

Don't some countries treat the US DMCA similarly?

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#44

there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things. This is a great example. Additionally today they announced that while profits on stock trading (specifically derivatives) can be taxed fully, losses can only be accounted for upto 10.000€ Berlin is trying to freeze rents for the next 5 years and make it possible to retroactively lower rents to the level of 2013.…

I'm pretty sure this is just a consequence of that EU copyright reform that passed some months ago (article 11&13/15&17). At least the linked article talks about it (in German). The EU can't make laws themselves. The way they work is by requiring member states to make laws and this is Germany's.

Correct, it is the national implementation implementation of an EU directive.

And to the other point: There are two kinds of EU law. Regulationsa and directives. Regulations are direct law in all member states, directives need national implementation.

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#45
post #22
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good, of course. I am curious: while a typical user of imgur would clearly be non-commercial, would imgur itself be at risk for hosting the material? Or does Germany have a “safe harbour”-like concept for platforms that host user content?

imgur is clearly a commercial image hosting platform. There wouldn't be any ads nor payment systems if it would be non-commercial

You can also be commercial without ads. Distinction is more complicated. Even a non-profit without ads can do it for business.

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#46

there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things. This is a great example. Additionally today they announced that while profits on stock trading (specifically derivatives) can be taxed fully, losses can only be accounted for upto 10.000€ Berlin is trying to freeze rents for the next 5 years and make it possible to retroactively lower rents to the level of 2013.…

I'm pretty sure this is just a consequence of that EU copyright reform that passed some months ago (article 11&13/15&17). At least the linked article talks about it (in German). The EU can't make laws themselves. The way they work is by requiring member states to make laws and this is Germany's.

> The EU can't make laws themselves.

They can. It's called a regulation. Directives are what you're referring to.

A regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously.

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#48
post #30
post #25

Who's pushing for this? Meme's are free advertising for the rights holder. It's like media industries love to hurt themselves. They've already brought back mass piracy by fragmenting streaming services, next they want to kill any chance of their content going viral I guess.

> Meme's are free advertising for the rights holder. Unfortunately, artists can't make a living from free advertising. Anyway, the "Germany to ban memes" is just a spin on the story to generate clicks and outrage (similar to the EU copyright directive some time before). This legislation is about commercial use of images. The 128x128 pixels is what the law would consider a "thumbnail" image that can be used without ex…

> Unfortunately, artists can't make a living from free advertising.

They also don't make money when the meme is 128x128 pixels or not used at all. What is your point?

Re: Draft of German copyright reform proposes memes should only be up to 128 pixels

#49
Device pixels (resolution) or viewport pixels (like in CSS)?

I mean OS manufacturers could just change the way viewport pixels are calculated in their viewport rendering, which makes the law redundant. And relying on device resolution doesn't make any sense for modern devices with hidpi displays.

Post reply on HN