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

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

#81

Post by jpz »

qubex wrote: post #41
macinjosh wrote: post #31

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 (Ital…

The EU has important geopolitical reasons for existing on the continent of Europe.

However, the UK does not share the history of the continental countries of being occupied by their neighbours.

The compact "I surrender much of my sovereignty for security from being periodically exterminated by my neighbours" - has a very different balance on the scales for the country of the UK than it does for countries with a recent memory of occupation, that have seen large percentages of their populations dying from violence in continental wars going back centuries.

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

#82

Post by dredmorbius »

dahart wrote: post #69

I don’t understand all the mock outrage; memes are already illegal in most cases at any size and copyrights are currently being enforced with takedowns in some cases. It seem like the title & text is trying to be intentionally inflammatory. It’s already illegal to use someone else’s image without permission, unless you’re covered by fair use (which memes are not automatically). Memes just happen to not be very enforc…

Memes would almost always seem to fall well into Fair Use protections, under both US and wider Berne law.

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

#83

Post by dredmorbius »

gumby wrote: post #55

German copyright law is already overly draconian and holds the country back.

Which is of course ironic given the history:

No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?

Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...

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

#84

Post by sneak »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #58
kamakazizuru wrote: post #32

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.…

Compared to the US, Germany is more regulation heavy in general. Many of those regulations seem fine or even great, there are definitely ones that weird me out a bit as an American living here though, like legally enforced quiet hours on Sunday, days where it's illegal to dance, and really just the large amount of government-religion interaction.

In the US, the government dictates what hours you're allowed to drink, and in buildings that serve alcohol, you frequently need a license to be able to dance in those same places - even when there is no alcohol being served at that time.

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

#85

Post by 45ure »

kamakazizuru wrote: post #32

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.…

>there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things.

As unnecessary as it might seem, however, it is not bizarre. This piece of legislation was not cooked up overnight, as you suggest. Basically, this is how the start of enacting Article 13 aka 'meme ban' looks like.

Article 13 aka "the meme ban" explained.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-1...

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

#86

Post by Fjolsvith »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75
ginko wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. The US does seem to also have its fair share of strange, overbearing laws to the point where you can easily find "weirdest us laws" lists online: https://www.businessinsider.com/weird-us-laws?r=US&IR=T

I'm more worried about the lack of certain laws in the US - like worker protection, minimum wage, working hours kinda laws.

> I'm more worried about the lack of certain laws in the US - like worker protection,

OSHA, workman comp

> minimum wage,

Present

> working hours kinda laws.

Overtime/holiday pay.

What's lacking again?

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

#87

Post by Mindwipe »

dredmorbius wrote: post #82
dahart wrote: post #69

I don’t understand all the mock outrage; memes are already illegal in most cases at any size and copyrights are currently being enforced with takedowns in some cases. It seem like the title & text is trying to be intentionally inflammatory. It’s already illegal to use someone else’s image without permission, unless you’re covered by fair use (which memes are not automatically). Memes just happen to not be very enforc…

Memes would almost always seem to fall well into Fair Use protections, under both US and wider Berne law.

I would say that's highly questionnable under Berne, and are fairly untested under US Fair Use protections.

As most of them are stills, and use the entire still, there's no defence of a partial use of the work. Under Berne the key test would be if it was prejudicial to the copyright owner's economic rights, and it would be hard to argue the image had no economic value if it was being used in a popular meme.

I do think the parent's comment that memes could be actionable in a great many situations in most jurisdictions but rarely get such in practice has merit.

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

#89

Post by Kaiyou »

Klathmon wrote: post #51
diamondo25 wrote: post #13

What a meme. Maybe they can just cut up the meme in chunks of 128x128 and display that instead. Its not a full image but a lot of tiny ones

How do countries like Germany handle it when someone meets the letter of the law but not the spirit of it?

Why should they if it meets the letter of the law? Letter of the law is all that counts.

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

#90

Post by franga2000 »

icebraining wrote: post #64
franga2000 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has a huge problem of people who have absolutely no idea what they're voting for. The cookie law was a very obvious example of that. The EU parliament is a mix of politicians who vote for what they want and ones who very obviously vote for whatever their party's or their corporate connections want. The moment any kind of technology is involved, the first group doesn't know what they want and so the second grou…

In what way is the "cookie law" a result of voting for whatever their party's or their corporate connections want? Which corporations benefit from that?

The cookie law is so incredibly stupid and ineffective, my best explanation for it is that it was made by people who didn't actually want more privacy for users, and the ones who did, voted for it because they didn't understand how useless it was.
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