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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

#91

Post by qubex »

jpz wrote: post #81
qubex wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 recen…

I agree with your observation that the UK has never been occupied, but disagree that the UK can afford to disregard continental matters. The UK has deployed soldiers to fight and die in continental Europe since the Middle Ages, and the last World War heralded in a period of untold suffering for civilian populations on the Home Front, all of whom were well within the reach of industrial-era weapons and legitimate targets within the remit of the doctrines of Total War.

It’s not for no reason that the past 300 years of British foreign policy has revolved around the principle of ensuring that no continental power could rise up to the point of posing a threat to her navies. Admittedly, this is now truly superseded, but it should bear an impact on people’s decisions.

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

#92

Post by tyingq »

icebraining wrote: post #59
deltron3030 wrote: post #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.

I'm guessing they are only thinking of raster images, like excerpts of photos or videos.

What if I have the browser scale it up via css width and height? Is it still compliant since there's only 128x128 unique squares?

If it's a rectangle, can one side exceed 128 pixels if the product of width and height is less than 128x128?

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

#93

Post by gmueckl »

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?

Well, the gap between the letter of the law and the spirit of it is quite narrow in most cases because of how the law is written in an abstract form and applied to a real case. Intent matters, not just the execution. If you know that something is unlawful, but you take deliberate steps to (seemingly) circumvent a rule while effectively breaking it with the result of your action, you're still on the hook. I find that people generally underestimate this aspect of how law is applied to the real world.

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

#94

Post by gmueckl »

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

The small chunks won't matter to a judge because the intended result is to have the resulting ensemble displayed as a single, larger image again. The intermediate steps of breaking it up and reassembling it are irrelevant technical details that will be abstracted away.

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

#95

Post by isoskeles »

sneak wrote: post #84
TulliusCicero wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s a difference between business licenses and making dancing itself illegal. I don’t know if that’s a real law somewhere in Germany, but it’s definitely further along in restricting personal freedom than requiring a business license to allow dancing in a club that serves alcohol, and I’d be surprised if Germany doesn’t have similar laws.

Although I imagine there could be some very conservative local jurisdictions, in the US, that outlaw dancing in some ways as well.

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

#96

Post by zaarn »

jerf wrote: post #72
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

Those are generally on the books because they are unenforced, so nobody even thinks to remove them. Were they enforced, they'd be struck quickly. Sometimes that even happens. Are the ones in Germany enforced? Honest question, I don't know, and I'm interested in the answer.

Quiet Hours on Sundays? Definitely enforced.

Dancing Ban? Usually not unless you're either A) a very big venue or B) a public place like a school. But for either cases it wouldn't matter much since most of them are closed on those days since they are usually national holidays anyway.

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

#97

Post by zaarn »

isoskeles wrote: post #95
sneak wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s a difference between business licenses and making dancing itself illegal. I don’t know if that’s a real law somewhere in Germany, but it’s definitely further along in restricting personal freedom than requiring a business license to allow dancing in a club that serves alcohol, and I’d be surprised if Germany doesn’t have similar laws. Although I imagine there could be some very conservative local jurisdiction…

Dancing itself isn't illegal, just doing it publically, on those days. It's rarely enforced, many places have exceptions that it's allowed unless the local church mess is disturbed due to noises.

Any closed club is fine to my knowledge.

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

#98

Post by zaarn »

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?

There is a certain extend where the judge can easily see that you're just trying to bullshit around the law itself.

In this case, the most likely outcome is that the judge will rule that breaking the image into 128 pixel squares and then reassembling them is simply the same as displaying the full image by intent. The result is the same so you broke the law.

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

#99

Post by sli »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #86
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Overtime/holiday pay

You are severely misinformed if you believe these to be mandated by law. Also missing from US law: parental leave and sick days. None of these things are mandated, they are purely up to individual companies to optionally provide, which just isn't good enough in the rest of the world.

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

#100

Post by Fjolsvith »

sli wrote: post #99
Fjolsvith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> Overtime/holiday pay You are severely misinformed if you believe these to be mandated by law. Also missing from US law: parental leave and sick days. None of these things are mandated, they are purely up to individual companies to optionally provide, which just isn't good enough in the rest of the world.

> You are severely misinformed if you believe these to be mandated by law.

The US Department of Labor says they are:

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/overtimepay

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