Live data from Hacker News

Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

japantimes.co.jp

51–60 of 98 posts

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#51
post #6

Is there some special right for a photographer in Japan to have their name shown on an image, that determines whether a reproduction of it is an infringement? As far as I know, you acknowledge the service will transform your work as part of the ToS for uploading an image to it. Unless, of course, the photographer wasn't the one who uploaded the picture to Twitter in the first place, but then why is the case hinged on…

> If I were Twitter I'd be counting my lucky stars that my largest userbase is in the US where, as broken as our copyright system is, I can't imagine this wacky judicial reasoning prevailing.

You know that the Japan userbase of Twitter is huge, right? Not that far behind that of the US, in fact.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...

The amount of attention (resources, staffing, features) Twitter gives to the Japan market because of this is significant.

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a question I asked before on Wikipedia [1]. Some of their pictures on Commons, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belgium_-_Location_Map_(2... , are from UNOCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). UNOCHA specifically asks their work to be 'Credit as follows: "Credit: OCHA"', but obviously Wikipedia don't do it on their article page if you just embed the pic…

The linked CC licence states (and it appears to be confirmed that this is the licence that applies[1]): > If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author [...]; (ii) the…

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I agree, Wikipedia indeed does enough to attribute, but I'm still a little bit concerned about the specific "Attribution Requirements" listed on the File page (second block under #Licensing).

Basically it states, modified or not, you need to keep the source "below the map", which some Wikipedia article pages obviously don't.

What's your take about this "requirements" statement? Does it carry any weight, legally speaking?

(By "concerned" i'm not saying UN would have an issue with Wikimedia, just the technicality with such requirement).

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#53
post #6

Is there some special right for a photographer in Japan to have their name shown on an image, that determines whether a reproduction of it is an infringement? As far as I know, you acknowledge the service will transform your work as part of the ToS for uploading an image to it. Unless, of course, the photographer wasn't the one who uploaded the picture to Twitter in the first place, but then why is the case hinged on…

> If I were Twitter I'd be counting my lucky stars that my largest userbase is in the US where, as broken as our copyright system is, I can't imagine this wacky judicial reasoning prevailing. You know that the Japan userbase of Twitter is huge, right? Not that far behind that of the US, in fact. https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-... The amount of attention (resources, staffing, features) Twi…

Yep, market share wise, I'd say Twitter in Japan is much huger than the US (probably their top 1 social media if not counting Line, which is primarily a messaging service.)

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is. Japan's "copyright" laws are different and include Moral rights ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Moral_r... ) which are nontransferable and include the right to how your work is attributed. I'm not sure why it is the retweeters, rather than Twitter who are responsible for the automatic cropping that occurs when you retweet. But I neither a Lawyer nor a Japanese Copyright expert.

So, asking non-facetiously, as an artist I have the right to decide how my work must be attributed, even if the platform I'm posting it to tells me in their ToS that my work will be altered in a standard way in the course of using the service? If my understanding is correct (with the caveat that I am nowhere close to an expert), that's frankly bonkers and I have no idea how Twitter can operate at all in Japan.

While it doesn't exist in the US, many countries have the same moral right. The intent is that if I buy a painting from you and exhibit it you get to determine how your name is displayed, within reason, so I can't say the painting is by "Puppy Kicker Smith."

Note that usually people are reasonable about it, and that it's also extremely common to have contracts state the right will not be exercised. This case is unusual because the use of the photo is completely non-consensual.

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#55
post #31
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it This means, almost by definition, that the most viewed versions of these photos on twitter, probably by a very high margin, have no attribution. Why is this bonkers? The right to attribution is clear, and it’s not your place to judge whether or not the artist should be exercising it. The latter question comes down to how feasible it is for a pe…

>This means, almost by definition, that the most viewed versions of these photos on twitter, probably by a very high margin, have no attribution. >Why is this bonkers? The right to attribution is clear, and it’s not your place to judge whether or not the artist should be exercising it. Does it mean that any sort of action needed to see the attribution constitutes "hiding" it, opening you to liability? What if the ima…

> Do we need modals in front of every image with the attribution, so we know for sure that the viewer knows who created the image?

Don't give EU lawmakers ideas...

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#56
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this article the rights of a photographer was successfully defended, so the system is a least working in some cases. The bigger problems here are web design and forms that impose specific characters in some fields.

> In this article the rights of a photographer was successfully defended The rights of the photographer was respected from the very beginning. The attribution was still there for anyone to see. The “problem” was that it wasn’t included in the thumbnail , because it unsurprisingly didn’t fit in. > so the system is a least working in some cases No, this case represents a spectacular failure to protect people’s right to…

Japan has no fair use, which is part of the problem here.

Usually people with their rights "infringed" by unauthorized posting on Twitter don't care. If they do care, the poster usually takes the image down. I guess that didn't happen in this case, which is why it went to court, but it rarely gets that far.

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#57
People are asking about Japanese law on this, so I'll write what I know. I am not a lawyer, just a person who cares about copyright.

Japan does not have fair use, instead it has a number of specific exceptions to copyright. For example, you can take photos of things semi-permanently installed in an outdoor area and use those photos for non-commercial purposes, even if you photographed a 2D artwork that might have copyright. You can read the copyright law in English here:

https://www.cric.or.jp/english/clj/cl2.html#art32

The most generous exception in the law (except maybe the search engine one) is for "quotation", Article 32. For quotation you must use only as much of the work as is necessary for commentary, clearly separate it from your own content, clearly attribute it, and the quoted content must be subordinate to your own content. Regarding the last point, that means you can't just say "this is a nice painting" and post the image, you have to provide some commentary on it. (No, that's not clearly defined, so you'd need to work it out in court if there was a dispute.)

In practice this doesn't matter much on social media, and things work out much like places where you have fair use, but sometimes people try to enforce all their rights. Usually the people they are upset at take down their posts, but I guess in this case that didn't happen.

One really unfortunate side effect of this is that Japanese Wikpedia has very few images compared to other Wikipedias. Things that would be fine in an article, like book covers, are excluded because their Wikimedia file page would not have commentary and, so the thinking goes, would be infringement. (I remember reading the discussion that came to this conclusion on a Wikipedia discussion page years ago, but haven't been able to find it since.) This is why the Japanese article for Anpanman has a photo of a mural, for example, while the English article has a book cover.

For moral rights (著作人格権), these actually also exist in many places besides the United States. Practically speaking, if you license a work for use it's pretty common to have a clause saying you will not exercise these rights, and if you're in a mutually beneficial relationship any concerns over how you're credited can usually be negotiated. In this particular case the use was completely unauthorized so that didn't happen. (I am still confused about why the poster didn't just remove the image when asked.)

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#58
post #57

People are asking about Japanese law on this, so I'll write what I know. I am not a lawyer, just a person who cares about copyright. Japan does not have fair use, instead it has a number of specific exceptions to copyright. For example, you can take photos of things semi-permanently installed in an outdoor area and use those photos for non-commercial purposes, even if you photographed a 2D artwork that might have cop…

What's the legal status of retweets? From a technical point of view, the user is not making any copies but only referring to another post, and it's Twitter who creates the preview.

Furthermore, how has Twitter ever been able to operate in Japan in the first place, if they have not made any concessions by disabling features that are considered to be in violation of local legislation?

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#59
post #29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it This means, almost by definition, that the most viewed versions of these photos on twitter, probably by a very high margin, have no attribution. Why is this bonkers? The right to attribution is clear, and it’s not your place to judge whether or not the artist should be exercising it. The latter question comes down to how feasible it is for a pe…

what's bonkers is wanting to punish users for something they didn't do. judges not understanding technology strikes again.

I believe this decision punishes Twitter - not the users.

Re: Japan top court tells Twitter to disclose retweeters' info

#60
post #57

People are asking about Japanese law on this, so I'll write what I know. I am not a lawyer, just a person who cares about copyright. Japan does not have fair use, instead it has a number of specific exceptions to copyright. For example, you can take photos of things semi-permanently installed in an outdoor area and use those photos for non-commercial purposes, even if you photographed a 2D artwork that might have cop…

Ah, I found a Japanese article and the flow of what happened is clearer to me now. (Maybe I should have realized it from the English article but I didn't...)

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200721/k10012526381000.ht...

The photographer wants to email the retweeters. The reason isn't stated but he could send them a bill for use of his image and threaten to take them to court if they don't pay it.

This is not something a reasonable person would do, but it is technically within his rights under the law. There are occasionally people online in Japan who send bills to people (mainly magazines) who quote them or use images on Twitter in ways they don't like.

Post reply on HN