4 ms·

So does this mean *this HN post is illegal because it links to a news article?

ernesth 8y ago
No. According to the so called link-tax article, it is not linking but putting content that makes a platform liable. So this HN post would not be illegal because of the link, but maybe because of the title that was "stolen" from the publisher. The aim is at news.google.com and other search engines and news aggregators that include a blurb coming from the article along the link. To be honest, it is not yet clear if they intend for the title to be taxed or not.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > it is not linking but putting content that makes a platform liable All the comments quoting content would be taxable, though.
  - ahel 8y ago
    > All the comments quoting content would be taxable, though. Like this one.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > Like this one Not quite. My previous comment linked to another comment. I don't believe that would be covered by this copyright proposal. What would be covered would be a HN user posting a link to an EU publication, my reading it, and then quoting from a portion of it. The simplest fix appears to be banning linking to EU publications.
      - alfredallan1 8y ago
        I don’t usually try to deliberately ask stupid questions, but I can’t help myself in this instance. What counts as a EU publication? The author residing in the EU? Someone with a special “publisher” license? The author possessing EU citizenship? EU readership? .eu domain name? The domain registrar? The physical servers of the web hosting service? The backup service? What about those that use cloud services who have their physical infrastructure spread out wherever? And various combinations of the above… Lastly, how would checking any of these be implemented by the software that’s supposed to be scanning for content that could possibly be in violation?
    - hammock 8y ago
      @jumpcrisscross if ernesth was from the EU though, would his comment count as an EU publication?
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  But without a sample of the content, the title, links are useless, see my sibling comment.
  - ernesth 8y ago
    If the content you use is written by you rather than the linked site, you are not concerned by this article. So paraphrasing the article or using an automatic summarization should keep you clear.
- glitchc 8y ago
  In addition, fair use laws protect you take an excerpt and present it alongside the link. 5% or 10% of the content depending on jurisdiction.
sebst 8y ago
Not because it links, but because it uses the headline (which is copyright protected) as the link text. In this special case, it might not be a violation as it links to a public service broadcast site. (IANAL)
Uberphallus 8y ago
Yes. For example meneame.net, a Spanish news aggregator, has no links to any major Spanish newspaper, because a law of this sort is in place in Spain. They would have to pay to link or quote in any way, which includes a description of the link in most cases. Basically you can't write any meaningful text in your <a href=></>.
z3t4 8y ago
Maybe this will improve the quality of HN submissions :P It's probably meant to make links to pirate torrents illegal though. If you have already made something publicly available eg availably for everyone for free, and you intent is to get as many readers as possible, then you can't really complain, and a sane judge would just laugh at anyone trying to sue for linking to it. What news sites used to complain about is that readers did not click on the article to go to the news site, as most of the article could be read on Google, with images and all.

No. According to the so called link-tax article, it is not linking but putting content that makes a platform liable. So this HN post would not be illegal because of the link, but maybe because of the title that was "stolen" from the publisher. The aim is at news.google.com and other search engines and news aggregators that include a blurb coming from the article along the link. To be honest, it is not yet clear if they intend for the title to be taxed or not.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> it is not linking but putting content that makes a platform liable All the comments quoting content would be taxable, though.
- ahel 8y ago
  > All the comments quoting content would be taxable, though. Like this one.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > Like this one Not quite. My previous comment linked to another comment. I don't believe that would be covered by this copyright proposal. What would be covered would be a HN user posting a link to an EU publication, my reading it, and then quoting from a portion of it. The simplest fix appears to be banning linking to EU publications.
    - alfredallan1 8y ago
      I don’t usually try to deliberately ask stupid questions, but I can’t help myself in this instance. What counts as a EU publication? The author residing in the EU? Someone with a special “publisher” license? The author possessing EU citizenship? EU readership? .eu domain name? The domain registrar? The physical servers of the web hosting service? The backup service? What about those that use cloud services who have their physical infrastructure spread out wherever? And various combinations of the above… Lastly, how would checking any of these be implemented by the software that’s supposed to be scanning for content that could possibly be in violation?
  - hammock 8y ago
    @jumpcrisscross if ernesth was from the EU though, would his comment count as an EU publication?
Uberphallus 8y ago
But without a sample of the content, the title, links are useless, see my sibling comment.
- ernesth 8y ago
  If the content you use is written by you rather than the linked site, you are not concerned by this article. So paraphrasing the article or using an automatic summarization should keep you clear.
glitchc 8y ago
In addition, fair use laws protect you take an excerpt and present it alongside the link. 5% or 10% of the content depending on jurisdiction.

sebst 8y ago

Not because it links, but because it uses the headline (which is copyright protected) as the link text. In this special case, it might not be a violation as it links to a public service broadcast site. (IANAL)

Uberphallus 8y ago

Yes. For example meneame.net, a Spanish news aggregator, has no links to any major Spanish newspaper, because a law of this sort is in place in Spain. They would have to pay to link or quote in any way, which includes a description of the link in most cases. Basically you can't write any meaningful text in your <a href=></>.

z3t4 8y ago

Maybe this will improve the quality of HN submissions :P It's probably meant to make links to pirate torrents illegal though. If you have already made something publicly available eg availably for everyone for free, and you intent is to get as many readers as possible, then you can't really complain, and a sane judge would just laugh at anyone trying to sue for linking to it. What news sites used to complain about is that readers did not click on the article to go to the news site, as most of the article could be read on Google, with images and all.