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I bet that in cases of copyright infringement a logical delete isn't legally sufficient. Sure, you can leave the database pointers in place... but you're going

I bet that in cases of copyright infringement a logical delete isn't legally sufficient. Sure, you can leave the database pointers in place... but you're going to need to actually remove the infringing content. In that case, at least, a true delete tool would be needed. Like any Internet discussion about copyrights or other people's backend scripts, this is all purely speculative.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
I don't buy it. Simply making infringing data unavailable has to be legally sufficient, except in cases involving removing secret or confidential data (which would likely require a court case) there's no harm in having the data merely inaccessible. Moreover, it simply must be the case that this is how it works in practice. Consider how deep this rabbit hole goes. If expunging any copies of copyrighted data were strictly necessary, then: What of data existing on backup media? Should those be re-hydrated, the target data expunged, and then recreated in abridged form? What of data existing in various content caches (such as memcached)? Should all of those systems be flushed of any possible contaminant? What of the actual data on physical media? Deleting a file on any modern form of media does not expunge the data, it merely unlinks the location of the data on disk from the file system directory. It might be necessary, depending on filesystem and drive type, to scan all of the unused sectors on an entire disk to find out if the target data or any part of it existed. As you see, quite quickly you get into absurdities. Nobody goes to that much trouble to delete merely copyright infringing data.
enjo 16y ago
I can't speak for Flickr, but I can tell you that one of their larger competitors simply does a logical delete. That seems to take care of any legal obligation. I should note that this not true in the case of child porn. Once the feds give them the signal that is completely purged.
phaylon 16y ago
Also, depending on the country there might be specific privacy laws that matter.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

I don't buy it. Simply making infringing data unavailable has to be legally sufficient, except in cases involving removing secret or confidential data (which would likely require a court case) there's no harm in having the data merely inaccessible. Moreover, it simply must be the case that this is how it works in practice. Consider how deep this rabbit hole goes. If expunging any copies of copyrighted data were strictly necessary, then: What of data existing on backup media? Should those be re-hydrated, the target data expunged, and then recreated in abridged form? What of data existing in various content caches (such as memcached)? Should all of those systems be flushed of any possible contaminant? What of the actual data on physical media? Deleting a file on any modern form of media does not expunge the data, it merely unlinks the location of the data on disk from the file system directory. It might be necessary, depending on filesystem and drive type, to scan all of the unused sectors on an entire disk to find out if the target data or any part of it existed. As you see, quite quickly you get into absurdities. Nobody goes to that much trouble to delete merely copyright infringing data.

enjo 16y ago

I can't speak for Flickr, but I can tell you that one of their larger competitors simply does a logical delete. That seems to take care of any legal obligation. I should note that this not true in the case of child porn. Once the feds give them the signal that is completely purged.

phaylon 16y ago

Also, depending on the country there might be specific privacy laws that matter.