4 ms·

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

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?

polm23 6y ago
I have never really thought about this before or heard it discussed, because usually only the behavior of the initial poster is at issue (since they can just delete the tweet and fix the whole problem). If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, you could consider a user's timeline like their "home page", since they control it, and an RT could be considered a form of "reposting", because you put it in places it had not been before. I don't think that's a reasonable line of thought, but it is consistent.
- anilakar 6y ago
  > I don't think that's a reasonable line of thought, but it is consistent. I guess we can agree that this seems to apply to Japan in general :) > you could consider a user's timeline like their "home page", since they control it, and an RT could be considered a form of "reposting", because you put it in places it had not been before. Strongly disagree with this. I'm a seasoned user and I feel that I'm completely out of control regarding what I and others see. This might also be a cultural (wrt. internet and mobile computing) difference, but I don't consider a Twitter-like timeline to be human-generated content at all, apart from the content that the users have explicitly created themselves. I believe this is also why most of HN seems to have a backlash at the moment. FWIW, attribution rights are common everywhere, but they're an integral part of copyright, not something that can be applied separately as a secondary measure if ordinary copyright enforcement fails. I also believe that most users here are aware of the issues with the Japanese court system and face.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  But if the original tweeter deletes it, the retweet is deleted too. So I don't consider a retweet to be a copy, but rather an alias to an image that exists on someone else's account.
  - polm23 6y ago
    I agree but the court did not. shrug

polm23 6y ago

I have never really thought about this before or heard it discussed, because usually only the behavior of the initial poster is at issue (since they can just delete the tweet and fix the whole problem). If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, you could consider a user's timeline like their "home page", since they control it, and an RT could be considered a form of "reposting", because you put it in places it had not been before. I don't think that's a reasonable line of thought, but it is consistent.

anilakar 6y ago
> I don't think that's a reasonable line of thought, but it is consistent. I guess we can agree that this seems to apply to Japan in general :) > you could consider a user's timeline like their "home page", since they control it, and an RT could be considered a form of "reposting", because you put it in places it had not been before. Strongly disagree with this. I'm a seasoned user and I feel that I'm completely out of control regarding what I and others see. This might also be a cultural (wrt. internet and mobile computing) difference, but I don't consider a Twitter-like timeline to be human-generated content at all, apart from the content that the users have explicitly created themselves. I believe this is also why most of HN seems to have a backlash at the moment. FWIW, attribution rights are common everywhere, but they're an integral part of copyright, not something that can be applied separately as a secondary measure if ordinary copyright enforcement fails. I also believe that most users here are aware of the issues with the Japanese court system and face.
Thorrez 6y ago
But if the original tweeter deletes it, the retweet is deleted too. So I don't consider a retweet to be a copy, but rather an alias to an image that exists on someone else's account.
- polm23 6y ago
  I agree but the court did not. shrug