4 ms·

If this was 15-20 years ago, arguably at the peak of P2P filesharing, I suspect most people would side with Meta.

apexalpha 2y ago
In the Netherlands this is still the law. Downloading is fine, uploading is not. We used to have a sort of national library of every single media on Usenet back in the day.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Maybe Meta has a "trading desk" in the Netherlands. :-)
- aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
  11 years ago the EU made the Netherlands change their position: https://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-finally-becomes-illegal-in-the-netherlands/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-fi... AFAIK this is still the case - the Netherlands is more poorly-enforced than other EU countries, but it's still illegal to download pirated material.
  - apexalpha 2y ago
    Weird, TIL. This has never been enforced though.
    - aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
      It certainly has! https://stichtingbrein.nl/largest-ever-criminal-action-against-digital-piracy-in-the-netherlands/ https://stichtingbrein.nl/largest-ever-criminal-action-again... https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-odido-is-ordered-to-block-torrentgalaxy-on-request-by-brein/ https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-odido-is-ordered-to-bl... https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-brein-reports-two-piracy-settlements-against-individuals-during-july/ https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-brein-reports-two-pira...
      - apexalpha 2y ago
        All these are proof of upload enforcement, not download.
  - jillyboel 2y ago
    And of course the "thuiskopieheffing", a tax on any storage device that ostensibly is used to fund those whose media gets copied, is still in effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Netherlan... As long as I'm paying a tax for it, it is my right to copy
    - aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
      No, it is not your right to copy! If you want to keep using euros and have free travel to other Eurozone countries, you need to respect EU law. The tax does not respect EU law because it makes no effort to actually offset losses to copyright holders. Your comment doesn't even make sense! The intention was never to make piracy okay, it was to offset a tiny fraction of the financial losses. These financial losses are still occurring even now that piracy is formally illegal, so the tax is still justified. More generally this seems a form of freeloading: picking the parts of the EU that you like, ignoring the parts that don't. Who cares about society, it's just me me me. Pure selfishness.
      - whatshisface 2y ago
        Collecting restitution from innocent parties is perhaps the definition of injustice.
      - jillyboel 2y ago
        Not sure what you're on about but it was permitted by law, and the tax exists because of that reason. The EU bullied the NL into changing some laws (which aren't enforced), but the NL is still charging this tax. None of that really has anything to do with me, I'm not a bureaucrat. But they chose to still tax me, so as far as I'm concerned I have the moral right to download as much as I want. Anyway, feel free to lobby the NL to drop this tax and then we can talk.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  These days for books at least Anna's Archive is the place to go. https://annas-archive.org/activity https://annas-archive.org/activity
grotorea 2y ago
I think people would dunk on Meta for not seeding
micromacrofoot 2y ago
Why do we have to play this purity game where we take a situation, remove context, and wag our finger at each other? There's an ENORMOUS difference between college students pirating some movies or albums and the company worth $2 trillion doing it programmatically across millions of works and then reselling the laundered data. This is a completely unserious discussion without considering context.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  The difference being... what? Just scale? To be clear, Meta didn't "[resell] the laundered data": or at least they're claiming there's no proof of seeding.
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Yes, scale matters, a lot. I can feed my neighbor some rycin and I'm a murderer. If I poison the state's water supply with rycin and millions die, I'm not just a murderer any more. I'm now a terrorist and an entirely new set of laws apply to me. Same with blowing up my neighbors barn vs blowing up a large building. Scale matters and these "what's the difference except the scale" comments seem unconsidered or naive to me.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - micromacrofoot 2y ago
    the laundering is training AI with the stolen data they don't sell the data directly, but use it to train software that they use as part of their product if they want to make the library argument, they should have to manually visit and scan library data like everyone else... otherwise I should be available to access the entirety of my local library remotely without restriction
  - throw_m239339 2y ago
    The difference is scale AND that META does it for profit, violating plenty of licensing terms in the process as well.
kstrauser 2y ago
I still do on this one specific argument. Just because I loathe them doesn’t mean I disagree with everything they say.
bodiekane 2y ago
It's today and everyone on HN still should side with them. It's a travesty that we let the RIAA and MPAA sue defenseless kids and elderly for impossibly large sums, forced them to settle out of court to avoid expensive legal fees, and then use those acts of terrorism to establish the insane idea that filesharing was tantamount to "theft" or should be restricted. I hope Meta wins. I hope we see a reversal of the attacks on fair use and the end of abusive fraudulent DMCA takedowns, and I'm happy to finally have a powerful ally in the resistance against oppression from the copyright cartel.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Okay so here’s the issue for me. I totally hate copyright, and think it should be abolished or heavily reduced. At the same time, I hate Facebook for its ruthlessly immoral business practices. Should I be happy that Facebook gets to fuck over a bunch of authors because it’s a big, successful company rather than joe schmoe? Does the face they’re ignoring a law I don’t happen to like make it fine that the trillion dollar company can ignore the justice system and do whatever? They aren’t your friend; if they can they’ll change the law to make it specifically only legal when training models.

In the Netherlands this is still the law. Downloading is fine, uploading is not. We used to have a sort of national library of every single media on Usenet back in the day.

actionfromafar 2y ago
Maybe Meta has a "trading desk" in the Netherlands. :-)
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
11 years ago the EU made the Netherlands change their position: https://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-finally-becomes-illegal-in-the-netherlands/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-fi... AFAIK this is still the case - the Netherlands is more poorly-enforced than other EU countries, but it's still illegal to download pirated material.
- apexalpha 2y ago
  Weird, TIL. This has never been enforced though.
  - aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
    It certainly has! https://stichtingbrein.nl/largest-ever-criminal-action-against-digital-piracy-in-the-netherlands/ https://stichtingbrein.nl/largest-ever-criminal-action-again... https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-odido-is-ordered-to-block-torrentgalaxy-on-request-by-brein/ https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-odido-is-ordered-to-bl... https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-brein-reports-two-piracy-settlements-against-individuals-during-july/ https://piracymonitor.org/netherlands-brein-reports-two-pira...
    - apexalpha 2y ago
      All these are proof of upload enforcement, not download.
- jillyboel 2y ago
  And of course the "thuiskopieheffing", a tax on any storage device that ostensibly is used to fund those whose media gets copied, is still in effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Netherlan... As long as I'm paying a tax for it, it is my right to copy
  - aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
    No, it is not your right to copy! If you want to keep using euros and have free travel to other Eurozone countries, you need to respect EU law. The tax does not respect EU law because it makes no effort to actually offset losses to copyright holders. Your comment doesn't even make sense! The intention was never to make piracy okay, it was to offset a tiny fraction of the financial losses. These financial losses are still occurring even now that piracy is formally illegal, so the tax is still justified. More generally this seems a form of freeloading: picking the parts of the EU that you like, ignoring the parts that don't. Who cares about society, it's just me me me. Pure selfishness.
    - whatshisface 2y ago
      Collecting restitution from innocent parties is perhaps the definition of injustice.
    - jillyboel 2y ago
      Not sure what you're on about but it was permitted by law, and the tax exists because of that reason. The EU bullied the NL into changing some laws (which aren't enforced), but the NL is still charging this tax. None of that really has anything to do with me, I'm not a bureaucrat. But they chose to still tax me, so as far as I'm concerned I have the moral right to download as much as I want. Anyway, feel free to lobby the NL to drop this tax and then we can talk.
ninalanyon 2y ago
These days for books at least Anna's Archive is the place to go. https://annas-archive.org/activity https://annas-archive.org/activity

grotorea 2y ago

I think people would dunk on Meta for not seeding

micromacrofoot 2y ago

Why do we have to play this purity game where we take a situation, remove context, and wag our finger at each other? There's an ENORMOUS difference between college students pirating some movies or albums and the company worth $2 trillion doing it programmatically across millions of works and then reselling the laundered data. This is a completely unserious discussion without considering context.

Ajedi32 2y ago
The difference being... what? Just scale? To be clear, Meta didn't "[resell] the laundered data": or at least they're claiming there's no proof of seeding.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  Yes, scale matters, a lot. I can feed my neighbor some rycin and I'm a murderer. If I poison the state's water supply with rycin and millions die, I'm not just a murderer any more. I'm now a terrorist and an entirely new set of laws apply to me. Same with blowing up my neighbors barn vs blowing up a large building. Scale matters and these "what's the difference except the scale" comments seem unconsidered or naive to me.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  the laundering is training AI with the stolen data they don't sell the data directly, but use it to train software that they use as part of their product if they want to make the library argument, they should have to manually visit and scan library data like everyone else... otherwise I should be available to access the entirety of my local library remotely without restriction
- throw_m239339 2y ago
  The difference is scale AND that META does it for profit, violating plenty of licensing terms in the process as well.

kstrauser 2y ago

I still do on this one specific argument. Just because I loathe them doesn’t mean I disagree with everything they say.

bodiekane 2y ago

It's today and everyone on HN still should side with them. It's a travesty that we let the RIAA and MPAA sue defenseless kids and elderly for impossibly large sums, forced them to settle out of court to avoid expensive legal fees, and then use those acts of terrorism to establish the insane idea that filesharing was tantamount to "theft" or should be restricted. I hope Meta wins. I hope we see a reversal of the attacks on fair use and the end of abusive fraudulent DMCA takedowns, and I'm happy to finally have a powerful ally in the resistance against oppression from the copyright cartel.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Okay so here’s the issue for me. I totally hate copyright, and think it should be abolished or heavily reduced. At the same time, I hate Facebook for its ruthlessly immoral business practices. Should I be happy that Facebook gets to fuck over a bunch of authors because it’s a big, successful company rather than joe schmoe? Does the face they’re ignoring a law I don’t happen to like make it fine that the trillion dollar company can ignore the justice system and do whatever? They aren’t your friend; if they can they’ll change the law to make it specifically only legal when training models.