3 ms·

What if I post a Spanish story to HN (or Reddit) and use the title of the article as the submission title? Will the company hosting the site have to pay up?

rgbrenner 12y ago
NO, because neither Reddit nor HN operate in Spain, and therefore are not subject to Spannish law.
- ogig 12y ago
  That's not so clear. I don't know the in an outs of this specific law, but for example a gambling site has to comply with Spanish law if it serves to spaniards. No matter where it's legally located. That's why most gambling .coms geo blacklist spanish or redirect them to the spanish law compliant version of their service. Same with consumer laws, those apply if I buy a product in other country. For example Spanish law says I can get a refund 7 days after the purchase, no reason required. Yea, doesn't make sense and probably they can't enforce many of these, but that's how they are redacted. I would set the legal team on alert mode if I were Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Menéame.
  - kokey 12y ago
    The gambling thing is a bit different, normally it's the sites that cooperate like that so that they have a chance to be able to become a licensed provider in that country in the future. It's a strange trend in that industry that also goes counter to various trade agreements, but that's just how it goes. That said countries can also take action locally against foreign entities they believe are breaking their local laws, and go after their local assets, e.g. they could seize their .es domain names or take action against any local office or other assets that they have.
- greglindahl 12y ago
  Our lawyers tell us that our company might be considered to "operate" in Spain just because some users are in Spain.
- pmontra 12y ago
  Well, if Spain is going to behave like the USA Reddit and HN founders could end up being the subjects of another Richard O'Dwyer case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer Basically it ended with a fine (which seems absurd to me) but that UK guy had to fight for 18 months against a request of extradition to the USA for having created a web site in the UK which (I quote Wikipedia) "did not host any infringing media, but American authorities say it contained indexed links to media hosted on other sites, and defined it as a "linking" website". This looks like Reddit and HN to me. Even if your country doesn't comply with the request it's not possible to shrug it away unless an agreement is reached, or you have to be careful never to step into a country with extradition agreements with the one that is trying to get you. That is a severe limitation to personal freedom. Everything falls apart if we start applying everybody's laws to everybody in every country of the world. I'm pretty sure I violated some laws of some countries writing this.
- pfortuny 12y ago
  You do not know the greed and megalomania of these associations which "collect" the money of copyright in Spain.
- mattbarrie 12y ago
  I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe you are not aware of the new EU VAT on digital downloads, which is taxed in the country of purchase, not country of sale. http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/25/new-eu-vat-regulations-threaten-micro-businesses http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/2... The way discussion on taxation is going globally I wouldn't be surprised if more legislation heads this way, or at the very least a presence test is applied to see if the company has a physical office in country.
ogig 12y ago
My reading of the analysis floating around is that, been strict with the current text, yes. Both HN and Reddit are covered by the broad definition of the service this law will apply to. Twitter and Facebook could be on the bag too depending on interpretation. The law doesn't seem to consider if the source of the link is human or automatic. For that very reason many are worried about Menéame fate, a very popular Reddit-like site here in Spain. I think this is a good overview in English: https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-tax-5434d746df48 https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-t...
Oletros 12y ago
It affects sites like Meneame
- pvaldes 12y ago
  And also the Universities... All of them.
pvaldes 12y ago
And if you are a teacher in the university writing a resume for your students they want you to pay for the right to cite previous work for other poets/scientifics/philosophers in the photocopies that you are giving to them. Yep. As silly as is.

rgbrenner 12y ago

NO, because neither Reddit nor HN operate in Spain, and therefore are not subject to Spannish law.

ogig 12y ago
That's not so clear. I don't know the in an outs of this specific law, but for example a gambling site has to comply with Spanish law if it serves to spaniards. No matter where it's legally located. That's why most gambling .coms geo blacklist spanish or redirect them to the spanish law compliant version of their service. Same with consumer laws, those apply if I buy a product in other country. For example Spanish law says I can get a refund 7 days after the purchase, no reason required. Yea, doesn't make sense and probably they can't enforce many of these, but that's how they are redacted. I would set the legal team on alert mode if I were Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/Menéame.
- kokey 12y ago
  The gambling thing is a bit different, normally it's the sites that cooperate like that so that they have a chance to be able to become a licensed provider in that country in the future. It's a strange trend in that industry that also goes counter to various trade agreements, but that's just how it goes. That said countries can also take action locally against foreign entities they believe are breaking their local laws, and go after their local assets, e.g. they could seize their .es domain names or take action against any local office or other assets that they have.
greglindahl 12y ago
Our lawyers tell us that our company might be considered to "operate" in Spain just because some users are in Spain.
pmontra 12y ago
Well, if Spain is going to behave like the USA Reddit and HN founders could end up being the subjects of another Richard O'Dwyer case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer Basically it ended with a fine (which seems absurd to me) but that UK guy had to fight for 18 months against a request of extradition to the USA for having created a web site in the UK which (I quote Wikipedia) "did not host any infringing media, but American authorities say it contained indexed links to media hosted on other sites, and defined it as a "linking" website". This looks like Reddit and HN to me. Even if your country doesn't comply with the request it's not possible to shrug it away unless an agreement is reached, or you have to be careful never to step into a country with extradition agreements with the one that is trying to get you. That is a severe limitation to personal freedom. Everything falls apart if we start applying everybody's laws to everybody in every country of the world. I'm pretty sure I violated some laws of some countries writing this.
pfortuny 12y ago
You do not know the greed and megalomania of these associations which "collect" the money of copyright in Spain.
mattbarrie 12y ago
I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe you are not aware of the new EU VAT on digital downloads, which is taxed in the country of purchase, not country of sale. http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/25/new-eu-vat-regulations-threaten-micro-businesses http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/2... The way discussion on taxation is going globally I wouldn't be surprised if more legislation heads this way, or at the very least a presence test is applied to see if the company has a physical office in country.

ogig 12y ago

My reading of the analysis floating around is that, been strict with the current text, yes. Both HN and Reddit are covered by the broad definition of the service this law will apply to. Twitter and Facebook could be on the bag too depending on interpretation. The law doesn't seem to consider if the source of the link is human or automatic. For that very reason many are worried about Menéame fate, a very popular Reddit-like site here in Spain. I think this is a good overview in English: https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-tax-5434d746df48 https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-t...

Oletros 12y ago

It affects sites like Meneame

pvaldes 12y ago
And also the Universities... All of them.

pvaldes 12y ago

And if you are a teacher in the university writing a resume for your students they want you to pay for the right to cite previous work for other poets/scientifics/philosophers in the photocopies that you are giving to them. Yep. As silly as is.