If you thought GDPR is a joke, joke's on you

[imno007]

I thought they are already liable for infringement.

Right now copyright holders can send a DMCA notice to have their work taken down from wherever, and then it's up to the platform to decide if the notices have merit (literally millions of them do not), and then the platform could be liable if they didn't act on it within a certain time. Usually, though, it's the individuals who use or share these copyrighted works who end up paying the fines and/or doing time. These new laws will make the platforms themselves directly liable for everything you and the other billions of people on the internet do, from your ISP to every website you visit. It will be very much in their vested interest to keep close tabs on everyone.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Right now copyright holders can send a DMCA notice to have their work taken down from wherever, and then it's up to the platform to decide if the notices have merit (literally millions of them do not), and then the platform could be liable if they didn't act on it within a certain time. Usually, though, it's the individuals who use or share these copyrighted works who end up paying the fines and/or doing time. These new laws will make the platforms themselves directly liable for everything you and the other billions of people on the internet do, from your ISP to every website you visit. It will be very much in their vested interest to keep close tabs on everyone.

I still don't see the difference.

Currently if a member of mey forum uploads something that they do not have the rights to, e.g. a photo, meme, audio then I take it down as soon as I am aware there is a copyright infringement.
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Embedding or linking is a different matter of course. If somebody embeds a Youtube video, I am aware that Youtube have already checked for copyright and they either disallow or they allow with monetisation, depending on the rightsholders preferences. These I allow.

However embedding from another site who may not have that ability is different, I still don't know what for instance Soundcloud do in this regard.

 

[MySiteGuy]

I really don't agree. The legal responsibility is to simply not lose or abuse the data, lol.

All you need to do to be GDPR compliant is essentially be a good person, update your privacy policy, and comply with deletion requests; it's not really all that hard. Safe harbor laws have nothing to do with harvesting unnecessary data and mistreating it.

No, it's not that simple. Software often must change, privacy policies worth anything must be reviewed by someone qualified (which costs money), etc. No government regulation is without cost.

We've had fairly stringent data protection laws in Russia for more than a decade and it hasn't been an issue for us. The whole GDPR thing is blown way out of proportion.

Federal Law No. 242-FZ
Service providers in Russia are required to retain your data for use by the government, hardly what I'd call data protection.

 

[imno007]

I still don't see the difference.

Well, if there was no difference, what would be the need for new laws? So obviously there's a difference. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. All I'll say is that anyone who thinks it's a good idea for governments and big media conglomerates (who are paying off the politicians) to control the internet is probably in for a rude awakening.

 

[Kirby]

Currently if a member of mey forum uploads something that they do not have the rights to, e.g. a photo, meme, audio then I take it down as soon as I am aware there is a copyright infringement.

That is how it is right now. What is being proposed is to make the website owner directly liabel.
Eg. if if I have developed a software that I sell licenses for 10 $/each, someone uploads this to your forum and I detect that it is being downloaded multiple times from there I could request the lost license fees from you.

 

[Mr Lucky]

That is how it is right now. What is being proposed is to make the website owner directly liabel.
Eg. if if I have developed a software that I sell licenses for 10 $/each, someone uploads this to your forum and I detect that it is being downloaded multiple times from there I could request the lost license fees from you.

Yes, surely that's the way it is now, that's what I'm saying and why my temrs and conditions make it clear that members may not upload anything they don't own the rights to.

 

[Kirby]

Yeah, who doesn't
But that terms won't help you much if the proposal becomes active and your members ignored the terms.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yeah, who doesn't
But that terms won't help you much if the proposal becomes active and your members ignored the terms.

Yes butb they do sometimes ignore the terms and we (me + moderators) remove the content. This is what I am getting at about what is so different, apart from people may be more aware to stop illegal filesharing and piracy on their watch which can be a good thing.

 

[Kirby]

The risk is different. Right now, if there is pirated content on your site that you are unaware of: You get a notice, remove it and you're done.
Financial Risk = More or less 0

Not so if you are fully liable, if you (or your team) miss pirated content the copyright hould could demand compentation for lost license fees.
Financial Risk = ?

 

[imno007]

Yes butb they do sometimes ignore the terms and we (me + moderators) remove the content. This is what I am getting at about what is so different, apart from people may be more aware to stop illegal filesharing and piracy on their watch which can be a good thing.

The problem is that just as there are millions of DMCA notices that are sent out each year that are either bogus or sent in error - which frequently includes people sending out notices on copyrighted works they themselves or their various partners host - there will also be millions of "gray" items and contested works caught up in all these filters and detection algorithms that will result in a gazillion false-positives and mountains of litigious lawsuits that most small operators can't afford.

 

[Assadi]

No, it's not that simple. Software often must change, privacy policies worth anything must be reviewed by someone qualified (which costs money), etc. No government regulation is without cost.

It is that simple, actually. You guys had TWO WHOLE YEARS to update your software. The problem is that everyone forgot about it until the last minute. That is a personal problem; not a problem with the GDPR itself.

I implemented the data importing and exporting in our MMORPG in <24 hours, added anonymization features when I was bored over the weekend, and implemented a rough version of the latest XenForo patches before they were released. All that took probably about like 6 hours of development time.

The hardest process was writing the privacy policy and actually educating all the staff about handling data correctly.

If you're genuinely having trouble getting those basic things implemented with two years (or more, honestly) of notice, you probably have a monstrously large company and can afford to actually hire people to do this.

Otherwise, sorry to be blunt, but you slacked off and are paying the price. The GDPR is genuinely a good set of laws and most people were just lazy and are now upset.

Federal Law No. 242-FZ
Service providers in Russia are required to retain your data for use by the government, hardly what I'd call data protection.

You literally cherry picked the amended addition added in 2014. The original law is more than a decade old and IS genuinely about data protection. Russia has had better data protection laws than most of the world up until recently. Feel free to read No. 152-FZ.

The point, though, is not that Russia is better than anyone else; don't worry, I'm well aware we have our problems too.

The point is we have had very strict laws that required you to carefully handle any sort of personal information (names, birthday, address, social status, education, profession, race, religious beliefs, political opinions, etc) and a lot of the data processing policies that companies implemented in Russia are pretty much directly translatable to the GDPR.

My point is that it hasn't been an issue for our companies to treat sensitive information that belongs to your fellow countrymen with the slightest amount of respect.

1. Don't store stuff you don't need
2. Let people know who all is involved in data processing
3. Let people know WHY you need that data
4. While you still have that data, be careful with it
5. When someone requests you delete their sensitive information, delete it if it isn't absolutely necessary (e.g., not ban information, not fraud information, etc)
6. When data becomes unnecessary, delete it

 

[ManagerJosh]

@Assadi

It's a lot more complex than simply 'implementing'. It's also understanding GDPR. As someone who is doing GDPR implementations, there are a lot more complexities and nuisances than simply 'black and white' as described above.

 

[Assadi]

@Assadi

It's a lot more complex than simply 'implementing'. It's also understanding GDPR. As someone who is doing GDPR implementations, there are a lot more complexities and nuisances than simply 'black and white' as described above.

Sure, there's a lot to know. But, again, it's not all that hard for a small company to do the TL;DR version of it and they'll generally be fine. Larger companies that are actually in danger can easily afford to pay their lawyers to actually go through the law.

And, again, the main point that I'm trying to get across is this law was implemented more than two years ago. It's really not the European Union's fault that everyone forgot until last week.

 

[webbouk]

With regards to copyright how would it work with music files, would royalties have to be paid to the artists every time a track is played via your website?
Just a thought

 

[Mr Lucky]

With regards to copyright how would it work with music files, would royalties have to be paid to the artists every time a track is played via your website?
Just a thought

Nothing changes. You can buy licenses

e.g: Limited Online Music Licence from PRS

https://www.prsformusic.com/licences/using-music-online/limited-online-music-licence

 

[Arty]

Yes, surely that's the way it is now, that's what I'm saying and why my temrs and conditions make it clear that members may not upload anything they don't own the rights to.

Terms and conditions do not have any real legal weight. You can put whatever you want there, but it doesn't absolve you of any responsibility.

I think its a good thing. It might end Facebook and similar social media ****posting websites nonsense because they will be liable for anything their users post there. No more content cloning websites that have been a problem for many website owners.

But its just a proposal at this point. There are also politicians that want to ban diesel in EU. Politicians can propose anything, doesn't mean it has a chance of becoming law.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Terms and conditions do not have any real legal weight. You can put whatever you want there, but it doesn't absolve you of any responsibility.

I realise that but (as many users do obey the T & Cs) what it means is I get less of those posts, and when I do get them posting material they don't have the rights to, then they get eductaed and don't do it agin. or get banned.

 

[Arty]

I realise that but (as many users do obey the T & Cs) what it means is I get less of those posts, and when I do get them posting material they don't have the rights to, then they get eductaed and don't do it agin. or get banned.

That assumes people do read T&C. Which they don't. But yep, good tool for dealing with misbehaving users.

 

[Mr Lucky]

That assumes people do read T&C. Which they don't. But yep, good tool for dealing with misbehaving users.

No but they get to know when posts are removed and the reason given is uploading copyright material against T & C. Plus if it's not in the T & C the users get more disgruntled because it seems more random when you just delete their posts or remove links. It's better to show you have good reason to and are just applying your forum rules.

 

[MySiteGuy]

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It is that simple, actually. You guys had TWO WHOLE YEARS to update your software. The problem is that everyone forgot about it until the last minute. That is a personal problem; not a problem with the GDPR itself.

You're making huge assumptions about someone's situation you don't know the details of.

I am in the USA, my forums are in the USA and most of my users are in the USA. For two years small businesses like mine were assured it didn't impact us unless we targetted EU users. Two months ago Google tells us we must comply if we want to continue to use their tools so they can be compliant. The first few weeks after this there wasn't even a clear indication from Google or on forums such as TAZ what needed to be done in order to be in full compliance.

I implemented the data importing and exporting in our MMORPG in <24 hours, added anonymization features when I was bored over the weekend, and implemented a rough version of the latest XenForo patches before they were released. All that took probably about like 6 hours of development time.

Well good for you, but everyone's situation isn't the same. Any time I spent on this I had to take away from billable time with my clients. I'm not implementing GDPR on my sites while being paid for it by an employer, and spending time in my off hours with my wife and children is a priority.

If you're genuinely having trouble getting those basic things implemented with two years (or more, honestly) of notice, you probably have a monstrously large company and can afford to actually hire people to do this.

Again, you're making assumptions. I have no "trouble" getting these things done. It does, however, take time (which is money) from other tasks, especially with software like Xenforo which waited until two weeks before GDPR to add features for it (and it still does not fully address the issues I need addressed with GDPR). I started spending time prior to that writing my own plugin to address GDPR... only to have wasted my time when XF finally did something.

Otherwise, sorry to be blunt, but you slacked off and are paying the price. The GDPR is genuinely a good set of laws and most people were just lazand are now upset.

Taking personal shots at me is uncalled for.