I know folks mean well, but arguing that Article 13 will deprive media corporations of the free advertising furnished by Internet memes and fan media isn’t going to get you anywhere because that’s the entire point.
The whole idea of Article 13 – and the push toward copyright overreach more generally – is to make self-publishing (of all kinds, not just fan media) so onerous that only folks who operate under the auspices of corporate backers can afford to do it.
i.e., they’re trying to roll back to the pre-Internet status quo when a tiny handful of publishing corporations had absolute control over all non-local media distribution channels, and – unless the author was independently wealthy – media was permitted to reach a wide audience only with their explicit approval.
The mechanism is pretty straightforward: Article 13 and legislation like it would establish a presumption in law that the corporate claimant in any copyright dispute is correct, and place the onus upon the author as a private individual to prove otherwise. At the time of this writing, the average cost of bringing a copyright dispute to court is in the neighborhood of $200 000. What private individual has that kind of money?
It’s not just about fan media. This type of legislation would allow publishing corporations to claim that they own anything they please, and hosting providers would be obliged to block distribution of that content purely on the claimant’s say-so, unless and until the dispute is resolved in court – and unless you’ve got two hundred grand to burn, that resolution will never happen.
Of course, there’d be remedies short of going to court – like, say, signing on with a publishing company yourself, so that they can “protect” your intellectual property on your behalf. See where this is going?
Pointing out the potential for short-term harm to publishing corporations’ bottom line is a non-starter because no amount of loss of exposure could possibly outweigh the benefits to the publishing corps if the long game pays off.
Something extra nefarious about the way pyramid schemes attempt to monetize friendships among women who are isolated at home with children and have only their friendships to look to for meeting their social needs
I am unfortunately reminded again of that one Norwegian dude some years back who tried to hit on me by going on about how much the old Norse liked big strong women! Complete with arm squeezes and his retellings of a couple of parts of sagas.
It at least had the benefit of novelty. Never heard anything quite like that before or again.
He was pretty drunk at the time, but I still had to wonder how this approach had worked out for him in the past. (Because it didn’t sound like the first try.) Obviously not great at taking hints, but geez.
Funnier in retrospect. At the time I had to get amused, but the situation was also extra awkward because he was one of a few people over at our house and I couldn’t just get away without making a scene. Maybe less hesitant to do that now, but hey.
I don’t remember if that time the guy was living in London yet, or if it was on a work trip. In any case, the extent of his relationship with Mr. C seemed to be “vaguely friendly Fellow Scandawegian Tech Person”.
Anyway, he was living in London when I made the mistake of going along when they met up at a pub a while after that. So, he acted low-boundary creepy most of the evening–before inviting us both to stay over at his new place sometime soon!
With eyebrow-waggling levels of subtlety. I think he did actually say something about putting on some music and seeing what happened 🙄
Mr. C seemed to take that invitation at platonic face value a lot more than I did. Let’s just put it that way. I was just glad that was framed as a future invitation, and he wasn’t trying to get us over there right then. Awkward enough as it was.
There’s no real problem with asking, I suppose. Even if people have not indicated any obvious interest whatsoever up to that point.
But, there are ways and then there are ways. That guy’s ways were low-boundary creepy enough in general that I have just avoided him since then.
I am unfortunately reminded again of that one Norwegian dude some years back who tried to hit on me by going on about how much the old Norse liked big strong women! Complete with arm squeezes and his retellings of a couple of parts of sagas.
It at least had the benefit of novelty. Never heard anything quite like that before or again.
He was pretty drunk at the time, but I still had to wonder how this approach had worked out for him in the past. (Because it didn’t sound like the first try.) Obviously not great at taking hints, but geez.
Funnier in retrospect. At the time I had to get amused, but the situation was also extra awkward because he was one of a few people over at our house and I couldn’t just get away without making a scene. Maybe less hesitant to do that now, but hey.
there’s this church sign i pass every day that says “hurt people hurt people” and i know it’s supposed to mean like “people who are hurt, hurt people” but it sounds like a command
Millenial liberals falling over themselves to pin the blame for class inequality on “boomers” or “gen x” while themselves aspiring towards upper middle classhood. Like there isn’t a massive underclass of 45-60yos living in abject poverty, or a generation of post-war working class who died too early. People say “destroy capitalism” and talk about how hard it is to talk to their upper middle class parents about the job market… when we are all going to be the beneficiaries of capitalism in 20 years when our parents pass and we inherit their property… being a broke Bohemian in our 20s doesn’t make us the True Victims of capitalism… and if we really want to see this system abolished or transformed we have to be willing to disinherit ourselves from generational wealth
….give up the homes we’re inheriting? I’m confused, can someone run this over with me? I’m trying to understand…I’m just not sure what I should do if I can’t afford to ever buy a home in the near future and need a place to live.
Ah yes let me give away the home my Capitalist Scum immigrant mother gave up everything for, that’ll show the oligarchs
Hi, I’m sorry if this post lacked clarity. It is specifically about middle class millennials positioning difficulties of the contemporary tertiary-educated job market as a class struggle against their parents’ generation (either boomers or gen x depending on which end of millennial they fall under) and the inaccuracy of imagining class as a generational conflict – boomers aren’t rich by default, and people usually arrive at this conclusion because they are using their own upper middle class parents as a point of reference while ignoring the implications of their parents’ assets on their own class mobility. I’m not calling for the abolition of personal property/land rights, but asking that people be honest in understanding that our parents’ assets are our future assets. So to have upper middle class parents is to be upper middle class, despite how hard it may be to get a job as a liberal arts graduate or whatever, and that to call for the abolition of capitalism is to accept that we don’t have a right to be wealthy. Again, I apologize that this did not come through clearly.
Thank fucking god for plumbers who are willing to go behind their corporate bosses’ backs and be like “yeah don’t pay the 150 dollar emergency fee just gimme 40 bucks under the table, also, don’t buy a water heater from us, my boss will charge u like 800 bucks. go to Lowe’s and ask for a Scratch n’ Dent, they’ll give you for like 200 bucks. Call me tomorrow and I can install it for you in like an hour” wow… solidarity
PSA: If a workman tells you that something needs to be replaced, get an itemized quote for the work and do your research. My AC unit went out in the middle of a Texas July, and the guy we had come to try and repair it said we needed to replace a capacitor, I believe it was. Quoted $980 for the job. Said the part was specialized and hard to fine and would be something like $700, and would take four hours of labor to replace. I thanked him for his time and told him I’d be in touch. My decision to not further engage his services was cemented in his parting comments that his competition would attempt to, and I quote, “Jew me out of my money.”
I found the part for $60 bucks and swapped it out in 20 minutes.
Anyway, it’s not that you have to (or should) do it yourself, but be careful. Find the people that will help you out, and learn the costs of things.
Also, if you’re intimidated by replacing anything yourself, I GUARANTEE you someone has either made an ehow or a youtube tutorial on how to do the thing.
Seriously, I once got a part at work that I had no clue how to attach, so I took a pic, image searched using the picture, found the part name and then was able to use that to get a tutorial on how to attach it.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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