prokopetz:

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.

clatterbane:

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.