Other EU's New Copyright Policy and how RPN will respond

So, I just learned the full scope of what the new EU copyright laws entail. I'm still trying to search for whether anything can be done to even protest. Frankly I'm terrified.

That said, in the spirit of caution I would like to know whether RPN consider's itself a large enough platform to fall under those laws, and whether anything will be changed to any systems or rules of RPN as a result, seeing as how the new European laws will not include a clause for "fair use"/"user generated content".

Idea said:

So, I just learned the full scope of what the new EU copyright laws entail. I'm still trying to search for whether anything can be done to even protest. Frankly I'm terrified.

That said, in the spirit of caution I would like to know whether RPN consider's itself a large enough platform to fall under those laws, and whether anything will be changed to any systems or rules of RPN as a result, seeing as how the new European laws will not include a clause for "fair use"/"user generated content".

Click to expand...

Hi,

The European law otherwise known as GDPR does not target us as we are not big enough nor do we collect personally identifiable information (like a real name). The only thing we collect is emails so that the system can give you an account and is covered by the clause in the law that allows for bare basic minimal to be collected for the purposes of actually being able to run the service.

As for the actual non-identifiable content, Like posts, none of that applies nor do I care. I am an American and the site is hosted in America and all of our site rules and terms of service apply. Any European Country who disagrees is welcome to take me to court in America. Any user who tries to bully us with the GDPR incorrectly (line have us destroy an RP by removing large amounts of content) will just be removed from the platform.

TLDR: It is irrelevant to rpnation, we legally comply where we have to, no more no less.

Thank you very much for your answers. They are rather reassuring

Idea said:

So, I just learned the full scope of what the new EU copyright laws entail. I'm still trying to search for whether anything can be done to even protest. Frankly I'm terrified.

That said, in the spirit of caution I would like to know whether RPN consider's itself a large enough platform to fall under those laws, and whether anything will be changed to any systems or rules of RPN as a result, seeing as how the new European laws will not include a clause for "fair use"/"user generated content".

Click to expand...

The Dark Wizard said:

Hi,

The European law otherwise known as GDPR does not target us as we are not big enough nor do we collect personally identifiable information (like a real name). The only thing we collect is emails so that the system can give you an account and is covered by the clause in the law that allows for bare basic minimal to be collected for the purposes of actually being able to run the service.

As for the actual non-identifiable content, Like posts, none of that applies nor do I care. I am an American and the site is hosted in America and all of our site rules and terms of service apply. Any European Country who disagrees is welcome to take me to court in America. Any user who tries to bully us with the GDPR incorrectly (line have us destroy an RP by removing large amounts of content) will just be removed from the platform.

TLDR: It is irrelevant to rpnation, we legally comply where we have to, no more no less.

Click to expand...

Forgive me, you were referencing Article 11 and 13 of the European Union which was recently passed. The same thing applies, we aren't big enough, that's mostly targeted at Social Platforms, users who try to copyright troll us will get banned. Most of that stuff doesn't apply to us, as a writing site we are afforded certain rights and protections. Anyone who posts anything here on RpN, retains the legal copyright over their content (example, we can't make money by suddenly publishing your RP in a book), but also grants the site an unlimited irrevocable license to publish (hold the content on the site).

As stated, RpNation falls under US Copyright Laws, and while it seems like the EU Copyright Directive is worldwide, in actuality, it isn't. It's for the EU countries and isn't official until the approval of the final vote in January 2019, which could mean more changes to it or even a vote at that time to not pass it (though the latter is slim).

For Article 11 ("Link Tax") our links do not embed snippets automatically when you paste a link from a news article. Think of site's like Facebook and Twitter where a link embeds with the title of the article and a small section of text from the article itself. Additionally, those are "for profit" sites whereas RpNation is not a for profit/commercial site. We run thanks to donations. We don't earn money from user-generated content nor ads as we do not have ads. Our site is technically exempt under this as non-commercial usage is not covered under the article at all, meaning it only applies commercially. This is in regards to commercial usage, basically on for profit sites that run ads and the like and make money. We don't. XD

For Article 13 ("Upload Filters") we again don't fall under this because again, we are a non-commercial site. If you look at our ToS and other information, we require right to authorization, which is also covered within this article, basically stating that as long as the right-holders agree to the authorization of their content (publishing/publication) the site may host it. When users join RpNation, they agree to those Terms of Service including the site's right to publish their content. That is for user-generated copyrighted content.

Also, the amended version does exclude those who are reasonable in removals of copyrighted content along with a few other changes so an upload filter isn't made a requirement anymore really. XD But again, kinda not really a problem for us.

For copyright content that users would share, such as a news article or music video. The music video is actually a YT embed, so it's technically YT's content. They run ads, we do not. News articles can be linked (though that's a rare occurrence here as we are a RP site, not a current events forum) and discussed because under US Copyright Law, discussion/commentary is Fair Use.

Honestly, the whole thing is written poorly with too ambiguous terms and phrases. (Individual words, Small enough sites to be excluded, etc). The reason this is a big deal is because it affects the EU and large social media platforms that have millions of users and run on for-profit models.

My opinion is that directive really is awfully written and really does suck and doesn't actually understand how the internet and information actually works or what is a reasonable measure to protect copyright of digital content.