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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

> Also can you explain why information that is placed on my server belongs to someone

Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server?

> If someone has access to your laptop and downloads their photos onto it, who do those photos belong to?

Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances.

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>Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server?

Yes the EU invented a new right for its citizens which is the prerogative of the EU because of their bastardized idea of what constitutes privacy. Privacy is a basic human right, that much is obvious. There is no human right however to be forgotten and there is no human right to not be observed when you are in public.

>Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances.

The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully.

> The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully.

A valid point - the rights only address the USE of the photos. You can use them privately all you want and would not have to delete them (unless ordered by a court for whatever odd legal reason such as if they were stolen not uploaded).

The difference with personal info is that the lawmakers saw two choices: prevent the use or the keeping of the data. They chose to outlaw the keeping of the data - which is why this law is huge, invasive and clumsy. But it’s also the only reason it makes a difference at all imho. I don’t trust anyone to keep the personal data of millions of people safe.

> They chose to outlaw the keeping of the data

Which is not true. Under the GDPR, you are not allowed to "process" any data unless you have a legal ground for doing it. One such legal ground is consent, but it can be withdrawn and so at that point you need to "stop processing". The thing is, "processing" is a broad term and includes not just storage but basically anything that happens to the data. So even use is not allowed.

GDPR is focused a lot on regulating the use of the data. In particular, one of the key aspects is the limitation of processing to a particular use - very often business will have a reasonable GDPR-approved reason to get and have the data, but (since this was often used to circumvent earlier privacy legislation) now they'll be limited to using that data only for that reason.

For example, if I order pizza, the business (obviously) needs to have my delivery address; however, that obvious reason only applies for the actual delivery, and if they want to use that same address also for, say, direct marketing, then that's a separate use that's not covered and would (generally) need additional opt-in consent.

The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully.

Maybe not technically, but in practice, yes. You may be able to keep them, but you can't actually open and view them. As per MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., loading something into RAM counts as copying, so you need a license to do that. And even if you had one once, it can be revoked (not all licenses are non-revokable).

This sounds like a US legal case however, so I wouldn’t extrapolate this to odds of it being illegal worldwide.

There are several cases of US copyright law applying worldwide

> There is no human right however to be forgotten

I don’t see the connection between what’s a right and what’s a law here. If a majority of people want something they tell their lawmakers to turn it into law. It’s not a fundamental human right it’s a law like any other.

The distinction is that violating someone's rights is almost always unethical. Breaking the law is less so.

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