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Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

Is there some special right for a photographer in Japan to have their name shown on an image, that determines whether a reproduction of it is an infringement? As far as I know, you acknowledge the service will transform your work as part of the ToS for uploading an image to it.

Unless, of course, the photographer wasn't the one who uploaded the picture to Twitter in the first place, but then why is the case hinged on whether the photog's name was cut off in the re-tweet, versus just the picture being copied by someone without permission?

And, going after the re-tweeters seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the service. They aren't really copying anything, that's all a mechanism of the platform.

If I were Twitter I'd be counting my lucky stars that my largest userbase is in the US where, as broken as our copyright system is, I can't imagine this wacky judicial reasoning prevailing.

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There is. Japan's "copyright" laws are different and include Moral rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Moral_r...) which are nontransferable and include the right to how your work is attributed.

I'm not sure why it is the retweeters, rather than Twitter who are responsible for the automatic cropping that occurs when you retweet. But I neither a Lawyer nor a Japanese Copyright expert.

So, asking non-facetiously, as an artist I have the right to decide how my work must be attributed, even if the platform I'm posting it to tells me in their ToS that my work will be altered in a standard way in the course of using the service?

If my understanding is correct (with the caveat that I am nowhere close to an expert), that's frankly bonkers and I have no idea how Twitter can operate at all in Japan.

I'm also not an expert: based only on my reading of Wikipedia, you are correct and it is bonkers from a US perspective.

The photographer may be in breach of Twitter's ToS for enforcing their moral rights, but that would not _stop_ them from enforcing their rights. In this case, the initial post to twitter was not from the photographer, but someone else. So Twitter likely has nothing to hold against the photographer.

> So Twitter likely has nothing to hold against the photographer.

Nothing in the article suggests any agreement between the photographer and Twitter.

Appears the original uploader wasn’t this photographer/angry copyright holder.

Uploader stole a pic and posted it, which normally constitute a consent to ToS, or something like that. Others unknowingly retweeted the stolen pic and the photographer wants their identity disclosed to proceed with lawsuits.

Twitter argued that retweets don’t count as distributing and requiring a click to show full photo isn’t cropping, but the court determined it does/it is.

Counterintuitive way to draw a line but I’m not sure if it’s terrible that court find cropping the photo with CSS require user consent. Maybe not as bonkers as Coinhive case.

It's weird in our context but there's followable logic there.

Being absurdly protective of the person who did the work is at least erring on the side of protection.

It's not impossible to imagine a world where the internet could have social media platforms with some attempt at media attribution functionality...

...instead we have the wild west where the vast majority of content is shared without acknowledgement, let alone attribution or permission. Even EXIF attribution data is stripped whether you like it or not. You have incredibly successful artists trying to protect their work with watermarks and JS-disabled right-clicks. Seems silly.

While it doesn't exist in the US, many countries have the same moral right. The intent is that if I buy a painting from you and exhibit it you get to determine how your name is displayed, within reason, so I can't say the painting is by "Puppy Kicker Smith."

Note that usually people are reasonable about it, and that it's also extremely common to have contracts state the right will not be exercised. This case is unusual because the use of the photo is completely non-consensual.

The laws are also reflective of the culture --- from what I've seen, they are very pro-copyright, pro-DRM (think of companies like Sony). In contrast, someone attempting to do this in the US would probably lead to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect .

Japan also has strong privacy laws, extending into excessive and absurd defamation laws.

For example, if you have piles of proof of someone committing a crime like sexual assault and the cops refuse to take it seriously, you can reliably post it on Twitter these days and people will take it seriously. In Japan, the person who committed the crime can reliably sue you for ruining their reputation and win. Stating actual plain facts about a person that harms their image on any public platform will land you in trouble, unless it’s something that’s clearly in the public interest to know (like if a company is putting arsenic in their baby food). It’s likely one reason why incidents of work harassment and abuse only become public after someone kills themselves.

This seems like FUD. How are the laws itself “excess and absurd” compared to rest of the democratic world? It’s also strange to assert Japan has “strong privacy laws” when the exact opposite is happening in this very article we’re discussing.

> In Japan, the person who committed the (sexual) crime can reliably sue you for ruining their reputation and win

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon thing outside of Japan [1]. And to be fair, you can’t just put a blanket ban on defamation lawsuits because it’s not wrong to sue for defamation if the allegation of sexual misconduct is in fact false. I don’t believe the majority of them to be the case, but ultimately, it’s for the courts to decide.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/arts/defamation-me-too.ht...

> Stating actual plain facts about a person that harms their image on any public platform will land you in trouble, unless it’s something that’s clearly in the public interest to know

Whoa. This the whole point of having defamation laws. Would you rather live in a world where every embarrassing details about your life can be published online?

> Whoa. This the whole point of having defamation laws.

Defamation laws normally deal with disseminating false information, not embarrassing information. True statements cannot be defamatory in many/most legal systems, no matter how much they harm someone's reputation.

The topic was about Japanese defamation laws. Outside Japan, privacy laws would cover these cases.

Also note that facts that “harm someone's reputation” isn’t indicative of illegal or even immoral conduct. For example, having caught the COVID19 disease might harm one’s reputation, but it doesn’t make one a bad person however true it is.

That’s not the point of defamation laws. If someone assaults you and you post a video on twitter, most first world countries will use that as evidence against the person who assaulted you. In Japan, it’s perfectly legal to record someone, but making the fact that the person is dangerous and not in police custody will get you in trouble, and the person who assaulted you will use the video against you. Defamation is generally globally defined to be false statements made with the intent to harm someone’s reputation. In Japan, full context, factual representations are treated as just about as bad as a false claim.

I think it’s more reflective of corporate lobbying.

The culture is strongly against unfair advantages. Piracy, repost, pay raises, etc. everyone’s weary of being seen as indulging in privileges.

The US actually has a similar clause in the DMCA [0], the difference is that the US requires that the act be intentional.

[0]: https://www.photoattorney.com/2007/07/watermarks-can-be-musi...

> If I were Twitter I'd be counting my lucky stars that my largest userbase is in the US where, as broken as our copyright system is, I can't imagine this wacky judicial reasoning prevailing.

You know that the Japan userbase of Twitter is huge, right? Not that far behind that of the US, in fact.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...

The amount of attention (resources, staffing, features) Twitter gives to the Japan market because of this is significant.

Yep, market share wise, I'd say Twitter in Japan is much huger than the US (probably their top 1 social media if not counting Line, which is primarily a messaging service.)

Two things in this case. Attribution (which was missing and that’s on Twitter), the other, copyright infringement (the Twitter accounts who used the photo image without permission).

Well, a retweet is intrinsically attributed, that's the whole point. Does it need to be in any specific format (e.g. label on the image) that the photographer desires? That doesn't seem feasible.

In the case that the original tweeter wasn't the photographer, I see that infringement as the (only) problem here. And the only information Twitter should be compelled to provide is of the original poster.

>> Is there some special right for a photographer in Japan to have their name shown on an image, that determines whether a reproduction of it is an infringement? As far as I know, you acknowledge the service will transform your work as part of the ToS for uploading an image to it.

It was not the photographer who originally tweeted it. At first I thought the original tweeter was the one at fault, but if it was OK to tweet it with the attribution in the image then it was after that when the violation occurred.

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