Comment by dawnbreez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dawnbreez | Hacker News Reader

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As someone in another comment thread pointed out, the requirements also put you on the spot if 50,000 Cali citizens have personal data that you've got access to.

And, as someone also pointed out in that thread, being on Hackernews and having IP logging may be enough to trigger that requirement.

Further, with the absolute shitshow that is the US court system, if someone brings a frivolous suit you're looking at thousands of dollars in legal fees, because you're going to need a lawyer (or previous experience in law) to properly explain to the judge why this suit is utterly ridiculous. And there's no guarantee if you'll get compensated for that, even if you file counter-suit--and even if you do get compensation, it's likely going to happen several years later, after the guy who tried to sue you does everything in his power to avoid paying up, because he knows you're eventually going to run out of money.

I wrote the blog post from yesterday’s HN story, and that last paragraph is what worried me. I know I’m not a business, and I don’t make money from my project, and believe I’m not subject to the CCPA because of that. I dread the idea of having to prove that in court, though, and how expensive it might be to (hopefully!) prove I’m not liable for even accidentally violating it.

There’s a reason patent trolls, copyright trolls, ADA trolls, etc. go after small entities: they’re more like to pay a small settlement out of fear than risk taking it to court and being bankrupted.

Patents and copyrights aren't limited to businesses, you can be in copyright or patent violation even if you're a private person - in fact, I'd assume vast majority of copyright violations now are performed by private people without profit motive. That particular law however is clearly written to target specific businesses and exclude private persons.

One of the biggest issues with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is that it was never designed for a world where Siivagunner[1] exists. On a fundamental level, it was built on the assumption that everyone involved can litigate--which means that the widespread ability to edit, remix, and review things has created some unfortunate exploits and exposed serious oversights in how the DMCA functions.

[1]https://youtu.be/rEcOzjg7vBU

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