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Comment by mgaunard | Hacker News Reader

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You say "If you can't even satisfy such simple terms, it's your own fault." But you yourself fail to satisfy such simple terms as HN's Guidelines[1], which clearly state "Don't be snarky."

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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You're missing the point. The problem isn't copyright infringement, the problem is that the law says any instance of copyright infringement results in 150k statutory damages without having to prove damages.

Thus, a minor copyright issue like this will result in disproportionate consequences. Nothing else works like this, and it's the root cause behind all of these trolls.

A court still needs to decide on whether there was wilful infringement, which is unlikely if it was a genuine mistake.

The alternative, which the new license provides, is that attribution isn't really required, since you can just add it on-demand.

As a content creator, I might prefer that the attribution on my works be more strongly enforced.

Court costs can be much more expensive than the defendant can reasonably afford, even if they're likely to win. The copyright trolls take advantage of this by demanding less money than the court costs would actually sum up to, making it financially pointless to defend yourself rather than immediately pay up.

I agree that the grace period is also not a perfect solution, but I fail to see how anybody could consider the copyright trolls referenced in the article as anything more than predatory drains taking advantage of a legal technicality to drain money from innocent people. An honest typo regarding license text should not cost a person thousands of dollars, and copyright is one of the few places where it can do so, thanks to repeated lobbying and legal abuse.

To my knowledge, the court doesn't cost anything unless you're the one bringing the case to them or you choose to consult private counsel which is not mandatory.

I would also argue that calling those legitimate businesses "predators" is a ideological position that is highly subjective.

"Big whoop. If you can't even satisfy such simple terms, it's your own fault."

Banal mistakes shouldn't destroy people. Imagine if a slightly incorrect use of a light switch gave you an electric shock, or a slightly incorrect use of an OTC medication (10 minutes after a meal instead of 10 minutes before a meal) would kill you.

You and all your loved ones would have been long dead. Big whoop. If you can't even satisfy such simple terms, it's your own fault.

Being open to litigation does not destroy you.

Also a contract is serious business.

"Being open to litigation does not destroy you."

The result of said litigation absolutely can, as far as you consider "crushing fees" a personal destruction. I definitely do.

"Also a contract is serious business."

What does it even mean? That you are fond of heavy punishments? Shouldn't there be a principle of proportionality applied?

Driving is a serious business too, does not mean that each DUI is met with a 150 000 USD fine.

I still can't help but wonder how your "crush them all" attitude does not reflect the possibility that you can be on the receiving end of such blow. Or perhaps you just prefer a world in which anyone can be destroyed for banal incidents. Weird. What is the upside of that? People will still make mistakes, and, moreover, people will start avoiding any creative work, thus creating an enormous invisible cost to society.

You're mixing together matters pertaining to criminal cases (a DUI is a threat to society) and civil disputes (people have a disagreement about money) in ways that don't make sense at all.

Copyright infringement aims to compensate the original author for the work he did that was not compensated for. There being a statutory fee not only streamlines the process and simplifies the otherwise hard evaluation of potential loss, but also discourages copyright infringement to begin with.

A DUI is more about making sure you don't put other people at risk, so instead the government will take away your driving license or put you in prison.

Unfortunately, saying "contract is serious business" helps nobody. Much as it would be nice to not have to encounter any contracts (or even just not obscenely many) in the modern world, that is just largely not impossible, so people have to deal with it somehow, and it would be nice if that doesn't include random $150000 fines.

I can see an argument for the copyright trolls on it being wilful infringement if there was some attribution but not all of it - clearly the infringer is aware that there must be attribution otherwise there wouldn't be any, but they still ended up infringing; of course a court could still decide either way, but most sane people without millions of disposable money wouldn't risk the $150k if they can pay a couple thousand and be done with it; and either of those can still destroy a person.

You don't really expose yourself to such copyright infringement unless you redistribute somebody else's work.

If you're gonna do that, you better make sure you're allowed to and under what conditions.

"If you're gonna do that, you better make sure you're allowed to and under what conditions."

That still doesn't justify a 150 000 USD statutory punishment in my view.

Banal mistakes should be punished by a banal slap on the wrist.

Calling the mistake "banal" is already a judgement call. If the requirement is in the license then presumably whoever emitted the license cared about the clause being respected to the letter.

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