[DanBC]

Americans tend to freak out at EU style regulation, becuase they have a pathological relationship to their own regulators.

Here's a UK case where a large chain was serving beer using glasses that were too small.

That chain hasn't been shut down, nor fined huge amounts. They weren't even prosecuted. They recalled all the glasses nationwide and replaced them with the correct size.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/03/pint-scam-major-...

This kind of regulation is not unusual.

EDIT just for clarification: I think this is a lousy law, and I hope it doesn't pass in its current form.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Americans tend to freak out at EU style regulation, becuase they have a pathological relationship to their own regulators

I’m Swiss American. My fellow Swissmen are similarly sceptical.

The realistic risk isn’t someone fining everyone a billion dollars. It’s that you didn’t curry sufficient political favour with the right regulator and now get to see their capricious side. These are a legitimate concerns for anyone considering doing business in Europe.

[esrauch]

It is meaningfully different: with the glass example the company can take concrete action and get back into compliance, and no longer have ongoing issues.

With any website (hackernews included) the only way they can actually completely prevent there from being copyrighted content in the comments that they host and publish is to not offer the ability to comment at all.

[lostjohnny]

Or just remove all the links from comments...

We don't really need to link something to express an opinion

BTW HN have to check anyway, if I post a link to an obscure video sharing platform containing copyrighted material, that's an infringement

Even if the domain is whitelisted, say github.com, I could host copyrighted material there

They simply don't do it and rely on users's good faith

[esrauch]

The text of a comment itself is user generated content that can contain copyrighted material.

[lostjohnny]

The law regulates linked content

Web sites are already responsible for copyright infringements committed by their users

[pjc50]

That's more Trading Standards though than EU-originated regulation - I think it's a bad example because weights and measures is extremely old and well-understood.