Even if they have the source, they may not have all the build tools anymore.

Or they have the build tools but the wizard that set up the build system back in the day no longer works there.

Or they have the build system archived and documented but it doesn’t run because some license expired, and the tool vender doesn’t sell that version anymore.

In the near future, there will be another possibility - SaaS cloud tools that are impossible to preserve so they are forever lost.

Wasn’t facebook also found to store images that were uploaded but not posted? This is just a resource leak . I can’t believe no one has mentioned this phrase yet. I’m more concerned about DoS attacks that fill up the instance’s storage with unused images. I think the issue of illegal content is being blown out of proportion. As long as it’s removed promptly (I believe the standard is 1 hour) when the mods/admins learn about it, there should be no liabilities. Otherwise every site that allows users to post media would be dead by now.

They’re trying to bring Must Carry rules for cable TV to the internet.

This whole thing doesn’t make sense to me. If the issue is the preview that facebook/google show next to the links then it should already be covered by copyright law. If they want to charge for links without preview then that’s just plain wrong.

The way it targets corporations with more bargaining power than the news industry is also weird. Why does bargaining power matter? Is it because the news industry intends to extract payments from everyone later and they want to give the big tech companies no incentive to come to the smaller players’ defense? Keep in mind that the biggest news orgs are big corporations themselves. Or is it written this way just to avoid naming facebook and google directly?

I gave the bill a quick read.

It depends on the contents of the link. Is it a bare URL? Is it a text “click here”? Is it the title of the linked page? Is it a snippet of the linked page? You can quickly see how linking can incorporate copying depending on how it’s done.

I consider snippets copying, not linking, but let’s agree to disagree on the terminology, because the bill covers anything from URLs to snippets anyway.

significant bargaining power imbalance

This is what the bill actually says, so we’re small fish and get a free ride.

It’s not clear which “Chinese” he said. There are different words in Chinese for Chinese nationals and ethnic Chinese but both are translated to “Chinese” in English.

Linking is very different from downloading or copying. A link is only a reference to the content, not the content itself. The news site retains full control over the content. If the news site wants to make more money from visitors, they can use ads or paywalls.

And of course it wouldn’t be Lemmy, the app, paying. Maybe not even Lemmy, the instance owner, or the poster since neither of them are profiting from that linking.

What if an instance is getting enough donations to be considered profitable? Drawing the line at profitability just punishes success and efficiency.

BTW a lot of posts in c/canada have snippets copied from the linked articles. How is this any different from FB and google showing links and snippets?