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Ask HN: Since when has copy/pasting images "just worked"?

2 pointsby collectedpartsabout 1 year ago
I&#x27;ve recently found that copy&#x2F;pasting images just works in a surprising number of contexts:<p>* MacOS: on Chrome, &quot;copy&quot; image, &quot;paste&quot; into Twitter composer on Chrome<p>* iOS: on Safari, &quot;copy&quot; image, then go to WhatsApp native app and &quot;paste&quot; image<p>One small detail I&#x27;ve noticed is that on MacOS&#x2F;Chrome, GIFs pasted into web WhatsApp end up getting pasted as just a still image. On iOS, GIFs pasted from Safari to native WhatsApp get pasted as GIFs.<p>I&#x27;m not complaining, it&#x27;s legitimately useful, but it just feels like it happened suddenly, even though arguably it&#x27;d require support from various players. Did I just miss something?<p>More generally, if it&#x27;s now trivial to share content in private message threads via copy&#x2F;paste vs needing to share a link to the underlying content, that would seem to be yet another hit to the ability of content creators to control and monetize their content.

4 comments

ksherlockabout 1 year ago
MDN says the ClipboardEvent (used for this sort of thing) was implemented between 2013 (FireFox) and 2017 (Safari).
nh23423fefeabout 1 year ago
creators never had control of their content. if you send me bits they are my bits.
mac3nabout 1 year ago
copy&#x2F;paste images was a demo feature in the original 128k Macintosh.
cranberryturkeyabout 1 year ago
i noticed it about a year ago.