Slashdot Mirror
Norwegian Student Ordered to Pay for Hyperlinks to Music
Stephan writes "The AP reports that Norway's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a student whose Napster.no homepage (no relation to the U.S. Napster, apparently) had links to free Internet music files must compensate the music industry. The around 170 links to mp3s will cost its creator $15,900. In a summary of its ruling, the supreme court said the music was clearly published in violation of copyright law. An unofficial English translation of the Court of Appeal decision (earlier in the case) provided by the lawyer of the defendant and more information on the case can be found at the Links &
Law Website."
The torrent sites have a very slim chance of pleading ignorance the same way that any community message board or service can plead ignorance to what's being posted. Of course, the **AA will come back and say that they need to make a reasonable effort to make sure copyrighted material isn't posted.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
no they won't be. They don't explicitly link to files they know are copywrite protected, but it is done automatically. They also have exceptions in the law covering search engines.
From the judgment:
According to the Copyright Act Section 54, subsection two, anyone acting in contribution of other persons' copyright infringement like illegal publication, could be liable for punishment. The criminal offence Bruvik has contributed to would be the public performance of the files uploaded by others. In the view of the Court, the actus reus of uploading files was terminated when the music itself was made accessible. The criminal offence, as such, was thereby terminated the moment the music was published on the Internet. The actus reus is not formulated as a static delict. The Court of Appeal cannot see that the uploader, after publication of the music on the Internet, is committing a new criminal offence. The Court finds it hard to say that the music is performed publicly anew each time a transfer is conducted by persons who knew the address or clicked on a link on another site and they initiate the transfer of the files from the site of the uploader and download to their own computers.
When the main action is terminated before Bruvik published his links to the music files, one lacks the necessary causal link between his actions and the main action. The actions of Bruvik cannot be regarded as contribution to such acts.
Bruvik did, however, contribute, by publishing his links, to playing or copying the music files from the uploader's web page to his own computer. But this must be regarded as contribution to the action of the downloader. Such downloads for private use is not illegal, and cannot justify a claim for damages according to the requirements in the Copyright Act Section 55.
Does the say that Downloading of Copyrighted Material is perfectly legal but Uploading is not? Continuing on the case, wouldn't this also make Google liable for linking to sites that host illegal MP3s?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
For those wondering; the following was still true the last time I checked:
- It's legal to aquire publically avaiable copies og music, paintings etc. (IIRC not software) for personal use. This makes downloading music from any site (or network) legal. However this law is probably going to change so that the source must be legal, (as in copyright holder agrees to publication (like radio or TV.))
- It's legal to copy music from family and _close_ friends. Thus uploading to a P2P network is illegal.
- It's also legal to reverse engineer legally aquired software, alter its contents, and learn from your findings.
Some of these things may change (INFOSOC??) and som things may already have change so anyone with any updated information are welcome to correct me.
Look a monkey!
According to some old mirrors of his site, his name was Frank Bruvik. Also you can try to make out the mirrors, the AP article says:
The Napster.no site provided links to music files in the MP3 format that could be downloaded for free. The site was online between August and November 2001, and provided links to about 170 free music files on servers outside Norway, the ruling said.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
According to the Copyright Act Section 54, subsection two, anyone acting in contribution of other persons' copyright infringement like illegal publication, could be liable for punishment.
I wonder what things would be like if we applied the same standard of "contribution" to people being "in contribution" of, say, treason, or "terrorism".
At least in the US, the courts have ruled that with this kind of logic in the 2600 case when they were linking to DeCSS source code that was not on their own servers.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That transcript is from the Appeals Court.
First court ruled for plaintiff
Appeals Court ruled for defendent
Supreme Court ruled for plaintiff
After doing some quick calculations, the actual amount he's being fined is 100,170,- (NOK).
This is comparable to a typical down payment for a Oslo apartment, which many students actually buy while still in college.
Minimum wage in Norway is equal to about $12.70/hr USD, and goes up by age (among other factors), so a 25-year old would be making a minimum of $19.84/hr USD.
You're citing the Court of Appeals judgement that was later struck down by the Supreme Court.
So far, downloading illegally uploaded music files is legal in Norway. The appeals court tried to make the argument that the crime of making the files available had been committed and was over after the files were uploaded, thus he could not be an accessory to the crime. I guess they hadn't heard about the term "Accessory after the fact".
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
It's an issue of intent. The court did not rule that it is illegal to link to copyrighted material. It is still legal to link to copyrighted works that are published legally.
The court found that the uploaders of the MP3s were effectively making an unauthorized performance. The guy publishing the links knew that the original upload was illegal. He thought, "it's nice that they are 'performing' via the Internet - I'll try to get them a bigger audience by making more people know about the 'performance'." He was trying to make someone else's copyright violation reach more people and thus cause more damage. You may argue that illegal performance doesn't cause damage, but the court accepts that it does, with precident. It also assumes that the larger the audience the greater the damage, which again you may argue.
Unfortunately, the rights holders did not have to do much to prove damage; that's the problem with IP violation claims - it's really hard to measure damages as it's all about predicting the future.
I don't think you understand the concept of vicarious (contributory) infringement. If you have a reason to know that your site is used to violate copyright law and you gain some sort of benefit from such violations (drawing visitors to your site counts), you can be liable for contributory infringement. Providing direct links or torrents is obvious infringement. Saying something like "You might be able to get xxx if you search on google" probably isn't, but it's a gray area. There are exceptions for ISPs and proxies and such, but a warez site would not count.
This is part of copyright law. Don't compare it to prostitution, drugs, and other illegal activities; they are not copyright law violations.
Yet, no one prosecuted The New York Times when they published links to the same material here. (reg. req.) and it was the same information. (except now 2600 took down the links that were showing before)
I guess it shows that its only illegal if you don't have lots of money and lawyers. So no, the US courts have only shown that Money = Justice once again, at least when it comes to free speech.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
For US law on this, you should look at the cases of Braun vs Soldier of Fortune and Eimann vs Soldier of Fortune. In both cases SoF magazine ran an ad for a hired killer (as they apparently tend to do) and got sued for it. In the case where the ad was fairly explicit, they lost. In the case where it is better "veiled", they won. So explicitly advertising illegal things is or can be considered illegal in print in the US. As usual, the crowd here who claims that these sorts of things are being unfairly applied only to the internet are off base. If the ad for the prostitute is sufficiently "thinly veild" it will probably do fine in court, but I don't think it's clear cut and could go either way in an actual case.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Soldier of Fortune won both Braun and Eimann. They lost Eimann at the district level, but won it on appeal.
Under the DMCA, Google is protected, as long as they remove the offending data when asked to.
Thanks again for reminding me why you're on my /. Foe list, you corporate control-freak lawyer-wannabe "property"-ignorant tool. btw, you can buy pot at the park, and bit-for-bit DVDs any ChinaTown near you.
Power to the Peaceful
Am I the only one who is a little annoyed by the phrasing in the Slashdot summary?
a student whose Napster.no homepage [...] had links to free Internet music files must compensate the music industry
After reading the summary, I really thought this was a case where someone provided links to free music as in "music which can be freely copied with the copyright holder's consent" and still got prosecuted.
Instead, I found a ruling concerning someone who provided links to illegally copied music. I guess you could technically call this "free music", but I would certainly never use that wording.
(I would never use the wording "stolen music" either, but I just couldn't come up with a better Subject line for this posting.)
>Guess what, by the same logic we should sue the
>owners of pawn shops.
A pawnbroker does face personal criminal liability if he knowlingly sells, trades, or uses for collatteral on a loan, any item which he knows to be stolen, or that is illegal to possess. He can be prosecuted also, if he did not know, but it can be shown that a reasonable person should have known that the item was stolen, etc. Pawn shops have to be very careful. Most states have very strict laws that they must operate under. They tend to also be FFL firearms licensees, in addition to being jewelry stores (generally with very valuable small items in inventory). So, pawnbrokers tend to be very conspicuously compliant with the laws, and very cooperative with the local authorities, and very quick to refuse to do business with you and your stolen merchandise.