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WA Law Means Linking to Gambling Websites Illegal
tpoker writes "Following a previous story on Washington State making online gambling a felony, the Seattle Times reports that the first legal salvos have begun. 'The first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site where nobody was actually doing any gambling. What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. All that, says the state -- the ads, the linking, even the discussing -- violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit 'gambling information ... Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it -- that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal.'"
Maybe this will provide some legal leverage to go after people who spam blogs and forums with adds for online poker, etc?
I give it a year before it's struck down as unconstitutional.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
Ten bucks says they find a way to lead Google away in handcuffs.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The same Seattle Times printed my letter to the editor on the same subject today.
For some reason I'm thinking that precedent from MPAA vs 2600 Magazine might be a contributor, as they were successfully barred from even linking to DeCSS, even though they were no longer hosting it. And at that point, there was no ruling on the legality of DeCSS, either...
I know, there are some differences, but still, I don't think that referencing something should necessarily be a crime. I'm sure that there are exceptions, where people are being made victims by directing others to certain places, but this just seems extreme.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
...any discussion whatsoever of rape, incest, murder, drug use, etc. must also be illegal.
Reminds me of when AOL added the word "breast" to their filters without thinking through the consequences. All the members of a breast cancer group suddenly had to start referring to themselves as survivors of "hooter cancer".
not to mention common sense. As much of the information (other than reviews) on his site could be easily found using a search engine, I'm not really sure how collecting it on one site could be illegal. It's a lot like someone putting up a website reviewing various types of marijuana they have purchased in the area, and where they purchased it. It may be an illegal activity, but writing about doing it is hardly a crime.
I'd like to thank the US for these restrictive laws that prevent US companies making money out of internet gambling.
Ahh the wonder of the US... legal to buy a gun... illegal to bet $10.
Keep up the good work, why not try prohibition again as well?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
> violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit 'gambling
> information
You're telling me that hosting a site with the fact that opposing sides of a dice add up to 7 is now a criminal offence in parts of the USA?
Land of the free, indeed. Whatever happened to doing whatever you wanted unless it hurt someone else?
One might think this is a clear-cut case of free speech. Until one considers the result of the famous MPAA vs. 2600 case, where 2600 was found to have violated the DMCA by merely LINKING to DeCSS, the code by DVD Jon that decrypted DVDs so that Linux computers could play them.
Another freedom, chipped away... And this one during the Clinton Administration. Sad for all of us.
That's using the internet to transmit gambling information.
Who is this law trying to save? The children? You need a bank account or credit card to gamble online. Last I checked, most teens have neither.
C'mon... of all victimless crimes, does online gambling really need legislation? Tax it like Nevada and be done with it.
I mean... Washington has a state lottery. That means they endorse gambling. It can't be gambling that they hate... I think they hate all gambling where the state isn't the house.
So what's next, WA outlawing poker on TV? After all, it's promoting poker electronically. So all WA residents can say "bye-bye" to TV shows like the World Series of Poker, Celebrity Poker Showdown, etc? Then after that there's all the movies that depict gambling in them - from classics like "The Sting" to movies like Casino, Oceans 11, etc.
That'll show the Chinese who can censor better.
What?
Why not make it illegal to link to a page that links to a page that links to gambling?
I can actually see how the legislators could see a reason to do that. Taxpayer X wants to link to a gambling site, but knows that that's illegal. So he links to a site that has links to gambling sites, and tells you to click through. (Even worse, maybe that link redirects to the gambling site!) So clearly this needs to be stopped as well.
And what about linking to a page that links to a page that links to a page that links to gambling?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Vice laws are a big fat waste of time really, they have never worked, and several thousand years of human history shows that the collective *we* enjoy various vices. Governments all over should just admit reality and move on to something constructive.
"...that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal."
Well, fantastic. So you can follow this up by making guns, knives, shovels, cars, bleach, and God knows what else illegal since they're obviously enabling murder. Oh, and we may as well outlaw crime mystery books since they provide information on how to do illegal things. But let's not stop at burning just crime mystery novels. We ought to burn chemistry books since that knowledge can be used to create poisons and explosives. And let's outlaw cars because criminals are notorious for using cars in their getaways. I see no reason to stop there, though. I can think of a lot of other stuff we ought to just outlaw today!
Talking about it and linking to it are different things. The guy could have talked about the sites all he wanted, referred to them by name, and so on..
He didn't cross the line until he explicitly linked to one.
High Times doesn't get in any trouble for talking about weed, but if they started running ads for dealers willing to ship to the US... Trouble's afoot. Plenty of sites have been burned for linking to "seed banks" outside the US.
Freedom of speech doesn't imply freedom of action. So sad, too bad.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Something tells me that the Washington State Lottery will still get to promote itself online... apparently they also were even going to sell lottery tickets online but I can't find evidence of them still doing it.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
It's legal gambling on Indian lands there, now how about putting the servers on Indian lands, would that make the linking illegal?