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Australia Rules Linking to Copyright Material Also Illegal
An anonymous reader writes "A recent ruling in Federal court upheld the ruling that the operator and ISP that hosted the site 'mp3s4free.net' were guilty of copyright infringement violations because they provided access to the copyright material. From the article: 'Dale Clapperton, vice-chairman of the non-profit organization Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), explained the ruling as follows: "If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you'd done it yourself. Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act."'"
Admin knows that most of the illegall stuff I downloaded i found through google...
I am going to kill my neighbor. Every one here is guilty of not stopping me. Well, at least all Australians.
Quick, jettison all common sense and everybody do the freakout!!
Thank you Australia for showing us there is a nation in the "free world" with it's head *just a little" further up it's ass than America when it comes to copyright law. Remember, every inch counts.
As far as you know, you're not an Australian lawyer? Is there a chance you were down there on shore leave, got drunk, kissed an ugly girl, got a tattoo and passed the bar?
I drank what? -- Socrates
It's a question of intent. The judges wrote:
The same cannot be said of Google.(IANAL)
"Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act."
If you CONDONE someone else doing it, you're an accomplice. You don't even have to explicitly condone it, just "more or less".
No, no dangerous precedent there at all.
-Styopa
Is there a chance you were down there on shore leave, got drunk, kissed an ugly girl, got a tattoo and passed the bar?
Hey, what happens in Surfers Paradise, stays in Surfers Paradise.
Really, would you admit passing the bar to your friends? Getting drunk and visiting a NZ sheep "farm", sure... But that? <shudder>.
In an effort to inject some integrity into the legal system, the Australian government picks people at random and designates them lawyers. You too could be an Australian lawyer, and the notice just hasn't arrived yet. Before you laugh, many countries choose jurors this way, why not lawyers?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
"businesses don't vote, people do"
;).
Unless they diebold an election
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Australia: Britains New Zealand.
Indeed. Though what I really want is sev-1 bug filed on the damned legislature when a horridly written statute segfaults and The Law dumps core. Page their sorry asses out of bed at 2am.
Followed by The People asking harsh questions as to why the test suite wasn't run before Passing said statue into Production.