Judge Rules Against Deep-Linking of Content

An anonymous reader writes "A Texas judge has ruled that, if a copyright owner objects to the linking of content from another web site, that link must be taken down. This case, which may have some far-reaching implications, centered around a motorcross website. The site, run by a Robert Davis, provided links directly to live feeds of 'Supercross' events streaming from the SFX Motor Sports site. The company filed suit, claiming that the direct links were denying it advertising revenue. The article cites previous cases, where sites were prohibited by judges from linking to files which violated copyright law (such as DVD decryption software). From the article: 'But in those lawsuits, the file that was the target of the hyperlink actually violated copyright law. What's unusual in the SFX case is that a copyright holder is trying to prohibit a direct link to its own Web site. (There is no evidence that SFX tried technical countermeasures, such as referrer logging and blocking anyone coming from Davis' site.)'"

Comments

Re:Wow.

[Aadain2001]

The internet is a bit more complicated than that. To extend your painter analogy, imagine you have to be within sight of some sponsored advertisements at the public space the painting is displayed. Much like NASA car, you just cannot see the main attraction without also catching glimpses of the ads. Now, imagine someone walked up, took a super-high resolution photo of the painting. He could then display the painting around the corner, with his own advertisements, thus profiting off the painters copyrighted work. This would be a better analogy to the case. The painter is only asking the government to protect his copyright, which he has the right to do. If he choose to display the picture without any ads and did it out of the kindness of his heart, he could still prevent the second person from copying his painting in the public space and making money from it. That is what a copyright is.