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TV Links Raided, Operator Arrested
NetDanzr writes "TV Links, a Web site that provided links to hundreds of movies, documentaries, TV shows and cartoons hosted on streaming media sites such as Google Video and YouTube, has been raided by UK authorities. The site's operator was also arrested, The Guardian reports. Even though the site has not hosted any pirated content, it was a thorn in the side of movie and TV studios, thanks to having links to newest movies and TV shows. As the largest site of its kind, it showcased the power of user-driven Internet, with the site's visitors helping to keep links to content constantly updated."
I didn't know this existed but now that I do I would really like to know what other websites have the same type of conent.
A little help?
I just got my first ever "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." Anyways... it would be interesting to see what happens with this. Taking it to the real life examples... many shops that sell pipes and other drug-use paraphernalia have many run-ins with the laws, and yet they are still in operation to this day, and the only time actual legal repercussions are brought to the managers of these stores is usually through another issue, that it technically unrelated to their shop. This should be the same issue. I would not be surprised if it is treated differently however.
insight through the mind
How is anything this site did remotely "illegal"?
This sounds to me like it simply amounts to harassment by legal authorities, after having pressure put on them to "do something" by the movie and/or TV studios.
I know here in the United States, "search and seizure" is a popular law-enforcement tool for the purpose of slowing/stopping activities they can't really find sufficient evidence to prosecute. (All you need is a judge's signature saying it's ok to proceed with a search and seizure, and they can waltz in with the warrant in hand, seizing the "offending" property. Then just lock it away in an evidence locker for a few years, sitting on it and depriving the owner of it. Eventually, sure, they'll probably just return it, claiming "insufficient evidence" to make a case against them - but they accomplished what they were really after.)
Even though the site has not hosted any pirated content, it was a thorn in the side of movie and TV studios, thanks to having links to newest movies and TV shows.
Any bets on how long until ThePirateBay snaps up the domain name and re-opens the site?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Since when is it illegal to tell others where a certain thing (legal or illegal) is occurring? Is it then illegal to for me to link to his site? ...This is a dangerous slippery slope. While he maybe contributing to illegal activity, but so is modern technology in the production and distribution of illegal drugs - that doesn't make planes and needles illegal.
that's too bad. i ran across the site a while back and discovered there were episodes and, indeed, entire seasons of british television shows i was fond of but had never had the opportunity to see here in the states. after getting a chance to watch them, i tracked down the dvd sets (amazon.co.uk ftw) and bought them. this site was doing the industry a favor but, typically it seems, was viewed instead as some kind of threat. balls.
Yeah, although it existed, I dont' know what the law states in the EU as to linking to protected content. This might just be a power play by the studios to make an example of them. I have a feeling this is going to be similar to the raid that was done on the pirate bay servers, and in a few months they will drop the charges, after almost or completely bankrupting this poor sap.
the site would have been a useful tool for the Movie/TV studios as well. It would have made it easy for them to find offending material and generate their takedown notices.
This was one of the coolest sites on the internet. I used it all the time to check up on episodes of shows that I had missed, and it had a lot of cartoons that I saw when I was a child that I can't get nowadays.
Fuck the UK.
That is exactly what this is. A power play by big studios to make an example out of this guy. After nearly or completely bankrupting him, they will drop all the charges, and he will be off on his way. Anyone know what sort of SLAPP provisions the UK has?
Google needs to be shut down for "facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet", or even "facilitation of terrorism on the internet".
(* No! our near-brush with the biggest disaster in Europe since the war a couple of months back, and a popular film about the local police, are far better advertisements for my home county... though personally, I rather regret missing the chance of a lifetime to witness the evacuation of 2,000,000 people at gunpoint under martial law when most the army running round sand dunes way out east, but that's just me.)
There is a web site that provides links to CRIMINALS, and the police pull down the web site? Why not leave the site up and use it to help track down the people actually creating and hosting the pirated content? Heck, I'm surprised the police were not operating the site themselves as a sting operation.
Whether piracy is Right or Wrong, it is presently against The Law, so this site could have been a useful tool for investigations.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
http://web.archive.org/web/20070711035656/http://tv-links.co.uk/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftv-links.co.uk%2F&btnG=Google+Search
-- Boycott Shell
Apparently you haven't visited the United States of Amerika lately.... It is illegal to give information to someone else knowing that they are going to use the information in committing a crime.
;^/
It falls under the "way" big, and "way" vague heading of "conspiracy".
By providing you links to infringing material, they are conspiring with both those that provide the material illegally, AND those that conspire to obtain the material illegally.
"Conspiracy" is the most "bogus", anti-free-speech charge cooked up by the US justice system -- since they can get nearly anyone who aids in any illegal activity.
In essence, you are not allowed to actually "aid" someone in committing a "crime" without also being considered guilty of that crime.
Giving "aid" is a slippery slope -- since giving "information" is one interpretation of giving "aid".
Currently, in the US, if you knowingly sell (or give?) materials (or information?) to someone that you know, who plans to use your product(s) in the commission of a crime, then you can also be charged with "conspiracy" and qualify for the same sentence as if you had committed the crime.
So much for free speech or freedom of expression. That's now "trumped" by "intent of use" of the information.
But this is only in the US....other nations have less supposed protections for freedom of expression than in the US, so they have even more (slippery) ground to base such prosecutions on.
Sounds like another case of what happened to The Pirate Bay to me. Since their servers weren't actually hosting the pirated content they weren't doing anything illegal. This event is nothing more than the same old scare tactics we've seen them do in the past.
Coincidentally, I just tried to visit that site. It's of course down.
And then I went here to slashdot and saw this story.
But now I must be moving on again, in my travels across the intertubes.
Azural - instrumentals
Alluc.org
Here is what is gonna happen guys, not every one in every stage stage of their life will be able to afford a thousand DVD's nor would that be a good investment in any way shape or form. So we are all gonna view where ever we can, if we are cut off we will revert to podcast and youtube, the more and more things are cut off the more and more we will be pushed to something else. And I PREDICT that sells of media will do down, because less and less will be viewed and people won't know if something is worth buying. This act against TV Links has inspired me to go cancel my netflix and find more torrents to get avi files to play on my hacked out xbox. Thanks for the push in the right direction!
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
Worse than the shut down of this excellent site, is the Grauniads zombie-like reproduction of the copyright-nazis statements. There is no suggestion that there might be two sides to this debate. There is nothing beyond 'this man is a criminal and the authorities have now arrested him. Lets hear from the authorities'
Despite this infuriating self censorship, I know this is a very popular site amongst non-technical types, so its closure might help raise awareness of this kind of injustice.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
This is rather upsetting. I don't own a TV... I more or less jumped ship when the reality shows started popping up all over the place. But occasionally I do want to catch an episode of one of the few decent series' on the air, and TVlinks is always my first stop. Sure, there are other sites out there, but -- as far as I've seen -- this one is by far the best of the bunch. There's always torrents of the shows I want to catch, but I really like the convenience of streaming media.
http://www.alluc.org/
Or an alternate, at least. (I'd never heard of tvlinks)
No offense, but any site that links mainly to google video is a noob. Their quality sucks ass compared to stage6 (god bless divx) and their features are far behind sites like todou (thank you foreign site hosting US movies/tv shows). This makes perfect sense when you consider US download speed is far behind other countries -- there's a much larger market and more demanding consumer base for high quality sites.
Even though I don't speak whatever language todou is in, the playlist features and plethora of awesome content beat sites like youtube hands down. I've been watching Stargate SG-1, which really isn't worth my time, but it's free so why not?
As to the new "free" daily show site. 2 minute clips followed by 30 second commercials isn't a high enough return on my time. They need 10-15 minute clips for me to even consider watching them.
Thats what the TV execs dont get...if you produce high quality shows, people will pay either cash or by accepting advertising if it's convenient. Otherwise we'll tune out and consult private/subscription lists of movies and tv shows with random names that they won't be able to track on video sites. This has already been very effective for sites like alluc and tvlinks, but shutting them down won't change that--we'll just come up with other methods of obfuscation that slightly raise the cost of finding free movies/shows. And the longer the execs take to understand that, the more likely the average user is going to realize what they could be getting--as an example, alluc shows friends episodes as some of the most watched. Friends!!! Soon the average user will be as biased against 2-5 minute clips as I am.
This is not about 'protecting' copyright.
This is about CONTROL.
What better way to avoid spending all the courts time issuing takedown notices than to SCARE those using this site, and OTHER sites to stop doing what they are doing?
Be very wary of those who go after the organizers of people, for their motives might not be something you can even imagine
I knew this was too good to last anyway. Although it's weird that they would pull this and neglect to deal with the sites that it links to.
How sad.
Obviously this is something the general public like and want.
Obviously big business > the public. As usual.
Big business fails to provide, public finds elsewhere. Big business thorws a hissy fit. Someone gets arrested. People lose what they want, big business goes one step further towards hell.
Status quo, nothing to see here. Moving along...
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
greatstufftv.com FTW!
Is deep linking still legal? That seems to be what this site's based on.
Another, similar site, bought out and operated by a major American service provider (AOL): singingfish.com. Now gone, last of one of the more comprehensive MP3 search engines.
But only gone because AOL took it down and now redirects the domain to video.aol.com.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
Hang on to your tinfoil hat there a minute. Don't big this up into being some fascist state bullshit. this was not 'the organizers of people' it was not a radical anti-government organization encouraging political debate, or suggesting political change. it was a way for geeks to download copyrighted tv and movies. don't try and pretend it was anything more intellectual.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Well them suckers in the UK voted for that shower of sh1t they call a government. They can just lay back and wallow in it now.
threadeds blog
Far worse illegal activities can be found, being linked to by google, after a simple search
One thing has just struck me on re-reading the article - the police raided the site and arrested the guy. That is the level of force they use when going after Islamic extremists. Apparantly, the corporate elite that controls, well, the entire fucking planet, thinks that people who provide links to copyrighted content (without hosting it themselves) need to be dealt with in the same way as those who commute with C4.
This is the world we live in. Profit is valued at least as much, if not more, than human life.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"The theft and distribution of films harms the livelihoods of those working in the UK film industry and in ancillary industries, as well as damaging the economy,"
There are still a lot of jobs in the agriculture sector in the UK. Anyone with harmed livelihoods can feel free to join in.
I only got two-thirds of the way through Firefly :(
...and hence, immune from the law. Especially since they're rich.
if it is then every one ping -f fact-uk.org.uk, viva la revolution
Seriously, I've been using this site for a couple months now and now its kaput.
Damnit. I guess I'll just have to find the episodes on rapidshare now.
In a year, we'll all remember this day. The day that the MPAA/Government took away our online freedom. This is just one step to online control. If you notice already, the Government already controls a large portion. For those of you who know what ICANN is, you know that they regulate and control all registrar companies. Who controls ICANN? The US Governemnt, Our uncle Same. Is he being nice to us? Absolutely not. If you're going to host illegal content, do it in a country the US won't dare to mess with. I have a webhost in Russia, Mongolia, Iraq, Iran. Think the government's going to pester them about shutting me down? I don't think so. They may have won the battle, but they lost the war. In my opinion, it's time to fight back. Fuck the media, fuck the government. And they say its the people who govern, my ass... http://www.projectxandium.com/ http://www.projectstarfire.com/ Check them out. I will constantly update them. The MPAA can take their dicks and shove them up their ass.
They might have just killed something they could have used as a great tool.
Not really?
The site itself is not storing any content. That *might* present a bugaboo to the prosecution, but IANAL, nor am I in the EU, so my mileage is probably in the negative numbers. However, the site *does* store an archive of links to all of that infringing content. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) now has an indexed list of every single infringing video, as well as a record of how many times that content has been accessed, and possibly a list of *who* accessed it.
So the website owner is going to be in a lot of trouble over this, that much is certain. What you're not going to hear about-until it's too late-is just how many people are going to have their homes raided and computers confiscated because they hosted the movie on their machines. A large majority of the videos-especially nature and history documentaries-were stored on GoogleVideo and other video aggregators, but the full-length feature films were mostly stored on private machines. I smell a purge coming for Google and YouTube in the weeks to come.
I'm also willing to bet that FACT went through the ENTIRE archive over the last few months, checking each and every link, reporting dead links so they could be updated by the "owners".
The seizure of this site isn't a trail of bread crumbs leading to hosters? It's a GPS-guided, chauffeur-driven limousine on a direct rail line to their front door.
[End Of Line]
I was a mod on tv-l until it went offline today, has there been a press release by police? I didn't see it. And there was no speak of any action been taken around the forum. Which incidentally was on a different server to the links site, the fact the 2 are now offline is a bad sign though :( Its a dark day for user based websites, bte tv-l had just broken into alexas top 200 yesterday
magna carta - 1381 peasant revolt - civil war, you name the rest.
you can pull the same stunt too. dont let them suppress you.
Read radical news here
TV Links is not responsible for any content linked to or referred to from these pages.
TV Links does not host any content on our Servers
All video links point to content hosted on third party webites. Users who upload to these websites agree not to upload illegal content when creating their user accounts. TV Links does not accept responsibility for content hosted on third party websites.
If you have any legal queries please email legal@tv-links.co.uk It seems they at least talked to a lawyer beforehand. They never hosted the actual content in question. Taking their servers has eliminated exactly zero pirated works from the internet. This will be a tough one to prosecute.
There was a law which made some things illegal. Face it, it was the current law.
Stupid law followers who do not question the laws are the reason for most of the bad things that happened during the last century.
Totz, you are a god. I was ADDKiD,Xandium, you know the rest. I miss TVL. But if you add me to msn/aim. I think I might cook something up for another site.
MSN: DarKLotuS070@hotmail.com
AIM: ZSandman01
I'm converting my website from HTML to all php applications. On opening the site, it'll ask for a username/password. I'll keep you guys posted. Totz, would you join my team if you had the option too? Could use a guy like you with atitutde and authority.
IANAL. The sad thing is that under UK law, just linking to "infringing material" may be a crime: "providing means for making infringing copies". If you refer to Chapter II of the Act:
...
...(d) sells or lets for hire, or offers or exposes for sale or hire,
" 24 Secondary infringement: providing means for making infringing copies
(1) Copyright in a work is infringed by a person who, without the licence of the copyright owner--
an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of that work, knowing or having reason to believe that it is to be used to make infringing copies. "
It'll be funny when we're the generation saying "back in my day". All freedoms have a price and the market is open.
Quack, quack.
This is the legal legacy of Napster throwing their lawsuit as part of their deal to sell out to BMG. BMG got Napster, its userbase, brand and (so what) technology, but most importantly the copyright industry got a legal precedent that just a directory, but no content, of copyrighted content somehow violates copyright. Of course the original bad precedent was the early attack on MP3.com, which scared stupid old record execs when the Rio MP3 player hit the shelves. So just those two badly fought and lost precedents mean that not only can I not tell you where someone has some content, even if I don't copy it myself, but you can't even put a backup copy of your content on my server to consume on some other terminal across the Net - even if you can copy the CDs and listen to different copies in your home, office and car.
Now we're seeing those bad precedents stop us from doing those same things with video. Without the word of mouth that sharing records and videos has brought several generations, the content that the copyright industry is protecting will just get worse and worse, its quality determined only by the decrepit old weasels fool enough to stay in their business and work with no one but lawyers.
--
make install -not war
Christ on a rubber crutch. Between this, and the ludicrous "Kwikfit" debacle, seriously - what is the world coming to?
Cheddar Road, Manchester. It's the red light district. I just broadcast and made available information which would assist someone with a crime. Where does the madness end?
Poor bastard. I only hope and pray that his lawyer can not only defeat these pricks in court, but HUMILIATE them in such a way that the story goes down in history as they day the **AA imploded.
Am I the only one who's worried that they spend more time, money, and legal expertise tracking down somebody with an MP3 collection than they do tracking down fucking child molesters and rapists. And the guy with the mp3 collection would probably get a heavier sentence because the poor, pathetic child molester was himself molested as a child, so he'll get 2 years in a minimum security loony bin and a daily session with a shrink... Whereas the guy who has some mp3's eats babies and is the scourge of civilised society.
If the **AA spent half as much time figuring out how to make money off us rather than track us down, they'd be laughing all the way to the bank. Who here (who downloads tv shows or whatever) *wouldn't* pay a reasonable price to do so "legally"?
Otoh, ianal but it's a pretty fucking grey area if you ask me, if downloading tv shows is even illegal (provided you could have watched it legally when it was broadcast). Downloading "pirate" shit and time-shifting a tv show with a vcr, what's the difference?
Who the fuck runs their lives around whatever time their favourite show broadcasts these days anyway?
And to add insult to injury, you got a story about Radiohead, whether they made $6m or 9m. Even at the lower figure, Only $6m for one album? Poor bastards. How are they gonna feed their kids with only $6m an album...
Four easy steps:
1. Turn off the TV
2. Pick up a book (preferably in public domain, consider having a peek at Project Gutenberg or your local public library
3......
4. Profit!
No, really -- it's a nice day outside.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Where do you get the idea that you need to "sign the Official Secrets Act" in order to be covered by its provisions? Nobody has to "sign the Official Secrets Act" but as a Crown servant (or contractor) one is required to sign a piece of paper which acknowledges that one understands the Act's provisions. All persons in UK jurisdiction are covered by the Official Secrets Acts 1911 to 1989. The 1989 Act was "An Act to replace section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 by provisions protecting more limited classes of official information" The 1989 Act does not affect the operation of section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, which protects information useful to an enemy. The maximum penalty for offences under section 1 of the 1911 Act is fourteen years' imprisonment.
Good thing that websites like FindYourFix.com ripped tv-link's database before they went down. And I'm sure 10 times more sites will have ripped the links from those sites before they are ever shut down.
this? Anyone know if it's any good?
Wasn't this already tried years ago with 2600 magazine & linking to web sites containing DeCSS?
http://www.2600.com/news/112801-files/universal.html
What I find interesting is that if TV Links can be held accountable for links to content that is, in theory, illegal stored at Google Video, why are they limiting the legal action to TV Links? I don't see anyone at Google being arrested and hauled off. In the DeCSS case both the 2600 web site and the sites hosting DeCSS were targeted.
http://212.125.94.181/index.php?showtopic=50347
TVL will be back...
Say a bunch of people were to mirror tv-links' current HTML content on various random servers, and then tv-links itself turns into just a mirror index; how long until it'd be taken down for pointing at things which point at things which point at user-generated links to things which might be illegal?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
1.) Ever since the whole file-sharing thing really started, with Napster, I have thought that the RIAA/MPAA etc. have been going about this the wrong way. For me, filesharing has been a wonderful tool that has opened a lot of doors. I have poured hundreds of dollars into indie film and music that I otherwise would have had no exposure to to if it weren't for filesharing.
2.) TV Links also opened my eyes to television programs from Europe, the UK, Asia and the rest of the globe. Television is so sh*t here in America, it was great to see that somewhere people are still creating engaging, original programming. And this programming is rarely available in the USA.
3.) I am still struggling to understand exactly how they plan to prosecute the proprietor of TV Links. There was no content hosted on the site itself, and you could not save or download any of the content. All you could do was stream, watch and enjoy. Prosecuting the owner of TV Links would be something akin to me getting arrested for knowing that there is a crack house down the street. Just because I show you where you can get something that may be considered illegal, that makes me a criminal? Bull.
I was (and still am!) a huge TV Links fan, and I will continue to support it and any other websites of its kind. The major corporations of the world cannot be allowed to control what we see and hear and how we have access to it.
I'm glad the authorities are cracking down on evil criminals like this guy, and leaving the friendly neighbourhood meth labs alone.
"On the other hand, the early worm gets eaten."
Another near parallel example of this is the demonisation of certain drugs. There is little factual rationale for fear of marijuana and of those that can point to a life ruined because of it, it's entirely due to its illegality not its inherent properties. Either someone had their life disrupted because of an arrest or the artificially inflated price and scarcity prompted a separate crime. New crime is being created where none would exist merely to please one favored group. So, the 'authorities' trot out these PR cases 'pour encourager les autres' to go along.
Notmysig
Not the greatest example but I see your intended point. There are several regulations surrounding the manufacture of radar detectors/scrabblers. One of the regulations is that the designers have to hand a beta over to government researchers. Only after the researchers have manufactured a radar/code that can defeat said detector/scrabbler, is the company then allowed to manufacture and market it. So you are not more advanced than the police. Now...that being said, not all jurisdictions can afford the latest and greatest technology...
"To compensate, try cutting the fuel costs by siphoning off the neighbours' gasoline."
You just pointed me to siphoning off my neighbours gas, you have done the exact same crime this guys did, point someone to something that is an offence.
In your case you are pointing to a *THEFT* offence which is worse than what he did, because the neighbour LOSES the gasoline, whereas a copyright offence he only loses the potential to sell the gasoline to you.
But a link is ultimately a reference. That would mean, that giving a reference of an activity that one *knows* is illegal, is illegal on itself. If consistently applied, than giving you an address in the netherlands where you can get weed, and knowing this is illegal (in your country, for arguments' sake, I mean) would become illegal too.
This seems rather absurd, and a direct infringement on free speech. There ought to be (and in many countries there is) a difference between an illegal activity and giving a reference of such an illegal activity. As another poster already linked; some countries (like Spain) have already decided it IS legal to have links to sites which host illegal content.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Facilitation of copyright infringment...?!? that's their argument ? Come on men..!! i can't believe it... there's no way linking is illegal, not a chance. that would make us all pirates. why don`t they shut down you tube or google. If that's the case, I'm sure Google is the biggest "facilitator" of the world... ha ha ha but i'm taking all this in a real cool way, cause i found in sidereel the fountain that calms my thirst for tv series and movies..! LOL so that you can be calm too, here goes the link http://www.sidereel.com/ Oh, no..!! i just linked and facilitated piracy..!! who's gonna protect me now..?? ha ha ha and there's also stage 6 or Dailymotion, ups... I did it again...! ;)
muhfuka :p