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$4 Million In Fines For Linking To Infringing Files
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The MPAA won judgments totaling $4M against two sites which merely link to infringing content. They're not arguing that it's an infringement of their distribution right, like the RIAA has with their 'making available' argument. Instead, they got the sites for 'contributory copyright infringement', just like RIAA v. LimeWire. To translate all that legalese into English, search engines which primarily index copyright-infringing material and the people who run them may not be safe in the US. That applies even if the sites in question do not host any infringing materials, participate in, or encourage the infringement done by their users. And, even honoring DMCA notices in order to take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions hasn't prevented the **AA from suing."
So now any service can be DoS'd by the RIAA and MPAA. You know they will stuff any independent index with their crappy content and so destroy all alternative distribution channels.
Google is likely to sued real soon as well as many other web sites.
I hope it is google then maybe the iaa and mpaa will be put in there place
I see this as a very bad thing all around. Surely the point of search engines is that they provide access to all corners of teh interweb and can only do this by hitting every site and indexing it. If they become responsible for the content on those sites, or rather not providing links to "illegal" content, how do they continue to provide that access when they may potentially have to vet every link they index?
OK, so they can filter but surely that's as much of a minefield as indexing everything? Imagine the law suits when their filtering algorithms start excluding one company and include their opposition.
Not sure I like the sound of this.
And what if Google were to lose? It's sad when we have to wait and hope for these organizations to sue someone big instead of picking on the little guy to have some hope that they might actually be struck down.
Well, no. These sites' purpose and content consisted substantially of indexing and enabling the search for unlawful copies of copyrighted works. While Google certainly has some capability to do this as well, I don't think most people would see that as a substantial portion of their content or their purpose.
This case really isn't that surprising.
The only way to fight this is to make it even more difficult for them.
We've been able to identify where their "thugs" come from, injecting fake names and bogus content, scanners. It may be time to develop more clever P2P technologies.
I think being able to sue someone for merely linking to content elsewhere is going to far.
I remember getting a DMCA notice years ago, but it's because someone hacked my Windoze PC and put something on there (I use Mac now). These bastards have been at it for a long time, and while I don't encourage copyright infringement, I think it's time we fought back. However that manifests.
This will break the internet.
if google would lose that kind of case, they wouldnt be able to fight back the anti net neutrality law or affect the wireless spectrum auction as they were. they are not an outfit that would lose that kind of case.
Read radical news here
good call UnxMully, thats the way I see it too, I wish I had mod points I would bump your comment up :^)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
So, does this mean that when Starforce posted a link to a pirated copy of Galactic Civilizations II to try to encourage Stardock to use their copy protection (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/11/2049230), they opened themselves up to a lawsuit from Stardock?
I'd love to see a company that is part of the problem get snared by the laws that they were pushing for themselves.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
A judgment was made: If you link to copyrighted material, you can be taken to court.
I didn't notice any conditions that exclude this based on "substantial portions of content".
And why wouldn't Google be suable, for general reasons & the fact that a cached-page of those indexing sites can be just as useful as the original sites?
Don't think so. The ??AAs are much like school bullies. They prefer picking on the weaker kids, they rarely try it on the ones that can push back.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course not. **AA would be crazy to try to take on Google. Their case would be much weaker for two reasons. First of all, Google has the cash to put together a stellar legal team. They would do so, because linking to stuff is pretty much at the center of the business model. Second of all, Google links to all kinds of content, of which infringing content is just one, while ShowStash and Cinematube primarily linked to infringing content.
How do you know that these two sites did not intend for people to share their own movies? How can you keep the MPAA from loading up any "legitimate" site with all of their own files they way they have with Media Sentry? The ability to DoS legitimate services mandates a change in copyright law. If cases like these continue to win, there will be no alternate distribution channels or free press on the internet.
I have a 32" working just fine non digital TV and don't have cable but use an antenna. I have no intention on getting a converter box or new TV. But I'll use the TV for DVD's and VHS, for which I buy inexpensive previewed media.
Since I'm no longer going to support the broadcast markets, including PBS, its advertisers and won't buy new media, there is one obvious things that is going to happen.
The MPAA is going to really get spoiled baby scream noisy and make all sorts of claims about piracy destroying their business when this digital only broadcast TV switch happens. From this they will pursue any and all non-authorized outlets, further isolating the property of their scope, away from me.
But the fact of the matter is, it is the entertainment industry attacking consumers, that is the biggest turn off, where the digital TV switchover will be turning off the set for the consumer, whom will not turn it back on so quickly...
Out of sight, out of mind.
Think about it. If a site links to a site which links to illegal content?
This nonsense needs to be stopped real soon now. (OR inject "offending" links into **AA company members websites and let them sue each other to death).
Same principle should work for most programs if done carefully. (consider the code from the C etc. run time library).
On a large enough scale the resultant false accusations and legal actions from the **AA could get them into serious trouble.
Andy
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No, they can't filter without running a much higher risk of being held responsible for the content.
I see what you mean. An even worse can of worms to open.
Google's "SafeSearch" feature sort of skirts the fine edge of this reasoning, but hasn't been challenged yet (i.e. Google getting sued because someone found kiddie porn being "make available" via their search engine). Their broad filtering of search results in some non-U.S. markets might be "iffy" as well.
I would have thought the visibility of the safe search function would mitigate against this - it's very clearly there and easy to turn on and off.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers [wikipedia.org].
I would hope so, otherwise the whole concept of a searchable internet falls on its arse there and then.
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Agreed. Though if you're not filtering the content and looking at every URL, this ruling sort of implies that even hosting the link makes you liable. OK so from TFA that sounds a bit of a stretch, and I do hate to invoke the thin end of the wedge, but I do sometimes wonder where common sense comes into law...
Sounds horrible to me.
Just a FYI, the appeal on this would most likely win and find them guilty of nothing. Assuming they're smart enough to do so...which they probably won't, unfortunately.
If there is an appeal, then it will be a bigger deal on this one.
This is different to google, these 2 sites were linking specifically to mostly infringing content (and from a quick google, they were clearly indicating the fact that they link to feature films and TV shows, both things that generally imply content produced by someone who isn't going to give a random web site permission to host their content)
Google links to anything and everything.
If I run a newspaper and someone places a classified ad to sell a stolen TV, I am not breaking any law by running that ad. (especially if, like google, I have no idea the TV was stolen). But if the majority of the classified ads in the paper are for stolen items and/or I was promoting the use of the paper to sell stolen goods, I would be in trouble.
We would like to welcome our new search-engine overlords! Seriously, Microsoft a few years ago was considering jumping ship to Vancouver, BC. We are working on a more open set of copyright laws (vs the draconian U.S.) and I'm sure there would be some HUGE tax incentives. Granted the RIAA/MPAA's northern arms will want the same thing but I suspect it will be denied. Money trumps pretty much everything, and up here Google et all would have a lot more then the CRIA.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Isn't this too broad? I mean, the say "copyright" infringement. Newspaper information is copyrighted. Meaning that any search engine will return copyrighted results.
Just look for "copyright" in google, and for sure you'll get all the pages with the "copyright" notes at the end of the page. Does that mean that "links" to copyrighted information are also illegal?
On the other hand, if google, for example, decides not to link any copyrighted information, then absolutely no "copyrighted" information will be available online, and therefore, many sites (including the UN) will "cease to exist to the world". If they are not indexed, they just simply don't exist, period.
easy, find an XSS vulnerability in either the MPAA or the RIAA site and link it to copyrighted material, then also target government websites with the same XSS vulnerability and do the same, repeat over again until change.
My /. has a short memory... this was exactly what the old 2600 case over DeCSS was about.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Personal and verbatim, non commercial copy should be allowed. The denial of service angle is one of many things most lawyers miss when trying to bend paper based copyright law to electronic publications. In their zeal to preserve the publishing industry as it exists, they overlook the unexplored benefits of electronic publications. Lessig has managed to balance freedom with changing technology but I don't think even he saw the DoS problem. Things are easier when you break it down to moral terms. Is it wrong for me to give you a copy of a paper for research? I don't think so. How about a song or movie? That might bother you because of the expectations current movie makers operate under, but those expectations should not be a barrier to change. If things changed tomorrow, movie makers would know the deal and everyone would be comfortable with that. An industry that has extended copyright several times does not deserve such consideration, but we should not stoop to their level. When you consider the whole problem, the natural right to free speech must trump the created rights of copyright. If we blindly persue industry interests, we will eliminate freedom of press. We must all be allowed to share what we have because only the most draconian measures will preserve copyright in a digital world.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Looks like they have it both ways again. The requirement to honor DMCA complaints without a court order is balanced by the privilege to host information without having to check it for copyright violations first. If they don't want to allow the latter, why should we allow them to take a short cut when they want some information taken down?
So you just take it for granted that they specialized in MPAA content?
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
Our copyright in the US works largely on the owners' good graces, apathy, and ignorance. Copyright infringement, in a technical sense, happens constantly. And not just from music and movie downloaders, but ordinary people. Tattoos of cartoon characters, playing some popular song on your guitar, hosting images someone else created on your own server.
This may, in fact, have appeared on Slashdot before, but John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, estimates that a typical person could easily rack up $12.45 million in copyright liability doing ordinary things like sending email, sketching on a notepad, the afore-mentioned cartoon tattoo, writing poetry, and singing "Happy Birthday." And then there's this:
You can find the entirety of Professor Tehranian's article in PDF here.
The entire structure of our copyright law in the US is based on what strikes me as being the courts' absolutely blind willingness to enforce laws, the language of which criminalizes the day-to-day acts of normal people, and therefore makes the system open to the sort of hyper-technical abuse characterized in the article.
Of course, our national legislators are to blame for the sloppy language, not the courts. But the courts are still the agents enforcing these laws that just fly in the face of any reasonable or well-considered social policy.
Which is eaxctly the reason they will not be attacked openly. Aside from that, Google has agreements with large part of MAFIAA members and nicely and friendly removes content from Youtube or Google Video on any hint of possible theoretical infringement. Why make them into enemies and spoil such convenient arrangement?
OTOH we cannot underestimate stupidity of some lawyers...
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
After many years of cases like this, why are people still basing their services in the US? I live in Norway, and due to some legal precedents set in this country, I would not ever have my torrent trackers or ed2k indexers hosted here. In fact, I would not even have my name associated with that service because I would be paying anonymously to a host in a country were the laws are more suitable.
Dvorak on Doomtech
If the past is any guide, shutting down alternate channels of distribution is what this is all about. Here are some dirty tricks MediaDefender and their paymasters have pulled in the past:
The MPAA is desperate because it knows it will follow the RIAA's decline soon. They can't match the diversity of free networks and will do what they can to disrupt them. People can and will make music and movies to entertain themselves without copyright protection if they are allowed to share their works.
No calls now, I'm
so; therefore, the entire internet is illegal, according to these clowns...
How easy would it be to write a front end to Google that would zero in on links to copies of copyrighted works? I, for one, would be delighted to help the MPAA find these violations. With a simple Google front end (rather than having to learn complex and sometimes arcane search terms and methods) many good citizens could join in this distributed endeavor.
To make clear the point of this software, a "Report this to the MPAA" button should appear beside each potential violation. As part of the volunteer MPAA vigilante association, it will be your duty to actually view what you find, to be sure that you are not reporting files merely coincidently similar to copyrighted, restricted works. A lack of MPAA staff time to do this has led to embarrassments for them in the past. Let's show them how much the open, distributed approach can help!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I hope it is google then maybe the iaa and mpaa will be put in there place
Not that I disagree with you but I would also like to see Google put in their place. That company's do no evil is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard.
Ahh, so you've heard about the new Google Torrents service?
It's set up to allow people to easily post/find torrent files. Google of course doesn't host any infringing material, and will take down any torrents that are intended to share infringing content that unscrupulous users might post.
The thing that takes the biscuit is Google have set up the service to turn a profit in ad-revenue. That's fine, but they expect almost all their users will be accessing it looking to torrent files to grab content that violates copyright law.
If a company provides a service who's business model relies on facilitating copyright infringement they need to be called on it.
First they came for the indirect links and I did nothing. Then they came for the doubly indirect links and...
Perhaps they should just take the $4 million dollar fine and divide it by the exponentially increasing number of sites that link. We could all link then and just pay our 0.2 cents, this way they could get the ipod tax they always wanted...
The lesson here is that a sufficiently large corporation is indistinguishable from government. --ultranova
Not the same. I said, "UNLAWFUL copies." If a news agency wants to put up their copyrighted photos on a website, then someone browsing their site isn't a copyright infringer. Ditto for a search engine that POINTS to those sites. The index is to a bunch of LAWFUL copies.
In this case, we have UNLAWFUL copies of copyrighted works. Someone ripped them from a DVD, CD, or TV and posted them on the internet. It's not the copyright owners actions, it's a direct infringement by a third party (hence indirect copyright infringement in this case).
That said, I do think (and have always thought) that Google's position is legally precarious when is massively archives, stores and repurposes copyrighted works. But, that's not the issue here.
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
completely dark Internet 3.0 sites that give you links to sites outside of the USA in 3.... 2.... 1...
Bad laws are bad laws, the community will 'route around them' and that will be that. Also get ready for the court cases that the **AA will lose because the content was not infringing etc.
It's not possible to continue their berserk legal campaign and not injure some parties. I believe that the blowback will always be expensive for them, and continued elucidation of their antics to the public will be harmful to their standard revenue streams. There will be NO new CD's or DVD's in my house from now on. I can live without them. period. it's not so difficult.
In the USA in particular, any effort to educate the populace should be squarely aimed at government legislators. That is to say: When you publish, publish in the form of:
Look what we sent to Senator XYZ? All this information about IP and how the law is not good, and why it's not good. Senator XYZ doesn't care about your rights, here is how s/he voted on issues relating to your rights.
If 800 legislators have to be swift boated, meh, who fscking cares. That's what happens when you volunteer for public service.
Once the issues become election issues, it will get sorted out because they cannot begin to help the lobbyists if they are serving biggie sized burgers in their home city after the election. They have to get elected, and if doing so means forsaking their **AA lobbyist friends, believe me, they will.
That is how the people shut down a bad law campaign. Elect only people that do not support those laws.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Simple solution really. That will instantly also take care of the **AA too. Nobody needs the spam coming from the USA anyway...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Then they'd probably get the fuck out of the States rather than see their business suffer in America. Probably some sort of tax haven.
Great idea, let's give American companies even MORE of a reason to leave our shores.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Try looking for Transformers on Google. That fan site with the picture of Optimus Prime? That's infringement; it's unlawful. The wiki hosting a sound clip of some exchange between Star Scream and Megatron? That's infringment. The fanfic? Infringement. Google's linking to it all. They're even hosting thumbnails of some of it.
The distinction between linking to lawful and unlawful copyright works is something that can't be sustained in the face of a modern search engine. It would be asinine to tell Google that it couldn't link to anything without first ascertaining that the site has a clear and lawful copyright on the substance. A search engine just couldn't work in such a case. Likewise, saying a search engine is guilty of contributory copyright infringement when it does link to infringing material is no more sustainable, because the internet is a minefield. The liability imposed would be so monstrous as to either destroy the entire industry or create such legal liability that we're left with the last situation: search engines only able to link to things after they verify the owner's valid copyright claims.
For this to be good precedent, there needs to be a distinction made by the courts as to what makes these sites different from Google, Yahoo, and the like, and it can't be based on a post hoc determination of the host site's copyright validity.
So, information has become illegal. Knowledge is forbidden.
Freedom is screwed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Please put down the mallet and quit sounding the deathknell for personal freedom. I still have mine. You still have yours. Try to stay within the law, and you'll probably keep it. If you don't like parts of US law, then vote and lobby to change it. Research the issues and write your congressmen real paper letters with convincing arguments and evidence. Post cogent, pertinent comments on their web sites. If you don't like paying for movies and music, you certainly are welcome to make your own [subject to copyright and pornography laws, of course]. Contrary to some opinions, the US is still a free country. As evidenced by this rant here today.
[Flame Off]Invenio via vel creo
They didn't "merely" link to these sites. Google "Merely" links to the sites.
These guys appear to have run sites who's sole de-facto purpose was to make finding infringing material easier. They can't claim they didn't know good and well what was going on.
They just need to send Pretty leading Man/Woman of the month around to the court house to blow a judge or three.....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
1) Translate name of movie into Chinese
2) tudou.com / 56.com / youku.com / any chinese video site
3) ???
4) PROFIT
Good luck getting Chinese sites shut down. Even if you get rid of the indexing sites, mildly creative people will be able to just search foreign video sites.
I picture places like tv-links.co.uk (Oh, how I miss thee) reemerging, perhaps as some sort of decentralized P2P darknet. There's no host to take down, and you couldn't possibly target all of the members. A good use for Freenet, I think, that doesn't involve pedophilia (unless they index Alice In Wonderland).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
And who decides that? What about premium newsgroups providers? I'm sure to most people their main "purpose" is to allow high speed download of binary newsgroups which are 99% illegal materials.
But on the other hand, they cannot support all newsgroups without this being true. So their choice is either to censor groups or be sued now? How do you decide which groups to censor?
The problem is that these kinds of decisions open up new slippery slopes in places where there wasn't any sign of one. People have settled and paid substantial chunks of change to the RIAA and MPAA when they weren't even the ones infringing, because they were afraid that if they fought they'd end up paying more. It's only been recently that any of these false lawsuits have been successfully fought. Once they get their foot in the door they'll start throwing the "linking" argument in their bag of dirty tricks, and who knows how many people will end up getting nailed by this who had no idea that there was a slope anywhere near them.
This has NOTHING to do with whether I object to "paying for music or movies". My shelves full of CDs and DVDs should answer that. This isn't about me, I don't run a music search engine. This is about bad law and bad precedents creating new ways for people to unwittingly infringe.
Furthermore, if you're not able to sue Google for copyright infringement when searching, you're certainly able to do it for caching. When caching they are breaking the first rule of copyright, reproducing and storing the information.
The procedure is simple:
1. Search for "copyright" in a search engine like Google.
2. Look for cached pages with "Copyright ©".
3. Sue.
4. Profit!
To simplify things drastically, a common carrier receives a measure of immunity from ordinary civil and criminal actions in exchange for the public services it provides.
The price is regulation. The price is cooperation with the government. You play by the rules or you lose your protection.
Here's a "hit-list" ... make these people feel the pain that they are inflicting on the rights of everyone else.
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=who_we_are_board
who gets in trouble? Me, or slashdot?
When will you open your eyes and realise it was the constant lies, flaming and misrepresentation that got you into the karma hole you're in? Ben Franklin had conversations with himself in his and other publications and it's a legitimate way to explore an issue Ben Franklin never had those conversations in a public space while pretending to others that he was several different people. What Ben Franklin did was continual, accurate, bipartisan self-assessment. What you do is try to control legitimate discussion by trying to force it into being between people you control, so your ideas seem to be the ones held in high merit in the community. Ben Franklin was after self-improvement. You just want control. When it's used to game the moderation system, censor users, spam and promote filth like this, it's a problem. Which is exactly what you're doing. How can you bring yourself down to what you consider to be a base level, then pretend you're still somehow better than everyone else? There's not much dishonest about what I'm doing. You post using at least 9 different accounts and you don't reveal that anywhere in your posts. That is a lie of omission at the very least, and is inherently dishonest by nature. Of course, AC, you know all of this. You read all of my journal articles, posts and those you think I write. It must be exhausting because you think so many people are me. There's no bigger fan of mine than you. Keep reading, you might learn something even if you are paid not to. I, for one, certainly know which ones are you, because no matter how hard you try you can't keep that arrogant posturing of yours under control. What's even more amusing is, the more often you reply to yourself to make your points stand out, the easier it is to spot.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will pick one account and keep posting from it because we don't have to hide from who we are.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
What about search engines that only secondarily index such (possibly - how is the index to determine the copyright compliance without having the content itself?) content? If the engine indexes a lot of other stuff that no one says is coypright infringing, like the rest of the Web, is that OK? IOW, could Google also point to this contentious content, along with its other content?
That is exactly the dance that other controversial media has forced outlets to dance when the crackdown comes down. Like in NYC under Giuliani, when he started shutting down porno video stores in neighborhoods he wanted to force to sell out to real estate speculators. The stores would reopen if their "primary" content was non-porno movies, which was just window dressing since "despite their primary stock", their customers mostly still just bought the porno out of the (now legit, by being ghettoized) back corner with the "Adults Only" signs flashing all over it.
This distinction is an essential point in this whole conflict. If Google's regular "Web" search results (not a separate section like for "News" or "Shopping", etc) also returned results that point at material that the RIAA says violates copyright, is Google safe, because those indexed items are not its primariy function? How does Google know that the content it points to is copyright-legit? How is anyone without a $billion to spend on compliance to set up an Internet search engine? And how does the Constitutional copyright exception to free speech/press justify impeding the entire Internet's navigation just for the already dubious (probably unjustified already) claims that current copyright controls "promote progress in science and the useful arts", its only legal basis, rather than sharply harm that progress?
If Google is safe legally, because of its primary function indexing other content (and not making its primary function paying a lot of lawyers and content examiners), then what about a competitor to Google that also spiders the Web, indexes all content, but doesn't exclude content on the basis of possible copyright infringement? Would such an inclusive search engine be legally OK, free to grow to a huge size, competing with Google by including all the content "too hot for Google to handle"? Would that legit competition in turn push Google into indexing that same content, too?
--
make install -not war
Think of the children! Has child pornography finally replaced terrorists, which replaced communists, which replaced nazis?
>Google is likely to sued real soon as well as many other web sites.
Holy shit! A Joe the Dragon post with only three errors?!? Granted, it's only one line, but still...
OK, what did you bastards do with the real Joe the Dragon?!?
Nazi's really were a threat, though. And the Soviet Union did have it out for us, though we didn't help the situation any.
Whenever a p2p technology (or the way it's implemented) becomes so easy that (the average) grandma can use it, it will be shut down, and the community will invent new grandma-proof p2p.
Napster went down because my mom or grandma could download music. So today, when the non-technical user can "go to web page and click the shows they want to illegally acquire", the clock is running.
Backroom file-getting in the old(er) days via Hotline always seemed just difficult enough that the masses wouldn't get involved.
The sign in front of the ride has always been: "you have to be 'this' clever to get free stuff."
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
Perhaps Google could avoid risk of prosecution for linking to infringing content by not linking to ANYTHING related to MPAA or RIAA. No links to **AA-affiliated record companies, no links to their musicians' web sites, no links to stories about their bands, no links to legal music sale sites...
There's not much on the web that isn't copyrighted. Almost every web page, forum posting, blog entry, graphic, etc. is copyrighted.
I for one want the RIAA/MPAA to be able to blind me and make me deaf.
Anyone know where I can get one of those in Size Second Year IT Tech (i.e. 2XL)? I've been looking for them for years and can't find them for arse.
Before sites like youtorrent and torrentz sprung up for indexing torrent sites, it wasn't uncommon for people to use search strings like filetype:torrent "Star Wars"
and find plenty of torrents for what they need.
The difference is of course google could defend themself in court, and would take down the links if asked. They also don't go out of their way to index copyrighted material by name/category the way some sites do.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Well, when I browse that news site, a temporary copy of their image is stored in my browser cache. If I have a worm, that means I might have distributed a copy of that image, albeit unknowingly.
The difference is of course google could defend themself in court, and would take down the links if asked. They also don't go out of their way to index copyrighted material by name/category the way some sites do. Yes, they could. But I do worry about how these judgements could be taken to extremes particularly by an industry that is apparently fighting for its existence.
An anonymous coward [;)] is thinking ... if i write some text on the web and hold the copyrights, then google caches it and provides a link to it, ... i should then win the case? >:)
How about here, now, you decide to be just "twitter" and post useful comments from only one account. Your karma will skyrocket, especially since you are pretty well known now.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It stands to reason that soon, you are no longer allowed to discuss sites that contain links to "illegal" material, or that those sites even exist.
The inquisition begins...
Yep; the creation of the Great Firewall of the United States. This one is primarily for the protection of some corporate interests rather than of one political party.
if you put an article up on the web, unless you robots.txt it, I think tis pretty clear you are happy for people to link to and index it.
You are ALL entirely free to index and link to any page whatsoever on ANY website that I own, that is not password protected or hidden.
I'm fine with that.
But if you have a password protected, or encrypted system, where you sell access to those files, with an explicit agreement that the links and the files are not to be made public, then its pretty fucking clear that copying the files, uplaoding them to an anon hoster and spreading the links is not the same thing as linking to someone's homepage.
Its a pretty far and twisted piece of backwards rationalising to defend websites full of pages and pages of links to rapidshare or other sites, containing Hollywood movies, games,software and music, under the pretence that "its ok! because otherwise we couldn't use hyperlinks!!!11111oneone"
Don't pretend there is a grey area here, there just isn't.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
And Google will win, since they are not promoting crime.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If this is true, google is going to get sued for trillions.
If you've never used it, here is a little trick with a google query (just replace Green Day with whomever you wish).
http://www.google.com/ie?q=%22parent+directory%22+mp3+OR+wma+OR+ogg+OR+wav+Green%20Day+-html+-htm+-download+-links&num=100&filter=0
You play this "game" because people got tired of your inane and harmful "advocacy" of Free Software and started modding you down. You prefer to pin the blame for that on Microsoft, like you blame them for the dot com bomb, bridges collapsing, CompUSA going out of business, the recession and anything bad China does, among other things. As if there weren't enough things to pin on them. Let me give you a bit of advice: None of this. None has anything whatsoever to do with Microsoft or any other company.
You then switched to your other older sockpuppet, which unsurprisingly met the same fate. Since you keep claiming no one knows which accounts are yours, it must be what you are saying rather than who you are. Even five or six people can't bring down an account to -50 negative karma, that's either an admin bitchslap or the result of the community shunning you.
The second paragraph on your post is more of the usual self-serving and self-contradicting semantic sugar. These "anti-slashdot sites" by definition would have nothing to do with you, and if they're unsuccessful, then why are we having this conversation at all? It seems to me they are successful, assuming they existed anywhere other than your mind. Oh and the Ben Franklin thing? Please.
There's not much dishonest about what I'm doing.
No, of course not. You replying to you is not dishonest. After all, you're just "informing" people, right? No matter that you're pretending to be someone else when you do it. Instead of cleaning up your act, you simply create more accounts and continue to do the same things, except that now you're crapflooding every thread with five or six different accounts that people don't know about. Let's look at an example outside of this thread:
twitter says "x".
Then gnutoo jumps in with some inane tripe, to open up for:
Mactrope, at which point the whole thing backfires because the whole premise of your three-account point is invalid to begin with, as usual.
I'm sure free software also benefits when you shill your own attempts at humour.
No, I'm not going to tell you what those accounts are
That's OK, you don't really think people are actually waiting for *you* to tell them about your sockpuppets, right? Here's the current list:
http://slashdot.org/~twitter
http://slashdot.org/~Erris
http://slashdot.org/~Mactrope
http://slashdot.org/~gnutoo
http://slashdot.org/~inTheLoo
http://slashdot.org/~willeyhill
http://slashdot.org/~westbake
http://slashdot.org/~Odder
http://slashdot.org/~ibane
It's not difficult, after all. Aside from the initial two, the first thing all of these other accounts do is reply to the others, or paste links from your journal. They all use the exact same writing style, creative spelling, insults, misspell the same words and so on. Not like it's rocket science or anything like that. When someone like me points out what you're doing, you insult them. Oh, and I get modded down
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
The RIAA/MPAA continue to view P2P as a phenomenon that can be somehow eradicated or at least controlled by attacking it with a combination of technology and lawsuits. The ironic thing is even while most of these countermeasures don't even work at all, when they do the effect is short term and ends up serving as a sort of selection pressure to force P2P to evolve and adapt. I think before too long most BT searches will be decentralized. Most of the geek barrier problem with BT is that it involves browsing outside of the application to download files that are not even the files you really want. Forcing BT to work around this is just hastening the development of a client that eliminates all of this from the GUI and is 3 clicks easy for everyone to use. Then TSWHTF.
So when does google get nailed for allowing 'bad links' to occur? They have proven the can remove links on command.
When does Borders get told to remove books off the shelf as they have 'improper information' in them, and be fined afterwards for having them searchable in their database?
Libraries.. same thing.. They have a 'card catalog' that links...
This has so many long term ramifications that it should scare the piss out of you if you value your freedom to speak.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Any time power is granted, bar none, it will be abused. This has nothing to do with the spirit of the judgment.
Slashdot is FED UP with you, twitter. First they were fed up with the way you made them look bad by association with your weird habit of fabricating "facts" about Microsoft (as if you couldn't Google enough actually bad things about them) and your third-grade creative spelling. And now they are fed up with your weird need to constantly shill what you say, no matter what it is, no matter what moderation you happen to be getting. You are actively pretending you're someone else. That's it, that's the problem. No amount of "M$ is teh evil and they are after me" will change that fact. You just couldn't create another account and just start over. You had to create lots of them, and have them reply to each other every day, on every article you post to.
You're not using multiple accounts because you are being victimized, you are using them because you've figured out that it's a good way to jack up your karma. And judging by your behavior around here, that seems to be the most vital thing in your life. To be moderated up.
Yo are a troll if I ever saw one. Most importantly, you are a liar and a dishonest person. Which is funny, considering you spend all your obviously devalued time demanding honesty from everyone else.
**AA would be crazy to try to take on Google.
If it's crazy for the **AA it could be a very good idea for google. Google should ask the courts to give a declaratory judgement to reduce business uncertainty. The public would like them too.
At the very least they should be lobbying congress hard to get sane copyright laws and encouraging other companies to do so as well. Congress needs educating and Google has the resources and business need to do that. For too long the mafiaa has been getting free rein to create whatever type of law they like. They've completely lost in the court of public opinion but unfortunately they have been making "progress" in the legal system.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Don't pretend there is a grey area here, there just isn't.
Actually there is, and your fanaticism isn't helping.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
A good lawyer could make that argument that Google is in the business of organized crime.
After all what are teh perecentages of google searches for mp3's or porn?
My guess would be quite high in the %20 range. If that is the case it could be argued that Google should pay up for hurting the poor little record companies.
If I were google I would quickly lobby some politicians fast to create laws to protect search engines. This is very not good indeed.
http://saveie6.com/
So did these guys even show up in court? Or did the MPAA take them to court in some wildly inconvenient venue, wait for them not to show up, and obtain default judgements?
These anti-indexing judgments are also an assault on discovery. There is no link whatsoever that doesn't link to copyrighted content. This post I'm writing right now is copyrighted. I've given implicit consent to slashdot to display this comment, but I haven't given any other third parties implicit or explicit consent to copy this post. So if Google links directly to this post, I could sue them for statutory copyright infringement damages. Or anyone else who links to this post from elsewhere. That is the literal absurdity which is at stake. This post is for all practical intents and purposes absolutely no different than any RIAA music .mp3 file or any MPAA .tor movie file.
This is the main reason copyright is already de facto dead on the internet. If the MAFIAA succeeds in establishing the legal procedure precedents for establishing infringement for links to content, it will merely open up an economic and legal meltdown copyright troll floodgate, where absolutely everybody is a priori guilty of copyright infringement. In such an environment, those with the most to lose will lose the most. That means the bankruptcy of individual citizens, the bankruptcy of the RIAA, the bankruptcy of the MPAA, and the bankruptcy of Google. Except that individuals will only declare bankruptcy after their losses advance into the 6 figures, while the RIAA, MPAAA, and Google will pay out damages until the damages first exceed 9 and 10 figures, which won't take for long given the exponentially increasing amount of daily increasing (by definition *copyrighted*) content on the internet. At $30,000 per linked post message, it won't take very many copyright trolls to literally shut down the system.
How do you think people like us are already causing the MAFIAA so much trouble? And we ultimately control the button to the legal minefield which is being laid by the incursion of copyright law onto the internet. We'll form a publicly traded law firm which takes the claims of every individual citizen against those with deep pockets, IPO it, and show the big content fools who's really the boss. These MAFIAA lawsuits are just paving the "free rider" legal precedent to making it a financial reality. The legal threats literally threaten Armageddon for the existence of the internet.
And "contributory copyright infringement" can easily be extended to hardware and software producers such as Cisco and Microsoft. So add in the bankruptcy of Cisco and Microsoft and Apple, and Comcast, and on and on. We are literally talking about so many trillions of dollars of legal liability that it is many fold greater than the total economic value of the entire world.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I completely agree with what I just said. Did I say 'I'? I've never heard of this guy in my life, but he's clearly very insightful and informative.
Anyway, we should totally listen to him and stop modding Twitter down because I'm always right.
Did I say 'I' again?
I'm Just Another Twitter Sockpuppet, and I approve this message.
And if you download any file whatsoever into a shared folder and never actually look at the contents of those files you are blindly unknowingly distributing content. You don't know whether any files whatsoever is a copyright infringement until you first copy and secondly examine. This is exactly how the MAFIAA operate to: they first blindly copy, and secondly examine.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
That would mean admitting that all his previous posts are garbage! That's really too much to ask.
I'm not neglecting anything.
The law ALREADY defines the elements of contributory infringement. First, you need knowledge of the infringing activity. That's pretty easy in these cases. The torrent tracker sites purpose seems to be infringement. Second--and here's the distinction from Google et. al.--material involvement: inducement, causation, contribution, etc.
Take a look at the Grokster case.
Also, everyone should realize that this concept is not new or original to copyright/patent law. Take a look at what happens to people selling burglary tools. As in those cases, the question ultimately becomes whether there is a substantial non-infringing purpose and not just some trivial non-infringing purpose.
And, again, I'm not going to take a position one way or another vis-a-vis Google's liability, but it seems pretty clear that general purpose searches and caches are not subject to the same standard as a search whose primary purpose is to direct infringers to their desired content. It's for these reasons Dell, Gate, HP, Compaq, Apple, etc. would not be subject to indirect infringement even though absent the computers they sold the would-be infringers may not have had the ability to infringe.
Frankly, I'm not really sure WHY people are defending these sites.
Copula eame se non posit acceptara jocularem.
Go create more accounts. Some of them seem to be running out of karma, no doubt because Bill Gates is monitoring them.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Allowing companies to be sued for linking to copywrite maiterial is absurd, it goes against the original design of the internet. The internet was created to allow the military and universities to connect to each other for the purpose of making information available. And in the event of a nuclear attack, the information would always be available. The search engines/databases have always been designed to index and categorizes all information, (long before the likes of google) for the purpose of allowing those who use it, to find it fast and to always be dynamic as information grows. While many things may be illegal, we also need to guard our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom from censorship. While I don't endorse downloading of copywrite material, illegal acts, terrorism etc..., I think if we start down this path, it could also lead to governments deciding what else it believes is illegal, or goes against party policies, or religious establishments think is immoral, could be the start of another form of censoring information.
Someone erase Wikipedia, I think I reverted a vandalism on a potentially copyright infringing article.
Explain to me how www.warezforfree.com or similar sites are a grey area?
you know the ones, listing hundreds or thousands of pre-categorised hollywood movies and big budget commercial video games.
show me how that's a grey area.
and *I* am the fanatic? you people will rationalise any kind of criminal behaviour, even support thepiratebay and its right wing criminal financial backers, if you think it justifies torrenting 'heroes'.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Dude, your sarcasm detector is broken. A sure sign you've been flaming too long. Better dial it back, or you'll end up like twitter!
I can't wait for the AA's to go after Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines. When the AA's are successful, Congress and the courts will have to rethink things when all the search engines shut down for a couple of days to eliminate all those offending links.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Does this mean there will be no more project playlist for my Myspace page!? :(
IMHO, "Once they get their foot in the door..." typifies "slippery slope."
You were advocating that we stay away from the edge of the slope, extending the "slippery slope" metaphor in a different direction. I'm pointing out that we don't KNOW where the edge is... you can stay clear of anything you could possibly imagine being a problem, and still discover that you were on the slope all along.
If there is no difference between a "slippery slope" and a "slippery trapdoor" then you can't stay away from the edge.
I do understand that congress caused the current problems with changes to IP law, but they remain the best path to pursue correction of the problem. [...] I was hoping to catalyze some to action.
What, by arguing that the honest man has nothing to fear?
Thanks, Macthorpe. Your continued efforts on behalf of the truth are appreciated.
Twitter's just so fucking sleazy! I truly hope he never switches to a Mac...
The party agrees with you!
Only you would know. Gnutoo has not posted since you mod bombed the account. That's a nice little confession on your part but everyone already knew. Do you feel like a moron yet?
Why do you think **AA have settled most cases out of court in their favor?
Was it because of the legal merits of their case, or because of the effective tactics of their legal team. I know where my money is.
On the other hand, you're very specific about what you're doing.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Awesome. Back in August of 2007, I called Superbowl XLII and prophesied that there would be an earthquake in China this year. You can see the date of my journal entry, so clearly I can blog about Python and predict the future.
Just who do you think you're fooling?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
INTERNET FIGHT!!
Posting on Slashdot is really important and you should get worked up over it.