$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."

Comments

Copywrong.

[Odder]

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.

Re:Google is likely to sued real soon as well as m

[palegray.net]

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. No, they can't filter without running a much higher risk of being held responsible for the content. 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.

Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers.