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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.
This will break the internet.
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.
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
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.
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'
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
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?
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.
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
Personal and verbatim, non commercial copy should be allowed.
And commercial copying should simply be taxed and the revenues handed to the creator of the copied work (to the extent with which such creative works need to be funded and monetized beyond other incentives). The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information. It needs to go.
It's annoying that many politicians in capitalistic countries can see the economic market damage created by state-run monopolies, but somehow fail to acknowledge the same damage caused when you hand out state-sponsored monopolies to private interests.
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
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.
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
Except that *linking* should NOT be considered a crime, regardless of how you view IP rights.
That is as bad as simply writing a book on how to make an explosive device and being sued into nonexistence.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
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)
The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information.
The whole monopoly aspect is what controls and channels wealth and information. This doesn't have anything to do with protecting the artists, it has everything to do with protecting the artist's overlords ability to control and profit from the artists in their stable.
We are all just people.
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
The geek is libertarian only when it suits his convenience.
Taxation on distribution is the simplest way to control content and production.
The market doesn't set the price, the tax code sets the price.
The monopoly passes to the state and what the state doesn't want to see on the shelves doesn't go on the shelves - because no one can afford to buy it.
Mixed economies like those of the United States have been remarkably successful in generating wealth and and encouraging the free flow of information.
In ten years, J.K. Rowling moved from welfare to being richer than the Queen of England. That didn't stop other writers from claiming a significant share of the juvenile market.
The Harry Potter films became a training ground for a generation of young actors and a world showcase for veterans of the London film and stage.
Harry Potter is uniquely British - like The Avengers or James Bond - and its value to the UK as a cultural export can't be measured simply in pounds or dollars.
its because your quote fails exactly at that point.
musicians and movie makers have never been compensated for the work they do. musicians have been given few cents over $20 worth single album sales by the distributors, and told to go on unending world tours in order to earn money for themselves. this has been going on for aeons.
same goes for movies. directors, actors get much more cut from movie sales, but then again the lion's cut goes to people who do nothing but monopolize the distribution effectively.
we are paying zillions of dollars to people that do not generate any added value into the music/movie.
i wouldnt give a damn, if they were not also harming, damaging the ability of the creative crowd to distribute their own stuff. but situation has been so that up to today, if you havent been able to sign your soul out to a big distributor, noone knew your music, your art, your small films. but then internet came and alternative distribution became possible. good. things were going to change. but then big buck distributors started to try attempts in hampering those distribution methods, because they pose a great danger to their own monopoly - people being able to do distribution independently - holy cow, what kind of heresy.
so, this point is the point where your argument breaks down. those people not only damaging a business sector, but in general damaging the creative development of human civilization, for they have a bigger power than they are worth.
Read radical news here
I have no embarassment whatsoever in telling musicians and moviemarkers that they've cultivated a disgusting and immoral entitlement mentality in expecting to get paid for the rest of their lives for each work they produce.
I'm a software developer. I write thousands of lines of code every year. I've probably written well in excess of a million lines of code since I started doing this. And you know what? I was paid for writing each one of those, with no expectation of continuing profits until I die. I can point to lots and lots of places where the people that employed me made quite a bit of money from my code. I really don't have a problem with that, even though I'd say that the majority of programmers, tech writers, and other creative folks who produced copyrighted work for hire provide a lot more benefit to society that the majority of musicians and filmmakers. Why should some high-school dropout with no useful skills other than wailing (off-pitch, no less) into a microphone expect to be any different? Similarly, why should any corporation expect that?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It might as well be. There have already been two copyright extension acts, and the Supreme Court has decided that there is no upper bound on the number of extensions. Yes, perpetual is the right word.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
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.
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 ----
I dunno... why should there be perpetual ownership of property.
This doesn't answer my question. I am a voter. I want to know what I am getting out of granting, for example Disney, the exclusive right to copy and distribute hundred year old cartoons. Convince me.
After all, I am strangely colored.
One more thing. To the person who dies before the copyright expires it is certainly perpetual.
Since copyright extends beyond one lifetime then such perpetuity is guaranteed for the vast majority of works and the vast majority of people. Thus, the original words "for limited times" no longer really apply. That means that in practice, the current law is unconstitutional.
Everyone (with time to read a 300-page book) needs to read this life-changing book containing the most comprehensive treatment of intellectual property out there: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinalall.pdf
I used to think copyrights were beneficial before I read it. Now it's clear they are obsolete.
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
yea, youre right. i shouldnt be siphoning off 100% of the remaining 1%. instead i should pay exorbitant rates to cds containing 2 useful songs next to 12 shitty ones, and feeding the existing system so we all can get exploited gloriously.
Read radical news here
you have confused DISTRIBUTION with PRODUCTION.
Read radical news here
"Most musicians are not being paid up front"
The vast majority of professional musicians are paid a fixed hourly rate, and have to start looking for work again when a particular job is finished. People tend to use the term "musician" as a synonym for "artist signed to a record company" despite the fact that this is actually a very small proportion of musicians, just as a very small proportion of actors get to charge exorbitant fees for being in a movie.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
The vast majority of professional musicians are paid a fixed hourly rate, and have to start looking for work again when a particular job is finished.
This.
Whenever I did a pit orchestra or other contract gig, I negotiated a fee per-performance (not hourly, but it's basically the same thing) and I knew up front how many performances would be involved, and there were stipulations in the contract regarding the possibility of extra performances and that I was providing a service that I could subcontract out if needed. Contracts where a *specific* performer was required would obviously be better paid due to the restrictiveness of the contract, and the basic "supply and demand" aspect another poster alluded to somewhere along the line.
"Why should an artist not be entitled reap the benefits of the album they recorded?" One could ask the same of any other industry - why doesn't a newspaper reporter or magazine editor get a cut of every copy sold? It's because the recording and film industries (and to some extent, publishing) have developed a ridiculous entitlement mentality that most other industries are grown-up enough to avoid. I really don't have a problem with a limited term of copyright, but what we have now is just totally out of hand. The idea of copyright was to encourage future creativity, not be another form of welfare, and certainly not an endorsement of the ridiculous idea that just because someone thought of something that idea somehow *belongs* to them.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It's gotta be more embarassing to pretend that copyright laws actually help artists make a living.
I can't speak directly for the movie makers, but for a lot of us musicians (and the film-makers I work with) it's a noble crusade, too. Existing business and royalty models based on today's interpretation of copyright fail for musicians. Giving it away is more profitable than selling it, for more artists than not.
The music industry eats its young - the models haven't been broken for years, they've been broken for decades. The only artists served by the "my copyright or wrong" mindset are the mega-stars who are in themselves walking corporations. The savvy artist is learning different rules and making a living.