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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 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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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 ----
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.
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.
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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?
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