Swedish Man Fined For Posting Links To Online Video Feeds

hcs_$reboot writes with a snippet from TechDirt (citing TorrentFreak): "Over in Sweden, it appears that a guy has been fined for linking to an online broadcast of a hockey game. We've heard stories of people getting in trouble merely for linking to unauthorized content, but this story is even more ridiculous. The guy wasn't linking to unauthorized content. He was linking to an online video feed from the official broadcaster, Canal Plus. The issue was that Canal Plus was apparently technically incompetent in how they set up the feeds, and never intended to make the feeds public."

Comments

What constitutes unauthorized access?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If something is on the internet, then doesn't that implicitly authorize access?

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Some even ask you to pay to view their public content, or else they will sue. http://news.slashdot.org/news/10/10/27/2134236.shtml

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[Aeternitas827]

If it's unprotected, as seems to be the case here, then that would be the reasonable assumption.

The provider didn't seem to take steps to ensure that their streams couldn't be gotten at by unpaid subscribers--I'd guess that a party so inclined could probably brute-forced URL attempts if they even had a blink at the structure, and gotten in--and got bitten a little bit. Honestly, more their fault, than his.

This begs a second question...was the party who brought suit merely someone who had license to broadcast, or the rights holder for the broadcast? If the former, then I would think this just a farce, because the rights-holder could come around on the license-holder for being incompetent...if the latter, then this is a problem of their own creation; if he found a URL, without ever having been made aware of the Terms of Service or whatnot, it's innocent infringment...in my opinion.

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[Xugumad]

No.

If they linked it from their front page, and said "View the game here", that's implicitly authorising access. If it was hidden behind a badly done pay wall, I think it fairly clearly implies you should be paying first, even if the technical side is a debacle.

Leaving something unprotected is no more implying access than leaving your front door open. It's bloody stupid, but that's another matter entirely...

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[cheekyjohnson]

Sounds reasonable to me. You're using up their bandwidth, and if you don't give them your money, they are losing out on profit that they could, potentially, have had! Do you enjoy hurting people who would have been better off had you given them all of your money (and since you didn't, you stole their potential profit)?

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[silanea]

[...] For example, if you can only get to something by IP Address, it can be implied that it is not "intended" to be public as it was not added to a public facing DNS Server. [...]

Sorry, I have to disagree. If something does not tell me "Not for you!" or require authentication, it is open to the public. Whether that is by intent or accident is the provider's problem. Your example is even more problematic: Every machine (directly) on the internet has a publicly reachable IP address simply by virtue of being on the fucking Internet. Whether it also is reachable via a DNS entry - or even only offers certain content under specific domains - is entirely arbitrary (as far as the visitor is concerned). In essence you suggest that people ought to only use the internet through an "authorised" channel, the DNS. Sorry, that is neither realistic nor particularly desirable.

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[dnaumov]

If it's unprotected, as seems to be the case here, then that would be the reasonable assumption.

To play devil's advocate: the fact that I didn't lock my front door is not a reasonable assumption that I am inviting you to enter my apartment.

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[JustOK]

no, but it's a reason why your insurance claim won't be paid.

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[kainosnous]

I miss the day when computers were for people who could think. I fondly remember that very brief period where businesses hadn't learned how to exploit the web. For the most part, it was a novelty to them and the left it to the nerds. Sure, at that point the web was a lot of top 10 lists and novelty polls, and most pages had a guest book to sign and a view counter, but that's how we liked it. I'm sure it's all through rose colored glasses, but at least I don't believe we had lawsuits like this.

Re:What constitutes unauthorized access?

[Klinky]

Client/Server works this way. Client requests data, server can grant or not grant access to said data. It's like having a stranger coming up to you and nicely asking(without malice or threats) if you'd like to give them something(money, cellphone, newspaper, the time, etc..) you can say "yes or no". The server granted these people access without them breaking the law. The server could almost be viewed as an extension of the company or under license from the company to make these decisions to stream or not stream. If they had a password on the stream and people cracked it or multiple people were sharing an account authorized for only one stream, then yes that would be against the rules. If it is a public stream going out to anyone who asks, it's pretty much fair game.

Similar thing in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

A map provider sold subscriptions. However their system was a joke. After logging in you would get a URL to the map you wanted. You could pass this URL to non-subscribers and it would work. The map company then sued some real estate company that gave those links to its clients for copyright infringement ... and won.

Security-by-law-suit is the new security-by-obscurity.

Damn it Sweden!

[GF678]

There used to be a time when you'd be able to read a story like this, shake your head, smirk and say/think to yourself: "Only in America".

Now, unfortunately, it's no-longer the case you can make that generalization. The whole world's gone crazy...

Re:Damn it Sweden!

[mikael_j]

As a swede I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in noticing how our politicians and our legal system did a full 180 turn on the TPB issue, at first they actually concluded that it wouldn't be possible to do anything about TPB, then there were a few meetings between members of our government and representatives of the US government as well as the regular lobbyists and all of a sudden TPB was raided...

Not to mention how they've been stretching and bending the law to even make it possible to prosecute the TPB founders, clearly something or someone convinced them that whether or not there was a law broken there had to be convictions.

Re:Damn it Sweden!

[HungryHobo]

the United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of eugenics.
In general, most sterilizations were performed under eugenic statutes, in state-run psychiatric hospitals and homes for the mentally disabled.
over 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states under state compulsory sterilization programs in the United States
though a significant number of sterilizations continued in a few states until the early 1960s
The Oregon Board of Eugenics, later renamed the Board of Social Protection, existed until 1983, with the last forcible sterilization occurring in 1981.

And on a related note the US as late as 1972 poor black men were used in a completely crazy experiment to see how bad their symptoms would get if they weren't told they had syphilis and weren't treated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

As late as the 1950's the UK still chemically castrated gay people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing