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Free Internet Porn Is Legal, Says California Appeals Court
wdef writes with the lead from a story that may bring you a big sigh of relief: "Free internet porn is not illegal. Nor is it unfairly competing with porn companies who'd rather you paid for your thrills, according to a California Appeals Court, which has dismissed a case against one free site, Redtube.com, as an unfair attack on free speech." Interestingly, this case was brought not by anyone objecting to pornography on moral grounds, but rather by a competitor who reasons that "free" is a hard price to compete with, unless it's against the law.
a million nerds rejoice!
My right hand might be busy
And suing and losing is great Streisand effect publicity. Nicely done
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
In your story, you link to everything else - are you prudes? ;-)
Anyway, where do they get their stuff from? Its free and its not pirated? Hm...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
But hey, you got your own flagpole now.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
They basically argued that for something to be "free as in speech", it has to NOT be "free, as in beer".
There are plenty of other people who feel this way, like the **AAs, the BSA, the AAP etc.
It's time for big business to realize that capitalism does not require anyone to give you money for your offerings.
The article's server or redtube?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Now with all the fuzz about ipv6, can we please have free ipv6 porn again?
Uh, what? Looking at RedTube, it's full of professionally produced porn. I had always assumed they were just pirating the materials they were streaming. Is this not the case?
Downloading now!
The few times I've been to sites like in the article, over half of their material appeared to be scenes ripped from DVDs. I wonder if they have permission from the copyright holders for that stuff. Just seems to be yet another bunch of businesses that profit from stuff illegally uploaded and the amount of time it takes the right-holders to find it and yank it with a DMCA takedown notice.
professional porn producers put in extra effort with things like lighting, camera quality/angles, timing and the physical attributes of the 'models'
sites like xvideo and the like largely consist of amateurs filming themselves in a darkened room with the camera shaking all over the pace.
The professional porn producers should utilise those kind of free sites and offer "teasers". Some of the indie one are doing just that.....
The first time I heard of this lawsuit was yesterday, and I was absolutely appalled at the audacity of the plaintiff to assert that someone providing free porn was illegally undercutting professional porn studios.
Jesus Christ, I'm glad this lawsuit decided turned out the way it did. Think of the precedent it would have set had the plaintiff won. The recording industry could sue indies who release their music under a Creative Commons license, claiming unfair competition. Same with the movie studios and sites like Vodo. Or companies that sell encyclopedias versus Wikipedia. Or hell, Microsoft and Linux.
From the complaint:
"The ubiquitous distribution of free adult videos through redtube.com has had a massive negative impact on the business model of adult website proprietors,. Now that consumers have the ability to watch high quality adult videos for free on redtube.com, fewer are making the choice to pay other adult website proprietors for the same content."
If you have a difficult time competing with free, that's your problem. You have no business whatsoever trying to get the government to interfere on your behalf.
From the judge in TFA:
I was under the impression that rights holders were either paid for the use of their song on the radio, or they paid for it to be played on the radio. In either case, you can't play something on the radio without a license. If this guy holds the copyright to something RedTube streams, he can file a DMCA complaint. If not, he can FOAD.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
*PHEW*
It's time for big business to realize that capitalism does not require anyone to give you money for your offerings.
No, but it works so much better when you can arrange it that way.
Corporations have money, but no political power. Politicians have political power, but no money. It's a "no-brainer win-win" for both sides.
Don't like it? Well, looks like you should have picked your parents with a little more care, doesn't it? Personal Responsibility, FTW!
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Isn't free porn like free email, or free search- the provider can offer a free service and still get paid, i.e. adverts?
Does free porn differ from every other free service that someone out there is pushing a paid for version? How did this even make court, what am I missing?
>>>right hand might be busy
Really? I use my right hand for my mouse. Gotta navigate somehow through those Google Images.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I speak for the collective internet.....2 minutes later.
*FAP*
Porn wants to be sticky, information wants to be free...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Severs for Redtube.com lay in a smoldering puddle as they are Slashdotted to death.
anybody who offers ANYTHING below MY PRICE must be declared illegal.
You see, it doesn't have to be free, it just has to be less expensive than my offering, and presto, it would be illegal.
By the way, from now on I am selling EVERYTHING and ANYTHING costs at least a 1,000,000 dollars a piece or a pound.
You can't handle the truth.
because now my girlfriend won't get sued by a prostitute for doing it for free.
(I'm an AC, because everyone knows that people with accounts here don't have girlfriends)
The mob has no shame--and you better believe they control the for profit porn industry.
It's worth noting here that this lawsuit happened only because of the California Unfair Practices Act, which is a remarkably bad piece of law. The "free porn" provided by Redtube was dumping of product below cost, an act which is considered illegal, not just "unfair" by the law. Not everyone will be able to count on free speech to defend their industry from the stagnating impositions of this law.
Rent seeking is just fine--but only if you meet certain moral standards. Then again, maybe he just didn't do it right. He should try again. First, he needs a lobbying group. Then, he needs extensive regulation of the industry. The regulations should be "for the protection of the performers and the viewing public". The real aim of couse, is for the regulations to be sufficiently complicated so as to require well-paid experts. Several lawyers and maybe an accountant. For bonus points, get unions involved. When that's all done, he can go back and try seeking rent again... oh wait, he already got it and you, dear reader didn't even notice. That's how it's done.
to the site to "check it out", you know, because of professional interest.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Every claim but one got hammered with attorney fees.
The one that got dismissed, but not hit with attorney fees was a claim based on a California statute that bars a vendor from selling or giving a product away for less than the vendor paid for it. Again, the plaintiff lost that one, but the defendant didn't get SLAPP sanctions for that.
SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. Anti-SLAPP laws are enacted to keep people from using crap lawsuits (or fear of them from) stifling free speech.
Reflect back on McDonalds' legal attack on the people who criticized its food. Anti-SLAPP laws are enacted to punish that kind of crap.
Learning to fap with the left hand is a lot tougher than learning to click with it.
...prostitution has been competing against free for thousands of years, and it show no signs of a slowdown.
...radio and broadcast TV are free. Cable, Satellite, and PPV are alive and well.
...there is that whole FOSS thing. Microsoft and Apple just announced they earned how many Billions?
You just need a business model that allows you offer more value than "free".
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
There is precedent. They're called anti-dumping laws.
(whispers to mods) Try "funny".
- Oh an obligatory link to my favorite website: http://www.domai.com/ and http://www.goddessnudes.com/
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Redtube.com? *adds bookmark*
looks like suicide is off the table.
The porn, will set you free!! hahaha Already done with this afternoon's whack! See you tonite harry hand! hehe
Free porn? I'll be out in a few minutes.
all i can say is thank god
. . . to which I'm looking forward. I can see the headline now; "February 3, 2016, California Appeals Court rules that Free Internet Porn is a basic human right."
Lawsuits like this see people in sticky situations, it is going to be tedius to clean up this mess. Coincidentally, the same can be said for the effects of visiting Red tube.
. .
A pay site with only images, huh? That makes me feel nostalgic.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Then grabbed a sock.
--- Need web hosting?
You're joking, but information/music/porn... these are all deeply human activities. Most people intuitively know that music should be free, that information should be free... and that love should be free (hence why there's so much villification of porn/prostitution). Maybe the common thread of free access/speech showing up in each is indicative of a deeper threads in common.
Or, another way of putting it is: maybe the RIAA and MPAA really are whores.
I mean, if you try to sell porn across state lines, some overzealous, butthole-of-a-sheriff in Florida might extradite you for obscenity charges.
In the 1960's we used to say:
Ass, gas or grass ... nobody rides for free!
The sites only free because it's covered in advertising. If that were illegal, wouldn't that make the entire internet illegal?
I prefer the left, counters the curve in my junk.
Free as in Pr0n, not as in beer!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I thought that paid porn, via credit card, was sort of a safeguard against children watching porn. ... for free! What a concept. It's reverse child porn.
Free porn means children can access it
The porn may be free but the palm-hair-removal will cost you!
Graduate to both. Very simulatory.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Especially after the Andy Pettite retirement news.
Tubesock
"...my right hand for my mouse. Gotta navigate somehow through those Google Images."
My machine has a speech interface for that as I often need both hands free and yes, I'm really lazy too. /humor
Something to fill up my 24TB of Raid-5 Storage.
The defendant has proven their claims with no arguments needed. The previous thousands of decisions based on the two above laws were UTTER BULLSHIT. The plaintiff has not proven that they were substantially harmed and the business model from which they were based does not grant them a perpetual license to make money. Therefore the motion to dismiss is granted and plaintiffs will have to pay legal costs upon appeal. Case closed.
I wonder hHow could we celebrate this victory?
Whores have been trying to get an arrangement like that for years. Or was it wives?
I'm so confused.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Whyt he fuck does the new system, in your "Comments" section for your account, take you to the parent conversation when you click on it instead of your fucking post? It's very stupid, is this some new "default" functionality I need to turn off? Seriously, why would I want to dig through a conversation tree looking for _my_ post, instead of being taken right to it?
Kid-proof tablet..
So now instead of saying "Free, as in beer", everyone's going to start saying "Free, as in p0rn"...
My
Free pornography funded by the government should be illegal, however, as should free software.
After a few years, maybe you could get underwear with this printed on the front:
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The law got my respect. And by all means a fine site if I may say so!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
They may be able to give away their product for free and thus undercut their competition, but not once their servers are brought down by a good old-fashioned slashdotting. I expect similar articles over the next days and weeks, each containing the name of only one porn website, and mentioning that the merchandise is free there.
or if you're being silly. Just in case someone reads this and does miss it by a mile, the Republicans push Personal Responsibility in their rhetoric while using the silver spoon in their mouths to escape the consequences of their actions. Compare the single mom with 3 bogus diploma mill degrees who blames herself for being unemployed to the guys running Goldman Sachs.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Free isn't always free. I think the company that sued didn't have much of a case, but with some more research and better lawyers? Who knows. Put another way, if Walmart was giving away cosmetics at cost to put their smaller competitors out of business, would you have a problem with that?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sarcasm ... do you speak it? :-)
Wikipedia, FTW:
"Tongue-in-cheek: Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is ironically intended and it should not be taken at face value..."
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Seriously, I'd rather pay someone to beat children with a sack of door knobs than pay for porn. If they guy wants money he should pick a career where people aren't happy to give up the goods for free.
I may live to regret choosing this title; what I mean, of course, is that this is hard dilemma, legally speaking. No, honest.
I mean, if the court makes it illegal to give away valuables for free, what would happen to charity? Or giving free samples as part of advertising? Etc etc. There was never any way this could stand up in court. Oops, sorry sorry, I mustn't get carried away.
If this were a case of free movies and free music the outcome would've been different...
I thought the first amendment covers what comes out of your mouth, not what goes into it :-)
yet another case of "oh no, my business model is obsolete and inferior to someone else's, I had better sue them". Doesn't the US have frivolous lawsuit statutes for this kind of case?
(whispers to mods) Try "funny".
- Oh an obligatory link to my favorite nudity site: http://www.domai.com/ and http://www.goddessnudes.com/ (Note there's no need to pay since he gives hundreds of images away for free.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Well, porn is information. You know, all that stream of ones and zeroes and whatnot? Well, that and without it a bunch of us would have no idea what a naked woman looks like. That's information, right? :p
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Flagpole?
A bit too optimistic, I'd say.
Sex is one of the few things you can give away but not sell.
He is lucky the court did not decide that should be the way with pron too.
The internet has porn? For free? Gee gods! Why didn't anyone tell me sooner... all this time I have been jerking off to slashdot articles... mmm cmdrtaco, oh yeah! Mod me baby!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
why couldn't I be on this case.
..in toilet tissue and baby oil. (Of course California will tax it %200 now)
Joe Investor
Oral sex is an attack on free speech!