Man Arrested For Linking To Online Videos

SonicSpike writes "In a case against a New York website owner, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is claiming that merely linking to copyrighted material is a crime. DHS, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seized Brian McCarthy's domain, channelsurfing.net, in late January. The site has now been replaced with a government warning: 'This domain has been seized by ICE — Homeland Security Investigations, Special Agent in Charge, New York Office.' The advocacy group Demand Progress has claimed that McCarthy never reproduced copyrighted material, and that his website simply linked to other sites. A criminal complaint obtained by the group seems to acknowledge that agents knew that McCarthy was running a 'linking website.' While the criminal complaint alleges that McCarthy did engage in the 'reproduction and distribution' of copyrighted material, it is never clear that he actually reproduced any of the specified broadcasts." McCarthy was arrested last week. Relatedly, TorrentFreak has posted a list of reasons why these domain name seizures are unconstitutional.

Comments

DHS

[denshao2]

Why is copyright infringement an issue of homeland security?

Re:DHS

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is copyright infringement an issue of homeland security?

Because posting a link is terorism!

Re:DHS

[Runaway1956]

Because Janet Napolitano has little interest in terrorism. She has been bought and paid for by Corporate America, to keep the sheeples in line with their vision of the future. Napolitano has prostituted herself and her agency to Big Business. She, and Big Business got around the constitution by claiming that pirated music and software are "counterfeit" music and software. Somehow, in their perversion of the concept of justice, the counterfeiting of music is on a par with counterfeiting United States currency.

I once thought that all this nonsense was the brainchild of the neoconservatives - but today's "liberal" party keeps right on with the rape of the United States constitution. Wait til the final version of ACTA comes out. It will most likely give ICE the authority to exterminate entire family trees based on a suspicion that members of the family have counterfeited a music track.

Re:DHS

[Technician]

Why isn't Google, MSN, Yahoo, and anyone else who has a search engine functioning under arrest? Almost all content they list in their results is copyrighted.

I think someone has applied a very narrow filter to copyrighted content.

Making the Same Bad Assumptions, Over and Over

[Unka Willbur]

Looks like TorrentFreak is making the same bad assumption that most US citizens continue to make. That is, assuming that "constitutional" matters one whit anymore to the US government or the people who run it.

The taxpayers can afford this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The annual deficit is $1,400,000,000,000. and they are wasting money on crap like this?

One of the big steps in the progression

[TaoPhoenix]

This is it folks.

Notice that the summary talks about "linking to videos". However, as we now know, both words and pics of any kind are copyrighted from the moment someone creates them. Reply with Quote? Look! It's a copy! Hotlinking pics? Linking!

For the third time I'll float my "subset" theory. They started small with "SomeGuy" (subset of everyone) and "SomeCategory" (videos, subset of all copyrighted items). This has the effect of keeping people looking at trees and not forests, and posts which deal with the grand plan get downmodded.

Linking to copyrighted works? If they can convince the Supreme Court to let this stick, there's the Ice Cannon they want to use againt the entire web. We're beyond copies now. If you can't link to anyone at all, ever, (because it's not you, and all items are copyrighted instantly), then forget Net Neutrality, that is the end of the net.

Re:You clearly don't know why Customs is involved.

[Runaway1956]

Well - we differ on our view of government, I suppose. Have you looked at how ACTA is being handled by the US government? Until recently, even the existence of the discussions was secret, and the content of those discussions top secret. Who is discussing, anyway? RIAA, MPAA, and other alphabet soup people - not people, or civil liberties organizations, or even constitutional lawyers, or lawyers of any other type. (sure, there are lots of lawyers involved, each representing the interests of one corporation, or group of corporations or another) There aren't even any lawyers from academia involved. It's all corporate run.

But, you bring up a way of looking at things that I had neglected. The government has been pretty nearly insolvent for most of my life (over 5 decades now) so they need SOME way of making money. Doesn't matter how wrong and immoral the methods might be - they need to make money to avoid bankruptcy.

Well, I'm prepared to do my part. I'll get in line, right behind the Baby Boomers to get my euthanasia shot, so that the Social Security pyramid scheme doesn't have to pay me anything. Where's that line again?