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RealNetworks Sues Dutch Webmaster Over Hyperlink To Freeware
An anonymous reader writes "In the ever lasting contest for the most idiotic lawsuit, RealNetworks has sued a Dutch man for posting a link to a competing freeware program that allegedly infringes on RealNetworks' intellectual property. The company also secretly obtained a court order that resulted in confiscation of all computers belonging to the man and his family. The 26-year-old has already incurred over €66,000 in legal fees and if he loses the case, he's facing €210,000 in fines. Where are the Anonymous when you need them?"
So we should make google and other search engines illegal? They link to the "illegal content" all the time and they know it (just try to search for piratebay). Also if i write an article on my blog about file-sharing and include link to the pirate-bay, i shall be prosecuted according to your logic? No! Making linking to dubious content ilegal is serious threat to free speech. Czech pirate party is currently fighting for the right to link by launching the site http://tipnafilm.cz/ where they link to several thousands of copyrighted movies. See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/linking-is-not-a-crime-czech-pirate-party-declares-war-on-anti-piracy-unionlinking-is-not-a-crime-czech-pirate-party-declares-war-on-big-content.ars for more details.
I am considering removing all hyperlinks from my private website and possibly replace them with a link to a Google search that might return the page. Can't risk your life being destroyed nowadays by a stupid hyperlink.
The article title is a bit disingenuous. RealAlternative is NOT freeware. It is simply Real's codecs, repackaged without the adware crap and player software. Now on the scale of copyright infringement this is pretty insignificant, but the codecs are still Real's property and it is their prerogative to decide the terms under which the software is distributed. I'm pretty sure the terms forbid repackaging and redistribution of the codecs.
On the other hand, it's also incredulous that linking is deemed illegal. That's just bullshit. They should go after whoever distributed the repackaged codecs, not people who link to said site.
Actually, I'm not sure RealAlternative is even needed anymore. VLC/ffdshow/ffmpeg support all the RealVideo codecs, and also RealAudio with the single exception of the SIPR codec.