Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Court Rules Hyperlinks Can Constitute Infringement
Ubi_NL writes "In yesterday's ruling of Playboy (via publisher Sanoma) vs Dutch blog Geenstijl, the court ruled that hyperlinking to copyrighted material was itself infringement of copyright. The court ordered the blog to remove all links to the infringing links (court ruling in Dutch). How this ruling fits into the supreme court ruling that hyperlinks cannot by themselves infringe copyright is still to be discussed, possibly in an appeal."
The court considered if the publishing of the hyperlinks by GeenStijl.nl constituted a publication (Dutch: ‘openbaarmaking’) as defined in article 12 of the Dutch Copyright Act. In principle, placing a hyperlink on a website is not a publication, unless three criteria are met: there must be an intervention, a new audience and profit.
- Intervention: The leaked pictures of Britt Dekker were stored on FileFactory.com, a cloud service to store files and share them with others. However, these files can’t be found through search engines, only users with the exact URL have access to the files. The URL to the file with the leaked pictures was publicly unknown, until GeenStijl.nl made it available to its large audience by publishing an article about it, the court says. Therefore, the actions of GeenStijl.nl are an intervention, according to the court. Without this intervention, the public wouldn’t have had access to the pictures before their official publication in Playboy.
- New audience: According to the court, there wasn’t an audience for the pictures before GeenStijl.nl published its article.
- Profit: By publishing the URL to the pictures, GeenStijl.nl had the unmistakable intention to attract more visitors, the court states. With success: in 2011, the article about Dekker was the best viewed topic on GeenStijl.nl, according to the statistics.
Taking the three criteria and the circumstances of this specific case into account, the court concludes that GeenStijl.nl has infringed on Sanomas copyrights by publishing the URL to the leaked nude pictures of Britt Dekker.
I'm not very clear on the jurisdiction of the Dutch court - but if hyperlinking equals infringement ruling only applies on sites which are hosted on Dutch servers, this will effectively make Dutch servers sort of the "untouchable"
Why would anyone want to host their sites on a Dutch server where court ruling such as puts on insane and unnecessarily limit?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Those pesky search engines keep linking to my web pages without permission.
First all your websites have to put an annoying message at the top saying they are using cookies (duh, who doesn't).
Now this.
So Dutch courts protect Security by Obscurity?
No surprises here. Judges have as much of a clue of those things as the sec department in my company. Oh, wait...
"However, these files can’t be found through search engines, only users with the exact URL have access to the files"
trolololo:
https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Afilefactory.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=site:filefactory.com+filetype:zip&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=QUX&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&filter=0&fp=1&biw=1440&bih=770&cad=b&sei=Gd9RUKvyD-mc0QWBmoCQDA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&sei=2fRSUNy8KKGm0QWOroH4Cw
https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Afilefactory.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:filefactory.com+720p&oq=site:filefactory.com+720p&gs_l=serp.3...4732.8524.4.9049.5.5.0.0.0.0.365.1238.0j3j0j2.5.0...0.0...1c.1.B59GNHkYEVg&pbx=1&fp=1&biw=1067&bih=493&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&cad=b&sei=2_RSUOvGGqet0QWXrICoCw
https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Afilefactory.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:filefactory.com+HD&oq=site:filefactory.com+HD&gs_l=serp.3...27593.28006.8.28612.2.2.0.0.0.0.86.123.2.2.0...0.0...1c.1.cBIjdvh2Hig&pbx=1&fp=1&biw=1067&bih=493&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&cad=b&sei=3fRSUL6iBM2Z0QX2koCoDw
Unfortunately it doesn't seem that new, there's also the judge Chris Hensen who happened to be running a commercial anti-piracy together with the council for the plaintif while deciding that links to TPB should be blocked.
Frankly I suspect it's rare with members of the various parts of the judicial system in the field of IP who do not have significant financial interest in enforcing IP. Whether it's revolving door interest or more blatant abuses the field of government granted monopolies has always been lucrative for those on the inside, which probably makes the field very attractive for those with slightly lower ideals than what could be expected in a judiciary.
Have Google check and filter _everything_ because of this ruling.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Is she the illegitimate love child of Karl Malden? That's the most distracting schnozz I've seen on a woman in a while.
Lawyers totally depend on security through obscurity. Laws are deliberately made made vague and obscure, thus providing job security for lawyers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If I link to http://mysite.com/It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach. that could be copyright infringement in a URL.
A solution easily presents itself: just link to a google search.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Hyperlinks are just references. Just like we have done so far in speeches, in books and articles.
References don't contain the referenced information, they just direct the reader/listener to another "information container".
Back to the web technology, a reference to a file is not the file itself (like the information author+title+publisher is not the book).
A reference to a "pirated" file (whatever the content is) is still a reference, not the "pirated" file.
You could say the reference helped the pirated file to be spread on the net. Yes, indeed it did.
But still that's not infringement. They should ash to remove the reference and that'd be all.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
And farting in bed can constitute an oven.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
So linkin2 http://wikipedia.org/ is infringement :-))
SZERVÃC Attila -
Apparently, common sense isn't a requirement for a judge in the Netherlands. Here's what should have happened:
Judge: Your client made these files accessible on the world-wide web?
Lawyer: Yes your honor.
Judge: Without any sort of access control, like a login procedure or some such?
Lawyer: Yes your honor.
Judge: And now they're complaining that someone linked to them?
Lawyer: Yes your honor.
Judge: Please inform your client that he is an idiot. Case dismissed. *Bang*!
Indeed. For the life of me, I can't understand what twisted logic and absence of technical knowledge is required to come up with many of the internet-related ruling these past few years. I keep hearing them, and think, "Surely you jest!" But no, they're actually being serious.
Constantly explaining the facts of life to people who really do live in bubbles is slowly eroding my own sense of sanity. "Do our thinking for us, but let us have veto control over it in case what you're saying displeases us" -> Gah!
I am John Hurt.
I think this is an extremely interesting case. My first reaction was a typical knee-jerk don't touch my free hyperlinking speech! However, this goes further than that.
What has happened here, is that a URL was used that was effectively just as secure as one secured by a username/password. Only difference is that the username/password (or in this case another secret key, which is a mere technicality) were in the URL itself. The reasoning of the judge was that by publishing this secret, Geenstijl has effectively published the material that was protected by the secret. I think that's not that odd a decision. However, it is a very dangerous one.
What this boils down to, is whether the location of credentials should matter. One thing we all agree on, is that username and password passed in HTTP headers should be considered confidential. Using or publishing them without permission is most certainly illegal in most countries. Should a secret key or credentials that are part of or can technically be made part of a URL be treated in the same way? I think they should in obvious cases; for example using or publishing an url like http://slashdot.org/login?user=zmooc&pass=yo without my permission would probably be illegal. How obviously secret does an URL have to be for publishing it to be illegal? And who is to decide on that?
That's what this case is about or at least should be about.
0x or or snor perron?!
Y-Y, so e.g. linkin2 http://wikipedia.org/ is infringement :-)
SZERVÃC Attila -
It's not though. Wilfully linking to material that infringes copyright can, in certain circumstances, also be considered copyright infringement. Linking to CC or GPL content is legal because they give explicit permission to be shared.
Did the site actually link to the content or merely reported its URL? Would such a distinction have mattered?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Can't agree more. These links could sit out there for 50 years, and if no one knew about them or no one used them, not a single case of infringement would happen. Simply pointing to 'stolen goods' (I use that term with tongue in cheek) doesn't make the finger pointer guilty of infringement.
It's kind of ridiculous as to the power the media companies are employing in the courts and in the political system.
The scenario is I publish your secret URL on my blog. You then move your files. I then update my blog with the new address. According to the judge, that's an infringement on your copyright.
I really don't see how that can be right. The address of your publication is not the publication, as can be seen by the fact that the address changed, but the content did not. The fact that you consider the address a secret is immaterial from a publishing standpoint, which is what copyright is supposed to be about.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Using credentials without permission is illegal.
. Under what law?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
If I were to create an index of books and movies and told people where they can BUY them, am I guilty of infringing on copyrights?
Clearly, no. We call this "advertising" and it's big business.
"Contributing to the deliquency of..." is not the same as being a delinquent minor is it? We have similar laws which fill similar needs. Why don't they just push for a law which describes what is actually happening rather than harm the law twisting it out of proportion and purpose?
I think it is beyond reason to argue that links to copyrighted works does not aid in the distribution of such materials. But it goes at least equally beyond reason to argue that providing hyperlinks is the same as infringement.
Define the crime better and we can talk.
I think your wild, conspiratorial accusations are completely out of line.
Slashdot and its biases theories aside, there are a lot of grown ups out in the world who have looked at IP law in general and, while perhaps accepting that there are occasional absurdities and oddities around the edges that do need to be worked out, have concluded that it is fundamentally good. They (we) have looked for this from multiple angles, including econonomic theory, economic REALITY (we now have excellent examples of rates of development vs strength of IP regulation - and guess what - IPR does seem to matter quite a bit), and ethics. You may disagree - you may have your own arguments against IPR - fine, fair enough - but for you to immediately proclaim " I suspect it's rare with members of the various parts of the judicial system in the field of IP who do not have significant financial interest in enforcing IP. Whether it's revolving door interest or more blatant abuses the field of government granted monopolies has always been lucrative for those on the inside, which probably makes the field very attractive for those with slightly lower ideals than what could be expected in a judiciary." is irresponsible and juvenile.
COP: Have you seen anyone here selling counterfeit Rolex?
...
Pedestrian: Yeah I saw a guy holding a suitcase of watches just five minutes ago.
COP: Can you point in his direction?
(Pedestrian points)
COP: You are under arrest for copyright infringement!
Judge: GUILTY!
You don't seem to understand how IPR works. As it works in most countries, "infringment" is a judgement call based on intent, amount, use, and so forth. For example, I can link to CNN.com from my homepage. No problem there. However, let's say CNN one day accidentally uses a picture that they dont have the rights to there. Am *I* guilty? no judge in the world would say yes. On the other hand, let's say I make a direct link on my homepage to "get your free copy of (latest hot movie here)" which direct links to a page or actual file on somebody else's site. What this ruling says is that the judge CAN consider this and CAN treat this differently, as damn well he should be able to.
Tech-savy Slashdotters Rule Dutch Court Judgements Can Constitute Sanity Infringement
The law is an ass, and I'm looking at you, those who make and enforce laws and judge cases. I am not holding members of the public who sit on juries blameless when they immorally convict someone for breaking an evil and immoral law.
If we follow your process through to the logical conclusion, then it would imply that the person linking to the content intended to download every linked object, which is patently ridiculous. The person creating the links doesn't necessarily intend to do anything with the links other than to profit from site visits via ads or whatnot.
Note that in both of your examples, you are the one linking to and accessing the IP in question.
This is a dangerous judgement, make no mistake. It opens up any search engine which frankly is an algorithm and not self aware. These just scrape sites and produce the links. There is no 'intent' there.
Yeah, 'cause, you know... pointing to where something is, is the same thing as making a copy of it. Don't you all know that by now? This is why, when someone asks you where the nearest McDonald's is, and you tell them to take a left at the 3rd light, you're making a copy of McDonald's without their permission.
Hey, well as long as you have looked at it from multiple angles and reached a conclusion you must be correct. In fact, I'll bet your facts, logic, and statistical models are unimpeachable. Referring to IPR instead of copyright, trademark, and patent protection was the coupe-de-grace...
there are a lot of grown ups out in the world who have looked at IP law in general and, while perhaps accepting that there are occasional absurdities and oddities around the edges that do need to be worked out, have concluded that it is fundamentally good.
Isn't that the very problem the parent was describing? The judiciary should not be concluding that particular laws are fundamentally good, but applying them indifferently.
If nothing else, more law guarantees more work, so an impartial judiciary would not even celebrate the existence of some body of law.
You just hit the nail on the head, blatant bribery has turned the judicial system into a kangaroo court.
Once upon a time we had this notion called "conflict of interest" where if the judge didn't recuse themselves the superior courts would toss the case and give the judge a good ass chewing to boot. Now it doesn't matter how blatantly the judge is involved with one side, nobody will say squat and the corps know this. Frankly the whole thing is just sickening..
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think your wild, conspiratorial accusations are completely out of line.
The problem is: we don't know. The legal world of IP (judges, lawyers, academia) is pretty small and specialized. The same judges handle the majority of cases, lawyers are also professors. All of them appear on commercial seminars. You can't speak of "wild, conspiratorial accusations" if key players don't try to avoid the suggestion of conflicts of interest.
All we have are the interpretations of law, treaties and precedents. General line: behavior on internet is being molded into the existing IP framework. Specific example from a different case: to the courts there's a difference between a 'link' (not infringing) and a 'deep link' (infringing). That's not to say the every ruling is suspect, in fact most are well researched and well thought even if the conclusion is less desirable, but rulings (and laws, treaties) aren't necessarily realistic, sensible or fair. Judges go far in explaining the law so that, another example, search engines for usenet can be found to be infringing themselves, not just facilitating.
there are a lot of grown ups out in the world who have looked at IP law in general and, while perhaps accepting that there are occasional absurdities and oddities around the edges that do need to be worked out, have concluded that it is fundamentally good.
Here's an oddity to think about: Dutch copyright is based on the exclusive right to publish and multiply a (copyrightable) work. How is that exclusivity possible when talking about computers which do nothing but copying, let alone internet? Is the working of computers and internet "fundamentally" wrong? Or, in this case, is it "fundamentally good" to blame a blog for infringing when it posts a link to leaked material?
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
Isn't deciding this really the job of the legislature? Clarifying new things?
But that would require elected officials to grow balls.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Your naivete is endearing, or at least it would be if there wasn't so much needless BS for people to suffer.
You may disagree - but yes, the system is inherently corrupt, designed to have everyone clawing their way over each other to the top of the heap. Nothing 'conspiratorial', just normal, everyday nature at work. All other systems work precisely the same way. It is universal. It is also a scientifically proven fact that authority WILL be abused. Please, don't try to tell us it is not being so abused in this case, like so many others. That would be absurd. Your society feels that this level of abuse is acceptable. But that doesn't make it any less abusive. If this were 1820, would you be arguing for the property rights of the slave owner? Would you not condemn people if you witness them abusing an animal?
This little 'IP' business must be turned away completely. You seem to believe it's helpful to society, but it's only because it's convenient for you to believe propaganda at this point, for whatever reason.
You teach 'ethics' through guidance and example, not by dictate and prohibition. And you can foment nothing but disrespect when you don't apply the rules evenly, just like a coat of paint.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This ruling is a direct infringement of free speech rights, which I understand is not codified into Dutch law, but it is infringement, much more offensive than that of copyright can ever be. I suspect that you yourself have a dog in this race, as 'IPR' is for the most part, completely indefensible.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Which means if you have ads on your site (or some other member to generate revenue) and you link to anything you do not directly control (most links) then you are risking infrnging. After all whomever does control the content you linked to can block it from showing up in google (after you've linked it) and change the content from something not infringing anyone copyright to something that does.
Of course courts are supposed to see through such cases.
Your post would be so much more insightfull, had it contained real "excellent examples of rates of development vs strength of IP regulation".
"as damn well he should be able to."
from your comments I'm guessing you make your money through IP in some way but not at the coal face actually creating stuff, rather off to the side leeching money away as some sort of manager, lawyer or similar.
Copyright, trademark and patent law aren't all one homogenous mass, they've very seperate covering very seperate things and what can be good in one industry can be toxic in another: like patents applied to software.
IP law isn't whatever you want it to be or whatever would let you get a bigger house.
No he damn well shouldn't be able to any more than he should be if you reference a book which blatantly plagarises others.
That would depend on what jurisdiction you are under.
In NY you have: Article 156 of the penal code.
156.05:
and 156.00.8:
Knowing a username/password combination doesn't make you authorized, you also need permission from the owner. Other states have similar laws, and I would suspect a bunch of other countries do too but I'm not going to attempt an exhaustive search.
Yes and all the things that the 'grown ups' of the world have ever decided were good have been so?
Gee, lawyers & judges would *never* have a vested interested in MORE laws to provide work for themselves. /*cough* bullshit
Sadly Shakespeare's wisdom "The first thing we need to do is kill all the lawyers." won't solve the problem of greed.
Imaginary Property is neither real, nor property. Stop pretending it is, because I have a patent on two *numbers* to sell you ...
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html
The fact that the fashion industry operates without copyright, and the for the last, you know, a few *hundred* *thousand *years* WITHOUT copyright, patents, and trademarks is proof that it is *ONLY* because of greed that we have these legal fictions in the first place.
When are you going to grow up and stop drinking the imaginary Kool-Aid (TM).
There was a time when a number of grown ups out in the world looked at chattel slavery and concluded that it was fundamentally good.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Had this decision been made in 1994 I would have understood that they discuss it, at all.
Seeing this Slashdot headline in 2012 makes me more embarrased than showing off my jewelry in a public bath.
This makes me wonder how ageing those judges were.
Sorry, the credibility of Dutch Courts in this particular case is rated: LOW
You are under arrest for providing with this example, under the doctrine of promoting and assisting crime. /FBI
It's not just happening in courts. Janelly Fourtou, an MEP pushing hard for toughened IP laws, also happened to be the wife of the guy heading up Vivendi Universal - a company that stood to benefit from such changes. Even if there was no intended self-interest, anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with propriety would surely avoid championing IP when she herself has such an obvious self-interest. It's not difficult to come away feeling that her husband switching to a career in sausage making would coincide with Fourtou losing her interest in IP in favour of a sudden and strong interest in laws that favour sausage makers.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
In pretty much every jurisdiction that has updated their laws since the internet was invented.
Accessing a computer without authorization is illegal (pretty much everywhere). Knowing HOW to access the computer does not grant authorization for access. Don't confuse the ability to do something with permission to do it. Otherwise, simply posessing the key to a house would imply permission to enter the house.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Step 1: Post something cool on the internet
Step 2: Wait for people to link to it
Step 3: Change the page to something copywritten
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!
Is 1563649 a prime number?
So someone published pictures on a PUBLIC FACING web server and made no effort to secure that data with an actual password. Instead, they thought they could just use an obscure name and no one would stumble onto the pictures. It is not clear from the article, but it sounds like the uploader was not a rightsholder of the pictures. If that is true, then they certainly committed copyright infringement by making the files available on a public server, even if they thought they could control distribution by using an obscure name. But how does publishing a link to these images constitute infringement? How was the person who created the link supposed to know that the uploader was not a rightsholder of those images? This sounds like a slippery slope and I'm very disappointed in the decision.
Stands for Institution Peculiar.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
ment, because the publisher of the links had commercial gain in doing so. And that's what the 'supreme court' had ruled: publishing of links is not infringement, save in 'special cases'.
The 'specialty' of this case is the commercial interest in publishing the links, and the fact that this action actually released the pictures into the greater public.
So the general 'supreme court' ruling that linking is not publishing still stands, except for this special case.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
If a site with links to violating material is in violation, then links to that site are in violation. The ruling is absurd on its face because if you follow it you could get "death by Bacon" on the Internet. OK, I really didn't have much to say here. I was just looking for an excuse to write "death by Bacon".
Oh, and everyone is a terrorist pirate. Please report to the nearest public school football stadium for um... west nile vaccine. Yeah... that's it. Vaccine...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"... losing her interest in IP in favour of a sudden and strong interest in laws that favour sausage makers." ... losing her interest in IP in favour of a sudden and strong interest in laws that flavour sausage makers.
FTFY
emt 377 emt 4
Since you seem to have missed the point entirely, I repeat these words again: intent, amount, and use.
The law is not a software algorithm. It is evaluated by rational individuals using principles and guidelines., not hard and fast rules. Your "to it's logical conclusion" claim is slippery slope tail end nonsense that does not apply.
Heh. You are so wrong it hurts. But thanks for the speculate character assassination.
...Dutch web surfers found all hyperlinks removed and that the world wide web was flat text. Pity them.
Fuck you and your condescending attitude. Free speech is more important than copyright. Period.
Free speech is the freedom to say what you want without government censorship, not the freedom to copy other people's works and not pay for them. They are two different things.
You may well believe that it is perfectly legitimate to copy anything you are able to, but that is nothing to do with free speech.
It's a bit like how copyright infringement!=theft, as people love to point out here.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you knew anything about economics at all, you'd support the free market by advocating that copyright be abolished
How can it be a fucking market, free or otherwise, when you don't intend to pay anything?
The people producing music, writing or whatever release their works, and you copy them. There's nothing to do with economics going on, there's no trading, no swapping of goods for money or goods for other goods.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
We're not even talking about copying others works here. We're talking about providing a how-to. That is clearly free speech which is being suppressed by the Dutch government.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
All the site providing the links need to do is to include "password=xyz" in the URL and call it a "secret link". If the logic is that the published URL with the password somehow infringed the original copyright, then publishing the link TO the forum will also constitute the infringement as well. By that logic, Google will be guilty of infringement if it indexes the sites with "password=xyz" in the URL. And the forum site could say "sorry, your Honor, we intended the site to be password protected, yeah the implementation sucks, but we cannot be guilty by your previous ruling!"
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Do you think that might have happened in this case then?
Seems that if this was the case, they might have mentioned it at some point. And I presume the court would have required the plaintiff to demonstrate this was not the case.
Law isn't as stupid and inflexible as you seem to think. This is one of the reasons we still have humans interpreting it.
There are allot of grown ups who will also go and buy the iPhone 5 today based entirely on the marketing they have seen without ever asking a fundamental question of "Is this a good idea".
... was locked down to one company, in 100 years there was barely any innovation (from 1876 to 1976 the phone pretty much worked and looked the same, a train even 20 years later had major improvements) until the breakup of that monopoly after that, you can see the major transformation in the phone in just a short 40 years.
IP laws are designed to help entrenched economies not new and developing ones, as such that a "new" market has a phase with little IP law surrounding it and rapid expansion in technology. It is worth comparing two technologies that appeared around the same time: The Steam Locomotive and the Telegraph. The Telegraph was no more or less expensive to build out to every community then a rail line. However, the steam engine did not suffer from many patents, and very few of the mechanics of it were patented (air brakes being the most popular invention and patented by Westinghouse however a train didn't "need" them it was a safety issue and ultimately a cost issue -- less accidents means more money). Telegraph and Telephone (its successor) where locked up into a single monopoly due to heavy patents. The railroad expanded rapidly with over 180 railroad companies at the peak and rapid innovation created lots of jobs (see recent times to the rise of the computers and the overall lack of patents until recently that created many of the companies now fighting each other).
The phone on the other hand
Imagine for a moment if the Wright Brothers could have gotten a look and feel patents for having an engine and two wings one on top of the other, as you can see there is no wright aviation company because although they got the initial idea they had a very hard time improving on it why you might ask? because they were over protective of their patent. Imagine if they could have locked down the whole industry with the kind of patents that are allowed today (on the plus side we would never have needed TSA)
Most people who do substantive research on this find that very few emerging technologies were helped by patents, however many monopolies, or large corporations were very much protected with the use of IP laws as they helped maintain the status quo.
not to be an ass...well yes, actually that is why im doing it, but, devil's advocate time cause i see a lot of hyperbole and little content!
"It is also a scientifically proven fact that authority WILL be abused."
where? by whom? show me the study.
"If this were 1820, would you be arguing for the property rights of the slave owner? Would you not condemn people if you witness them abusing an animal?"
burn straw man! burn!
"it's only because it's convenient for you to believe propaganda at this point, for whatever reason."
now you're telling the witness what he actually saw.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If a lawyer includes a text link to a website in a court filing, are they required to obtain permission from the site author to do so or be guilty of copyright infringement?
Can a future owner of that website rescind permission?
Do either of those answers change if the court filings are digitized and made available electronically through a website owned by the Dutch court system?
Surely nobody's safe from accusations of anything ever. If someone accuses you of something then you need to defend yourself.
show me the study.
Start with the Stanford Prison Experiment. That's a very famous one. That, and many others document the known facts of unchecked authority.
You simply use 'strawman', and 'show me a study' to deflect attention away from a perfectly valid question.
now you're telling the witness what he actually saw.
Yes, and did you know that everything you see is upside down? It's true... look it up. Now, if the brain has to perform that trick day in and day out, just imagine all the other tricks it pulls on all the senses to keep you from being seasick and throwing up all the time. And do try to understand the power of corruption, and the corruption of power. They are a matched set. Not really separable.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Is this extensible to prosecute any reference to copyrighted material as a crime? It sure looks that way..
Organization? You must be joking..
Is he linking to content? Then ya its infringement, if hes linking to the playboy home page thats not infringement and playboy should pay for any new customers that came from that link. But what i think doesn't matter, im not a lawmaker but i do VOTE.
Jack of all trades,master of none
"Free speech is the freedom to say what you want without government censorship, not the freedom to copy other people's works and not pay for them. They are two different things.
And when is the government saying you can't copy something not government censorship? Patents and copyright are direct violations of free speech as you have defined it as the government is censoring information, the content and reasons are irrelevant.
I think your wild, conspiratorial accusations are completely out of line.
Slashdot and its biases theories aside, there are a lot of grown ups out in the world who have looked at IP law in general and, while perhaps accepting that there are occasional absurdities and oddities around the edges that do need to be worked out, have concluded that it is fundamentally good.
They are fundamentally wrong.
The absurdity and oddity is at the CORE of this thing:
1) Copies of things in computers have no intrinsic value. You gain nothing of value when you create them, and lose nothing of value when you destroy them.
2) Copyright grants an exclusive right to make copies.
3) Copyright, on computers, gives an exclusive right to sell something that has no value
Only access has value. Making copies is a great way to grant access, but everyone can do that part by themselves for free now, for anything digitizable. We don't need to pay someone to do that anymore.
Old business models in this new enviroment are insane at a base level: pay out-of-pocket for the valuable part, the creation of the work, and then try to recoup costs by selling value-free copies of the work that anyone can create with a twitch of their finger. Fucking bizarre.
They (we) have looked for this from multiple angles, including econonomic theory, economic REALITY (we now have excellent examples of rates of development vs strength of IP regulation - and guess what - IPR does seem to matter quite a bit), and ethics.
When you look at it from a computer science reality angle, you run into an insurmountable problem: Bits don't have "Colour" can't be made to have "Colour"; the property doesn't exist in Computerland. Yet IP law is absolutely 100% "Colour" dependent.
Solution: Break one of the following things: IP Law, Computers. Your pick.
You may disagree - you may have your own arguments against IPR - fine, fair enough - but for you to immediately proclaim " I suspect it's rare with members of the various parts of the judicial system in the field of IP who do not have significant financial interest in enforcing IP. Whether it's revolving door interest or more blatant abuses the field of government granted monopolies has always been lucrative for those on the inside, which probably makes the field very attractive for those with slightly lower ideals than what could be expected in a judiciary." is irresponsible and juvenile.
Somebody hit a nerve?
IPR will remain broken as long as it remains so deeply fixated on trying to monetize copies. Patent and trademark law will be a lot better off without that albatross around their necks.
we now have excellent examples of rates of development vs strength of IP regulation - and guess what - IPR does seem to matter quite a bit
"Strength" generally translates to persecuting more / doling out tough punishments. Have there been any studies that instead look at what is the effect of narrowing down scope of IP (e.g. restricting software patents), or shortening patent & copyright terms? If not, then your argument doesn't fly.
...as they get sued out of existence. Just about everything in their indexes is copyrighted!
I'm Erwin Schrodinger and I approve of this message, and I do not approve of this message!
Are you kidding? The whole internet is based on linking.
If every link had to secure written permission and licensing from any target before linking to it -- it would cripple the web.
I really didn't think the Dutch were stupid...was he bought out?
Linking to something is the verbal equivalent of visually pointing at something. You can't visually point at something in a verbal media, but hotlinking to it is the closest human analog. To claim that such is illegal is attempting to deny the basic human right to communicate.
Only under a despotic regime could such a ruling stand (meaning more that I believe the ruling will be overruled than anything else).
1. When you use the term "grown ups" are you accusing the other people here of being childish? 2. It' important also to note that there are also people out there who are not opposed to _all_ copyright, but opposed rather to its continuous expansion.