Linking Is Not Copyright Infringement, Boing Boing and EFF Tell Court (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The popular blog Boing Boing has asked a federal court in California to drop the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it by Playboy. With help from the EFF, Boing Boing argues that its article linking to an archive of hundreds of centerfold playmates is clearly fair use. Or else it will be "the end of the web as we know it," the blog warns. Late last year Playboy sued the popular blog Boing Boing for publishing an article that linked to an archive of every playmate centerfold till then. "Kind of amazing to see how our standards of hotness, and the art of commercial erotic photography, have changed over time," Boing Boing's Xena Jardin commented. Playboy, instead, was amazed that infringing copies of their work were being shared in public. While Boing Boing didn't upload or store the images in question, the publisher took the case to court.

Comments

You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

for promoting copyright infringement

Re:You can still be liable

[Fancy Feast Cat Food]

Also, just because the EFF says something doesn't mean that it's true per se.

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

Secondary liability should not exist.

Re:You can still be liable

[Tenebrousedge]

Do explain the legal basis for this.

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a very stable genius, Anonymous Coward. Do you have your own podcast per chance? I'l like to subscribe.

Re: You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree. Espesially because those with big pockets will never be liable anyway.

Re: You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

So my ISP is liable then too? How about Google for returning the link? Where does it stop? Is Playboy responsible for not protecting their product? Is sharing a link illegal?

Re:You can still be liable

[Man On Pink Corner]

Also, wasn't this question settled by the 2600 Magazine case?

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still be liable for promoting copyright infringement

Not when you have permission from the copyright holder to distribute the work in question.

Playboy is the copyright holder, and playboy is distributing the works under copyright.
Playboy has given themselves permission to do this.

So no, you can't really claim playboy is infringing their own copyright here.

Boing boing isn't distributing anything at all. They are pointing to playboys distribution of the works and saying you need to get it from playboy.

Re:You can still be liable

[Falos]

Then slashdot should be liable since they also made me aware it exists.

Or, in your preferred term for an event comprising that action, "promoted".

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

So web site links are the art now?
Art is so bs these days people act like it was made by god/gods and must be treated like it is holy.
A person puts a pair of glasses on gallery floor and people start to evaluate it and take pictures of the bold art piece so pathetic.
People who cannot even hope to sell their trash are called an artist no talent is required any more.

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. That argument is not going to fly. Playboy's complaint is that BoingBoing linked to some third party's unpermitted copy of the files. From a quick glance through the complaint, it wasn't evident who that third party is, but the answer appears to be imgur.

I have no doubt that Playboy has gotten them removed from imgur. Obviously, Playboy's legal moves should be against imgur, not BoingBoing, but surely even that is dubious due to the DMCA Safe Harbor provision.

Re:You can still be liable

[Anonymous Coward]

Did BoingBoing or its parent company post this archive of pictures? No. So they are not the ones infringing here. Playboy should be going after Imgur and the person who uploaded the archive. Linking to a web site or it's content cannot be construed as copyright infringement, as the site or article linking to a site or its content is only drawing attention to that site or it's content. If not for linking, many cases of copyright infringement might never noticed!!

Stallman disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to RMS / FSF, they think linking (with GPL software) creates a derivative work.

(Yes, I know that's a different kind of linking)

Re:Stallman disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to RMS / FSF, they think linking (with GPL software) creates a derivative work.

(Yes, I know that's a different kind of linking)

That is arguable. If the part of the code that is licensed under GPL isn't modified by the linker in any way then the actual linking is just a couple of addresses referencing something else. Those references aren't valid URLs but that is about the only real difference.

The actual difference comes when you redistribute it.
You typically don't download a page you are linking to and send it to the end user. You send the link to the user so that they (their browser) can do that downloading themselves.
This is where the copyright comes in. For GPL libraries you typically redistribute the library and it is the redistribution that copyright applies to.

There are probably a couple of ways you can go around this and make it into a non-copyright issue.

For example you can write code that instead of accessing the library function directly sends the parameters over the web to your computer where the library performs the function and sends the result back. Then you don't need to make the GPL code available and copyright doesn't apply.

Another method would be to let the user do the linking with help from an installer. If the library is available in compiled form from somewhere the installer can download it from there and link it on the users computer.
Then you aren't the one making the GPL code available and it doesn't apply to you.
Of course your installer will fail once the binary release of the library is renamed or moved.

I didn't say those methods were practical, just that there are theoretical methods around GPL.

It becomes a lot more muddy if your installer is a compiler that downloads code under GPL, compiles and applies your proprietary binary patches. (The patches only contains code you written and no part licensed under GPL.)
I have no clue whatsoever what part of the license would apply in that case, but as long as you aren't the one distributing GPL code the license doesn't really apply to you and you can do whatever you want.

A program that just modifies code that is licensed under GPL doesn't have to care about the license.
The programmers of WinRar doesn't have to take into consideration what happens if someone creates an archive containing GPL licensed code.
The archive is a derivative work, but it is made by the one making the archive and redistribution of it is up to them.
The same reasoning should apply to any program that does modification of it.

IE: If you aren't allowed to create binaries that modifies GPL licensed code to create a derivative work and redistribute the binary without the GPL code so that the user can make the derivative work themselves then generic archivers are in a tricky situation since an archive is a derivative work from the original.

If only Google would act for the good

[RhettLivingston]

The whole linking debate would be over if Google would just stop showing any links in searches to content from any organization complaining about linking.

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[nctritech]

They have done this before and it was quite successful...and quite humiliating for the people that tried to put Google into a bent-over position. It's a classic case of someone's hubris blinding them to reality; they need Google a LOT more than Google needs them.

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[Obfuscant]

It's a classic case of someone's hubris blinding them to reality; they need Google a LOT more than Google needs them.

I somehow doubt that Playboy, Inc, needs Google (or boing boing) providing links to illegal copies of their work being posted on Imagur. I think I it is quite reasonable for Playboy to go after those who have done, or assisted in doing, that, and Playboy would not be harmed in any way by Google (or boing boing) taking down all links to that content.

I assume the legal argument is that boing boing NEW that the material it was pointing their readers to was an illegal copy, and thus boing boing was aiding the copyright infringement by advertising it on the behalf of the person who scanned and posted the images.

It would be like, I think, someone who told other people where to find the bootleggers so they could buy moonshine. I assume that this is a violation of the law, but maybe not. I mean, apparently, actual moonshining and bootlegging isn't since the feds seem incapable of watching the television show "Moonshiners" and identifying and arresting those who go on television moonshining and bootlegging. What better evidence do they need?

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[nctritech]

It is not illegal to tell someone how to do something illegal or who they can contact to do something illegal. It is illegal to incite them to perform an illegal act. Example: telling someone how to shoplift is legal while attempting to make someone shoplift is not. (I personally don't think that either should be illegal.) Linking merely tells someone where something is and vaguely alludes to its content; it's no different than a footnote in a paper or a card in a card catalog. A link does not incite someone to break the law. If the site linked to is guilty of copyright infringement then that's that site's legal problem, NOT the site providing the link.

Secondary copyright infringement does not exist under US copyright law and if it were it would be a very dangerous thing that would effectively end the web as we know it. If a hyperlink's destination content changes to something illegal then under secondary copyright infringement you'd be liable for the same offense as the purveyor of the new content even though you had no way to know it changed. Links go dead, park, or change every day by the millions.

If this is allowed to stand, we effectively lock good faith reporting, commentary, and criticism behind a giant copyright paywall. It flies directly and aggressively in the face of the First Amendment protections on freedom of speech and the spirit of the Fair Use Doctrine of US copyright law. You can bet your ass that secondary infringement litigation would not be limited to cases like this; it will be used as a bludgeon whenever possible to stifle speech.

Re: If only Google would act for the good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Secondary copyright infringement does not exist under US copyright law."

As an IP lawyer, I'd recommend that someone who uses "copyright" as a tag on their vanity site avoid publicly posting something so blatantly wrong about copyright. I'd judge by the parent poster's photos that he's old enough to have heard of Betamax, and certainly Napster. But whatever.

BoingBoing will lose, and the EFF is wasting its resources, for the simple reason that the activity literally meets the very definition of contributory infringement. They had 1) knowledge of the infringing activity: it was a link to known infringing copies; and 2) they materially contributed to the infringement: this was a direct link, not a statement that hey, if you look around, you can find some infringing copies.

Fair use analysis fails to save them- any permissible commentary would link to specific photos illustrative of some point, not every centerfold ever. They also suffer under the market analysis prong- a few shots probably doesn't destroy the market for the entire catalog, but the whole catalog sure does.

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not illegal to tell someone how to do something illegal

? In West Virginia (and I would assume at least some other states), discussing how to commit a crime is called "conspiracy". It is a felony for which many are serving prison terms. They do not have to prove intention to actually commit the crime. Nor do they have to prove that the design for crime that was discussed is viable or even remotely sane. Simply proving that a crime was designed is enough. I have often wondered how many genres of fiction can legally be written today. Apparently, the writing of book and movie plots detailing crimes is allowed to continue solely because of prosecutorial discretion as opposed to plain text law.

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[Anonymous Coward]

In West Virginia (and I would assume at least some other states), discussing how to commit a crime is called "conspiracy".

No, planning to commit a crime is conspiracy.

Or did you think mystery and horror writers' groups were being locked up around the country?

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[BronsCon]

Bingo. If someone asks me "how would one dispose of a body" and I happen to know a good way of doing that, I'm fine if I share that information. On the other hand, if they ask "how can I dispose of this body?" I'm best not answering that question and, instead, going to the police. One is simply asking for information which might be used to commit a crime; the other is asking for information which almost certainly will.

It's basically the same concept (though governed by different laws) that allows gun shops to sell guns while requiring them to deny the sale to anyone they believe might be seeking to buy a gun with the intent of committing a crime. Yes, any gun could potentially be used in a crime, but if a guy comes into your shop talking about robbing liquor stores you can be fairly certain any gun sold to him will be used for that purpose.

Re: If only Google would act for the good

[nctritech]

I'm more inclined to believe the EFF than an Anonymous Coward "IP lawyer" that decided creeping and making personal assumptions should be a part of the argument. I noticed that you cited zero sources for your authoritative rant; no statutory language, not even a blog post somewhere. Next time you decide to declare you are an IP lawyer anonymously, at least back your statements up with some sort of proof so that people don't think your just talking out of your backside. I've already looked up some information but since it was your job to present that information I'm not doing it for you. I'm not a lawyer and you say you are. Assuming you were telling the truth about being a lawyer, you should be able support your arguments with ease.

Last time I checked, copyright protects against distribution of copyrighted materials but there is no provision I'm aware of that makes personal acquisition or viewing of copyrighted materials that are illegally distributed by a third party an illegal act. Feel free to correct me with references to statues or case law if you think I am wrong. Linking to copyrighted materials is NOT distribution of those materials. You should also feel free to refute that assertion with a link to the statute(s) that says otherwise. I expect that you will suddenly decide that I'm not paying you enough money for you to support your own public statements but I won't complain if you defy that expectation.

Re: If only Google would act for the good

[nctritech]

By the way, my creepy Anonymous IP Lawyer "friend," if you're an IP lawyer then you surely know of Pearson Education, Inc., et al v. Ishayev et al from 2011 in which it was explicitly found that hyperlinks cannot constitute copyright infringement:

B. Infringement by Hyperlink
Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, as to three of the instructors’ solutions manuals, cannot be granted for a separate reason. Those manuals were accessed by Siewert through hyperlinks emailed to her by Ishayev, as opposed to Ishayev’s having attached digitally copies of those manuals to the emails he sent to Siewert. Such action, without more, is insufficient to establish an act of infringement. A question of fact remains as to whether Ishayev engaged in infringement by other means, i.e., by uploading the infringing material to filesonic.com.

While not a precedent-setting case on an appeals court or national level, the logic used is sound. But hey, as always, feel free to correct me with your own references to case law that says otherwise! I'm always open to learn, and you failed to provide that kind of information in your original creepypost.

Re: If only Google would act for the good

[Anonymous Coward]

Drive-by keyboard lawyers don't come back. Don't hold your breath.

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[Obfuscant]

It is not illegal to tell someone how to do something illegal or who they can contact to do something illegal.

You spent quite a bit of time roasting me for something I did not say. I said I understood what the argument is, not that it is correct or appropriate.

But a good rant is always cathartic, huh?

Re:If only Google would act for the good

[nctritech]

No, I understood what you said quite clearly. Perhaps you did not express your thoughts correctly. It doesn't really matter.

I'm torn on this issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously it is not copyright infringement, but I also can't bring myself to be on the same side as boing boing for anything.

Re:I'm torn on this issue

[Anonymous Coward]

If boingboing says "we disagree with boingboing" does smoke come out of your ears?

Re: I'm torn on this issue

[hackwrench]

Show us on the doll where Boing Boing hurt you.

Re:I'm torn on this issue

[FatAlb3rt]

+1 AC, bring big group of d-bags there, especially not surprised to see which contributor over there was at the heart of this one. I was silently banned there about 10 yrs ago, I never said or did anything inflammatory, but was probably because I didn't agree with the hippy think.

Re:I'm torn on this issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Since boingboing consists of a bunch of disingenuous, prevaricating, sjw, douchenozzles, they would never say they disagreed with themselves.

What is a number?

[El Cubano]

The summary got me thinking about "what is a number?" I have heard that argument that you should not be able to patent software because that would be equivalent to patenting a mathematical formula. An image, or song, or any other digital representation of anything, though, is just a number. Can I copyright a number? What about the number 7? The number 5,725,783,997,523? What about 2^4357393-1?

If I can't copyright any of those numbers, then why/how can an author copyright an electronic composition, or how can a musician copyright a digital recording of his or her work, or how can a photographer or artist copyright a digital image? Can a movie studio copyright their CSS decryption key so that they can issue takedown requests under the DMCA? Can I only copyright a number if it is sufficiently large and unique? Can the most recently discovered Mersenne prime be copyrighted?

I am not trying to be obtuse. I am genuinely interested in how people think about this rather complex and interesting issue.

Re:What is a number?

[eastjesus]

You bring up an interesting point, one that goes at the heart of the breakdown of the whole concept of copyright, ownership, and control of intellectual property. How much added "noise" does it take before an image (or audio, video, or even text) file is no longer considered the protected property?

Re:What is a number?

[nctritech]

It is not the numbers themselves, but the arrangement of those numbers that is copyrighted. The same logic applies to a book (or even your essay on how you discovered that un-copyrightable Mersenne prime). The components of the book (words, letters, symbols) are not copyrightable but the specific arrangement of thousands of those words into a book certainly are. Words, symbols, numbers, a graph of a mathematical function are all trivial and cannot be copyrighted, but putting all of those together in a particular manner creates something far more unique and meaningful than the individual bits.

If you want to extend your analogy to its logical conclusion, ALL things are made up of atoms and all of those are made of subatomic particles, none of which can be copyrighted, so by your proposed standard literally nothing can ever be copyrighted because all things are made up of subatomic particles.

I hope that was helpful.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any permutation of binary is a number. In theory simply by counting +1 to infinity there exists every file that has or will ever exist.

Every movie, every song, every book, every image.

A copyrighted work can be represented in many formats so in theory they'd have to copyright multiple numbers.

Something, something, monkeys, Shakespeare.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have heard that argument that you should not be able to patent software because that would be equivalent to patenting a mathematical formula.

It's funny because this is a strong argument, for me, why software should be patented and not copyrighted. While you can't patent a mathematical formula per se, you can patent a implementation of something that could be expressed loosely as a mathematical formula. Generally speaking, a lot of what goes into game engines, among other things, is precisely this. id actually seems to even well recognize the difference because they tend to open source the engine (after it's been effectively superseded) but not the assets. Of course, one could argue one should be able to reverse engineer and recreate similar software because the industry around software is so new and having a 20 year patent would be strangling, but that's more an argument about how patents themselves are strangling to industry.

So, the real reason why we shouldn't have patents on software is precisely because the impetus for patents is not there. That is, software is the invention itself and people can reverse engineer them where in a physical process or other industry, the end user doesn't nominally get the device to take apart and examine. Since software basically has to work that way in most cases, inventors inherently can't hide how their invention works and so there's no need to bribe them to reveal the details with a patent. Obviously, that's not 100% true and is turning more and more against this with more web software, but it holds up well enough most the time.

If I can't copyright any of those numbers, then why/how can an author copyright an electronic composition, or how can a musician copyright a digital recording of his or her work, or how can a photographer or artist copyright a digital image?

The core part of copyright is that it only applies to creative works. That the creative work can be further represented as a number is irrelevant. That's why a copyright holder holds rights to all the lossless and lossy compressed versions of their work. It also means that, hypothetically, two people could independently create identical copyrighted works and both own the non-exclusive rights to that work.

Can the most recently discovered Mersenne prime be copyrighted?

There's nothing creative about it. It's merely descriptive based upon some formula. For the same reason, recipes and phone books are generally not copyrightable. Put enough creativity into a recipe book or a careful select of phone entries and the story changes.

Re:What is a number?

[H3lldr0p]

If you're being honest, then I'll counter with the following:

It's not the number that's being copyrighted. It's the method of generating the number which is trying to be protected. That is we're looking not at the result, but the implementation.

If you can prove that you came up with a different means than the musician or artist used which results in the same output as they did, then by all means you should be awarded an equal copyright for the product. One caveat is that you cannot, through any means, use their work as a starting point to come to yours. No dividing by one, so to speak. Or any continual transformation of which the net result would be equivalent to dividing by one. That's not clever. It's simply annoying and isn't particularly germain to the conversation.

Furthermore, a digital representation isn't the only thing protected under copyright. There is more to it than simply numbers. Ignoring that aspect of copyright isn't going to get you anywhere in an honest conversation on this topic. So just because we have this means to encoding data to make it easier to transport digitally doesn't mean that copyright should suddenly evaporate. Treated differently, perhaps - so long as we're able to figure out a compromise so that all parties are equally aggrieved by the results. Maybe Playboy doesn't like the fact that it's a straightforward and simple process to scan and transmit their data. Or having a publicly readable signpost at a busy intersection is an ideal way for their continued business. But pretending that there isn't work involved in the creation of their images is just as ignorant as their asking BoingBoing to take down the link.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a copyright lawyer.

You can only copyright non-functional artistic expression.

If you show a number in a way that is artistic (say in a painting) or you copyright it as poetry, then you can probably copyright it.

But, you can't copyright the number's function. Function is the domain of patents.

-245992

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary got me thinking about "what is a number?" I have heard that argument that you should not be able to patent software because that would be equivalent to patenting a mathematical formula. An image, or song, or any other digital representation of anything, though, is just a number. Can I copyright a number? What about the number 7? The number 5,725,783,997,523? What about 2^4357393-1?

If I can't copyright any of those numbers, then why/how can an author copyright an electronic composition, or how can a musician copyright a digital recording of his or her work, or how can a photographer or artist copyright a digital image? Can a movie studio copyright their CSS decryption key so that they can issue takedown requests under the DMCA? Can I only copyright a number if it is sufficiently large and unique? Can the most recently discovered Mersenne prime be copyrighted?

I am not trying to be obtuse. I am genuinely interested in how people think about this rather complex and interesting issue.

You must've missed this fun; about a decade ago now(wow, I feel old): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy
Good ole, "09 F9"
Also, hah; the captcha I got for this post.

Captcha: Protects

Re:What is a number?

[ShanghaiBill]

It is not the numbers themselves, but the arrangement of those numbers that is copyrighted.

Any text, any image, any sound, any video, any algorithm, can be represented as a single (very big) number.

Also, any "arrangement of numbers" can be represented as a single number (assuming that the original numbers belong to a denumerable set).

Re:What is a number?

[fafalone]

Well then if civil copyright is out, why then should you be able to imprison someone for decades because their 1s and 0s were in a bad order? That's the logical conclusion of that argument, if just a number can't be copyrighted, how could it be criminalized right? So out with the laws against possession of CP. Just a number-- if it CAN be criminalized, why then not copyrighted, because of what it represents.

Re:What is a number?

[CaptainDork]

Your question is like asking if you can copyright the paper in a book.

Re: What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can only represent it as a number if you specify the encoding. See Kolmogorov complexity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

The collection of all things that you would need to use that number, combined with the number is copyrightable (and thus a derivative work).

Re:What is a number?

[Hemi Roid]

It's not the number that's being copyrighted. It's the method of generating the number which is trying to be protected. That is we're looking not at the result, but the implementation.

So I rip a CD and run it through my algorithm I have now generated a comparable number but according to copyright law I have violated copyright.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically everything on the web - everything - is just a "string of numbers" if you break it down far enough. Relative to this case, that's being obtuse without realizing it. It's how those numbers are arranged. Playboy took pictures and someone replicated them into JPGs and posted them on imgur. Boing linked to them. If Boing wins, you can now set up a torrent website mirror and just claim you're linking to other people's material, however illegal that material may be. I doubt Boing will win this. Intent is a big part of it and their first words were "some wonderful person uploaded scans..." well, you can't just reprint commercial copyrighted works without permission and distribute them for free, and if you help distribute that material, you're complicit and you'll get DMCA'd.

Software is not "equivalent" to patenting a mathematical formula because they have entirely different uses. Software is an arrangement of numbers with the express purpose of executing specific computing tasks. Mathematical formulas are purely mathematical and their purpose is multi-faceted.

Re:What is a number?

[Anubis IV]

While there's a lot more nuance to it, broadly speaking, copyrights protect expressions of things, rather than the things being expressed.

For instance, suppose you took a picture of your kids playing outside. Your picture is protected as an artistic expression by copyright. Whether it's on film, in RAW data on the camera, or in a JPEG you posted on your website, it's still your picture that's copyrighted to you. And while we can represent your picture as a number, that number isn't actually your picture. After all, the number can change if we convert it from RAW to JPEG or whatnot. Again, the picture is your expression, and that's what's protected by copyright, not any number that we may be able to use to represent it.

But if a painter takes the binary digits corresponding to the JPEG of your picture and expresses them in watercolor, it may ostensibly represent the same underlying number that was used for your picture, but the copyright would belong to that artist since the expression of that number is uniquely theirs. Likewise, if a musician expresses those same 0s and 1s as a sequence of beats, it may still ostensibly represent the same underlying number, but it'd be their copyright because the expression is uniquely theirs.

The key point here is that at no point does anyone actually have a copyright on that number. Each person has a copyright on their unique and different expression of that number. By that same reasoning, if we sit two reporters down to write articles about the exact same set of facts, they'll churn out two different articles. Same facts being reported, two different expressions of them, and two different copyrights, each to their respective author.

Likewise with programming. The way an algorithm works is factual, but its implementation is an expression of those facts. I used to tell my intro Computer Science students that in the same way they could tell the difference between two essays about the same topic, I could tell the difference between two programs that solve the same problem. Again, there's room for expression, and copyright protects those different and unique expressions. An implementation of an algorithm can be copyrighted, but the algorithm itself cannot be.

As for CSS and the like, the underlying facts can't be copyrighted because they aren't an artistic expression. They could get a copyright on the number laid out in a particular font with a particular kerning and line-spacing on a particularly-colored background, sure, but they can't get a copyright on the number itself.

All of which is to say, anyone can pass numbers around without fear of copyright infringement. Sadly, however, some people have managed to patent certain primes, but that's a separate topic.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't copyright an idea, only its expression. So if you want to publish the number, you can. But if you publish it as a picture, you can't.

Re: What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy- it takes ALL the noise, otherwise it's a derivative work.

Re:What is a number?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brings to mind veery long odds with pseudorandom number generators without back-derriving influence. Like say for instance you had an 'art' psuedorandom valid code. Hypothetically you could flip a few tens of kilobytes and wind up with a working copy of a Donkey Kong ROM with a good enough through a invalidator never trained with copyrighted material.

The odds of doing so are of course utterly absurd tto the point where you'd start worrying about quantum tunneling to the earth's core despite the gambler's fallacy not being true.

Re:What is a number?

[thePsychologist]

However, every file on your hard drive can be converted to a number. Just a very big one. Therefore, every song, every movie, and every creative work is just a number a single number on a hard drive.

If you don't want to be linked don't use the web

[eastjesus]

Linking is the primary reason the web exists. That was the point when Tim Berners-Lee invented the web. If you don't want someone to link to your material you should restrict yourself to printing on your own paper.

Regrettably

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that all of the good stuff pointed to by the article (assuming this leap day article is the right one) has been taken down. :-(

Re:Regrettably

[Anonymous Coward]

But Pinterest is still daring the dirty deed (found by googling "playboy playmate centerfolds"). Warning... some of the centerfolds prior to 1967 may be classified as child porn in some jurisdictions.

Re:Regrettably

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, if they aren't doing anything wrong, why take down the article?

Re:Regrettably

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't. The imgur and youtube pages that the article linked to have been taken down.

Linking should never be considered infringement

[nctritech]

To use an analogy (those always work well, ha) there's a huge difference between saying "this is how pipe bombs are constructed" and "we encourage you to use pipe bombs on people" but linking isn't even that; linking is "here is where you can find a page that tells you how pipe bombs are constructed." To put it another way, it's the difference between giving someone a drug dealer's number and actually dealing drugs. It is insane to consider linking "copyright infringement" especially since the place linked to is completely out of control of the linking party. This song and dance has been played out before.

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nothing new. A link is like a footnote in a book which says, "see page 45 of such-and-such book".

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[c]

To use an analogy...

Given the context, a more apt analogy might be "masturbating to a picture of a woman" is not the same as "having sex with that woman".

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[k6mfw]

I think the bomb link is a bad example. From the article on how a law can bomb a business:

For example Spain introduced a disastrous “Google Tax” law, which forced news aggregators such as Google News to pay royalties if they used content from Spanish publishers. This led Google to simply stop using Spanish media, meaning publishers were hit by decreased readership and advertising revenue. News media in Germany also pressed for a change of law to prevent this, which similarly backfired.

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[Kjella]

To put it another way, it's the difference between giving someone a drug dealer's number and actually dealing drugs.

You seem to assume the former is innocent and the case law is settled, that's far from the truth. If I send some drugs in a package from Mexico to the US in the mail, what's the difference between the mailman and a drug mule? One is considered an "innocent" intermediary like the phone company, your VCR, your ISP, YouTube and so on. The other is considered a "guilty" intermediary like Napster and The Pirate Bay. There's rules for flea markets and pawn shops and Craigslist and so on, you can't just run a thinly veiled prostitution section and get away with it.

Look up some of the marketplaces that have been convicted of selling drugs on the dark net, you don't have to be actually dealing drugs as long as your skimming part of the profit through advertisements or fees. Or in the case of child porn sites you don't even have to make a profit, as long as the court find you've been the one running forums facilitating other people swapping kiddie porn. You can probably feign ignorance for many things, like he bought that gun for self defense not robbery or murder. But if you tell someone where to buy cocaine they could probably charge you with something.

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[nctritech]

I'd be interested if you happen to have a link to info on a court case where someone was convicted of giving out a dealer's phone number without any other simultaneous charges that would force them to take a plea deal, however it's still irrelevant to my original points. This was all an attempt to use an analogy to illustrate why equating hyperlinks and the content they link to is really stupid. Real-world analogies for digital activities are often flawed. Please understand my point instead of taking it literally.

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how it works.

If the media industry considers linking copyright infringement, linking is copyright infringement, unless Google is big enough to push back. But that's it. What's infringement and what isn't decided by law or logic, but who has the bigger wallet and is able to bring the biggest amount of political pressure to bear.

That's how all the torrent sites have gone down, despite not hosting any copyrighted material at all.

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[i.r.id10t]

Well, if you are a female masturbating to a picture of a woman, I could be considered having sex with a woman... just not the one in the picture. Unless you have a thing for selfies...

Re:Linking should never be considered infringement

[c]

... and there's the reason I specifically wrote "that woman" rather than "a woman".

The issue was settled in 1997

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Berners-Lee, creator the Word-Wide Web, settled this question over 20 years ago.

https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkMyths.html

In particular, he pointed out that it is "a serious misunderstanding" to think that "A normal link is an incitement to copy the linked document in a way which infringes copyright". But here we are, 20 years later, and people are still making the same argument. Will it never end?!??

Re:The issue was settled in 1997

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Berners-Lee doesn't get to decide the laws of a land he is not a citizen of. His status as inventor makes 0 difference.

Re:The issue was settled in 1997

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Berners-Lee doesn't get to decide the laws of a land he is not a citizen of.

Tim Berners-Lee was not "deciding the laws", he was drawing conclusions from the currently-existing laws. But there is a seemingly endless parade of corporations that want to change those laws. The corporations just keep trying again, again, and again. It's been over 20 years, and they're still trying to make linking copyright infringement...

Re:The issue was settled in 1997

[k6mfw]

because history is one damn thing after another.

Actually quite apt for this comparison.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Library Linking clauses in the GPL/LGPL are there because the programs rely on the libraries in order to provide some of their functionality.

In the case of the boingboing article, the 'program' is accessing the archive of centerfolds (the library) to provide a key piece of functionality, in this case the definition of how our perception of beauty has changed over time as it related to the female body in adult magazines.

As such, based on the GPL definition of linking, if that definition was based on the legal fundamentals of linking to copyrighted works in written literature, it does in fact cause the boingboing article to be a derived work and thus fall inside the legal definition of infringement.

IANAL though, so someone with a better understanding of copyright law and specific court cases dealing with this sort of issue would be appreciated.

Re: Actually quite apt for this comparison.

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL either but if they explicitly put it in the license, at least 1 lawyer thought it needed to be there (it couldn't just be assumedâ from law)

Re:Actually quite apt for this comparison.

[Gavagai80]

A better web page analogy for the GPL version of linking might be an iframe. If Boing Boing's article had embedded the centerfolds gallery in the middle of the article to be browsed in-page while reading the article, then I think Playboy's copyright complaint would be legitimate.

Re:If you don't want to be linked don't use the we

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great and all, but kinda irrelevant when I'm not the one who put my work on the web, which is what TFS sounds like is the case.

That said, Boing Boing has still done nothing wrong. Maybe. If I give someone directions somewhere, and I know for a fact that the path I directed them to will get them mugged, am I liable for the mugging? I don't mean like, my buddy is on that path, mugs the person, and we split what he takes, I just mean I know for a fact that there are muggers along that path who will mug this poor sap. That's not meant to be a leading question or anything, I am seriously asking it.

Ask the current mersenne prime winner...

[Anonymous Coward]

to officially copyright it, then offer to crowdfund attempts to legally club people with copyright infringement in a court of law?

Might even be able to find a lawyer willing to work this case pro-bono in order to set precedent.

How are we still debating this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, it's 2018, how is this even still a question?

Absurd suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove the web from the situation, and you get:
- article in newspaper A discusses summary S by publisher P about Firm F.
- F sues A

Time to sue F (Playboy) for RICO/SLAPP/freedom of speech && freedom of press violations.

Dewey Decimal might be copyright infringment...

[Anonymous Coward]

If URL linking is, then why wouldn't libraries Dewey-decimal which is also a link to copyright material?

Is the URL itself copyrighted????

Did They do them a favor?

[hAckz0r]

Hey everyone, Look! Copyright Infringement is happening right over there.

The fact that what they were pointing out, was a bunch of very specific nude photographs that many people should easilly recognize as copyrighted material, probably didn't even factor into their decision to point them out to the public. The fact that they were all nude may have something to do with ratings for the sensationalism of the story linking it, not the copyrighted material.

Playboy on the other hand got lots of publicity out of it for sure. They have desperately been trying to remake their image to the public, and failing miserably in the process. The money they spent on lawyers in this case was at least equivalent to a good promotional advertisement. It at least got Playboy as a product back on the front page.

If you don't want someone to see something

[Chas]

Do not put it on the internet.

Once it's on the Internet, you have no control over what's done with it.

Re:If you don't want someone to see something

[Anonymous Coward]

playboy didn't, someone scanned magazines that cost money and represent copyrighted works.

Wrong name

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Xeni, not Xena

[Anonymous Coward]

Annoying SJW, not annoying JW.

license - contract - copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL is a license that lives within contract law and copyright law.
The dispute is over copyright law. Any attempt to include GPL in the discussion is invalid. Did Playboy attach a license to the distribution of the images?

Opinion - this sounds like fair use, as it is a discussion about the art, not just a republication of the images.

Re:license - contract - copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL is a license that lives within contract law and copyright law.
The dispute is over copyright law. Any attempt to include GPL in the discussion is invalid. Did Playboy attach a license to the distribution of the images?

Holy shit. Now that is a completely different wormhole.
The Lenna image is technically copyrighted, but the widespread infringement of it have practically voided the copyright.
If you dig around you will probably even find manuals of GPL licensed code that infringes the Playboy copyright.

While Playboy often cracks down on illegal uses of its material and did initially send out notices to research publications and journals that used the image, over time it has decided to overlook the wide use of Lena. Eileen Kent, VP of new media at Playboy said, "We decided we should exploit this, because it is a phenomenon."

It simply became so massive that the badwill Playboy would get makes the copyright unenforceable.

Citation

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll be telling people that citations are both a) Required for due credit, and b) Forbidden because it's plagiarism.

Right

[argStyopa]

"Bears are not carnivores" claimed bears, when accused by the Herbivore Association of eating some of their members.
"We are opportunistic omnivores," their spokesbear continued, "who may occasionally indulge in a little meat when available."

Unless you are "The Pirate Bay".

[Anonymous Coward]

Then all laws are moot.

Stupid fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Playboy needs to pay a fine for being stupid.