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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.
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.
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...