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Teen Sued for /Linking/ to MP3s
Alex T-B writes "A 17-year old Swede has been
sued by the IFPI for having links to MP3s from his homepage. The tracks weren't actually located on his system. How does this bode for future suing practices - can anybody get sued for just linking to stuff someone somewhere considers to be 'bad'? Der Artikel ist auf Deutsch - use babelfish. " MP3s or not, lawsuits over links scare me.
You're all jumping to conclusions. It's like my Business law professor use to say "You can always sue...but that doesn't mean you'll win". I could sue you for being 6' tall. That doesn't mean I'm going to win. It's the decision that counts. In other words, this is something to keep your eye on, but don't committ suicide just yet.
Regardless, here's a more apt scenario:
"Pardon me sir, would you happen to know where I could (purchase some crack cocaine / hire a hit man / obtain child pornography)?" asked the undercover police officer.
"Hell yeah," said Dave. "My best friend Todd is seriously into (illegal activity)!"
"Really? Could you hook me up with him?"
"Sure!"
The way I understand it, Dave is an accessory to the crime. As is our European friend.
Actually you don't even have to say the pledge of Allegiance anymore, you just have to stand and be respectful wihle other recite it. Of course, certain 'patriotic' teachers may want to talk to your parents first, however you really aren't *forced* to say it. Of course, I don't mind saying it myself, because I'm proud to live here, and personally there isn't really anything I object to contained in it. I pledge of Alegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the Republic, for which it stands, One nation, under God, indivisible by liberty and justice for all. Of course, some people might find the God clause offending, but most Americans are a little relgious, and it is almost tradition (America was found partly by those persecuted for their religion). I think that's it, I graduated last year, and well, HEH even though I have said it ab illion times, I probably left out a word somewhere.
Linking to illegal mp3 sites is the same as helping someone to do something illegal, point. I'm glad he got sued
While it's true that a lot of swedes think in collective terms, that doesnt mean we dont have freedom. I'm not sure just what you refer to when you say "silent indoctrination", but I do know that noone is forcing you to become a socialist, they're only trying to persuade you, just like every other party. That doesnt make you un-free..
The real issue here is that the courts don't understand the technology, and as such will make stupid rulings.
This is not stupid. He's helping people breaking the law. This is enough to get sued. Technology does not matter at all here.
Next this has got nothing to do with freedom, read the article again. If something is not legal than that it is. Following your line of thinking getting a ticket for wrong parking is an act against my freedom. Bullox !!
What it is all about is the holy cow money say it is all about profits. Now RH, as an example, wants to make a profit too and IIRC they were pretty pissed not so long ago and no-one had problems with that.
As a minor side note it might be mentioned that there has no decision made yet, so before crying woolfe wait for the result. Sure, it is much more fun to run around like chickens over a lot of hot air but yet all is pending.
Scary that Sweden does this, me being a Swede...
There is a difference between the two scenarios.
Telling someone where to get drugs is only giving out information about how to do something illegal.
Linking to an MP3 is more like actually obtaining the illegal information for the person. It would be more akin to me telling you I can get illegal drugs for you from some country, and I can go get some for you if you want. If you ask me to go the the drugs/MP3 for you, I will.
...well, i thought it was funny, since anyone with half a brain knows the scandanavian people are among the most liberal and intellectual in the world.
Heh, but I guess the moderator hasn't hit that elusive halfway point yet.
It would be cool if three moderators had to agree before this happen, I have kind of an odd sense of humor, and obviously you saw it, but a couple of the other drones had no idea what they were reading.
sigh.
I've seen plenty of sites that provide illegal MP3's or "warez" and live under the illusion that they are safe from the system because they only provide "links" to them.
Lamers. Down with them.
and now they should come get slashdot.org!!! NO!!! GET YOUR Mp3Z HERE
OH NO !!!
Do you have a reference on the web for this case?? How long ago was it?
Your example is not the same as what is being discussed here. You would have the credit card info on your site directly, it's not as if you linked to it. He'd be pissed at you for hosting the info, but I doubt he'd care much about other people's links to it.
Come to think of it, yeah, in the US people have more freedoms that we in the nordic countries have. I can live without those, thank you. The previous post wasn't informative, it was plain wrong. Hobbex must either be very young or smoke crack. Moderators get a clue.
About the silent indoctrination. The US does a lot more of this via movies and other entertainment. You cannot live in a society and not be affected by it. It's a fact of life. The nordic societies IMO place more emphasis on intellectual pursuits than material pursuits. I presently work for the state (in a university) doing research; I thank the present system for my position. You forgot that in the US the chances people get are a lot more inequal. Some people may claim that in the US people have equal chances but the educational system pretty much ensures that they don't. If you're rich this may not bother you, but consider that possibility of not being rich. I'd rather take the nordic system and pay a bit more taxes and have my own kids educated for free in a good school. Here public school does not mean it's a bad school.
AC- The right to basic education
- Equal possibility of higher education and self-development for everyone depending on their abilities and possible special needs (this is for handicapped people). Being poor must not prevent this possibility.
- The freedom of science, art and higher education is guaranteed
ACThis 'sueing over links' is only a German thing I think. And if you thought the US was litigious, look at Germany. I remember the following:
Intel sold the Pentium chipset known as Triton. Businesses advertised 'Triton mainboards' A Dutch company had a trademark on Tricon (yes, with a c) for some software. A German lawyer made a deal with this trademark owner and chose a value for the lawsuit. Then this lawyer writes to anyone who is advertising they must not advertise this name any more, and if they please would confirm this. Well, so far so good.
But then the real issue: In Germany the one receiving the letter has to pay. The amount is dependent on the debated value and whether special attonreys (trademark or patent) have been involved.
This lawyer sends out this same letter to hundreds of businesses and they all have to pay, unless they chose to go to court.
This is of course crazy. This kind of extortion is only done against small business and private persons - in the past for people copying shareware, for car salesmen advertising without the minimum down payment, etc. And most of it is done by one lawyer. Strange that he is still alive, especially after extorting the secondhand auto guys. Thomas
Does this mean my newspaper editor could be jailed for documenting life in the local red-light district? Or Amsterdam?
Oh, you should be gratefull that you are located next to US. It saves you a lot of money on things like national defense, etc.
I couldn't disagree more. By definition, I can't violate your copyright without posessing a copy of your work. If the server shouldn't have it, LART them, not the bibliographer.
Which IMHO is valid; the producers are being sued (for past health care costs) for having fraudulently claimed tobacco smoke wasn't an addictive carcinogen, aren't they?
If they're going to gleefully send their valuable content to any random guy who knows its URL, they need to treat those URLs as trade secrets from the start, not retroactively.
Despite your bitching there is got to be something that we are doing right, don't you think ?
Yes, you're not all bad. You're ahead in new technology that makes profits, but not necessarily in science in general. It's a matter of focus. And it's mostly the companies that advance that sort of technology; they have people from around the world and so have your universities. We also have hi-tech companies, but they aren't as visible because they are smaller and more specialized. One reason might be that the small countries don't have as good production capabilities. Many of the small hi-tech companies are the best in their own field, which is usually something quite specialized like medical systems. There's a lot of good people in the US, but some aspects of the country are quite perverted at least from my nordic point of view. Puritanism I can't stand, especially the hypocritical kind.
I'm not totally against the US, but the environmental unawareness and the virus-like spread (via entertainment, works wonders on young people) of the culture to replace other cultures is what I'm mostly against. And of course I oppose the policing around the world (hypocritical to say the least, think Afghanistan...).
ACImagine how much trouble a young civilization would have in advancing if they enforced the notion "out of print", and most of their stories were banned until long after they'd been forgotten....
Because it is interesting and I completely agree with this post.
Does Sweden also support the pernicious notion of civil lawsuits, where the defendant has essentially no chance of winning unless they're prepared to spend an enormous sum of money?
It's true that in the US more deaths are being caused by handguns than in other countries. It's as simple as that.
ACwill then the owner of the wall be
sued for breaking the law eg. helping
to break the law???
i dont understand why they even
consider to sue this guy except for
pure greed...
LuckyStarr (forgot my pass)
Using quotas is the worst possible way to do it. Offering more original content is better. The problem is that the volume and quality of content created in the US is much better that in Europe. We need to shape up and enter the US market with our own content and compete. It's not impossible. I only have a problem about the lack of diversity of source in the content of the media.
ACWhich is sort of what I was talking about.
Uh, ok, I thought you were talking about freedom. Guess not..
And are you so naive as to believe that US involvement in WWII-time Europe was dictated by the American humanitarian feelings and the American desire to set Europe free of Marxist tyranny?
The naivete of many Americans when it comes to issues outside their self-perceived island paradise never ceases to amaze me... sigh...
Precisely. Slashdot is de facto a predominantly (though certainly not only) US forum, and criticism to US policies, often (assumed to) come from Americans, is natural.
Furthermore, and for the same reasons, most readers are familiar with US problems *as well as* positive sides.
This is why making such sweepping statements about another country got you back such a response. Most people in this forum do not have much of a feeling about the issues re: Sweden that you raised, they do not know how society works there *first-hand* and they do not know what the ups and downs of that society are.
So your isolated attack on Swedish mentality appears more malicious than you might have perhaps intended it to be...
PS I am not a Swede.
In my opinion sharing locations is only distributing the locations of mp3 files. Not the same as distributing the files yourself. At max it should be aiding crime (downloading mp3 files), but in some countries downloading mp3 files for own use is not a crime. --- BUT if linking to mp3 files it truly illicit then Add a board where users can submit links to files (oh! too bad did someone evil criminal it romania post link to some mp3, OH! dear...) OR Link just to sites only OR Phuck the law... move your site on FWP and let them do what they do... screw them.. hard to bust your ass if they do not know who, and wherefrom you are.
Your "free market" analysis misses an important point: while for an American kid it may be easier to place Hollywood in the context of his/her everyday life, outside the US Hollywood is often perceived as the way things actually happen in America! This often has makes non-Americans have an unjustifiably bad view of Americans ("a bunch of gangsters") or an unjustifiably good view of the American system ("look at this cool computer animation, therefore everything there must be so cool").
/.ers, just because you see more Microsoft than Linux ads on your TVs doesn't make Microsoft products better. Europeans are in essence trying to mitigate the effects of this ruthless American marketing machine called Hollywood.
I guess what I am trying to say is that Hollywood acts as an advertisement of the US culture abroad and just because European viewers (for reasons unrelated to the "goodness" or "badness" of their societies!) do not have as many home-brew TV entertainment options does not mean that they deserve to be exposed to American-made culture only. This is at the root of the quota system (with which I do not, at least entirely, agree).
Put in a way that would make what I say more understood to
Why is this important? Every society (including the American and European ones) have their problems about which their citizens can be very unhappy. Hollywood often makes naive Europeans believe that there is a magic world (America) where their problems are solved --without new ones being created along the way. This is simply not true.
Two more points: just because for reasons of marketing and other business practises European entertainment rarely hits US mass media certainly does *not* mean all Europeam productions are bad (we all know it takes more than a good film to make it a success!)
Secondly, one reason why many European productions never go out of the country where they were produced is because simply they would not be understood in a context outside the local culture and habits. The internationalized (though certainly not international!) US culture makes US productions more readily understood in foreign locales.
I'm truly surprised the RIAA is going after those easy-to-find pages containing the hyperlinks. After all, if these pages didn't exist, the server locations would pass by word of mouth instead. On the other hand, given the pages, the RIAA can then find the server and get it shut down.
Just who are you trying to kid? Many of us have been subjected to these people first hand. A great many of them are theocrats pure and simple defining tyranny as the inability to impose their morals on everyone else.
Our motivations don't change the facts. Regardless of our motives we did keep another military superpower in check, a Marxist one.
actually, i would like to add that the us is the western country which is most plagued by frivolous lawsuits. come on, getting a million bucks just because the coffee you spilt over your knees was "too hot" is ridiculous (not to mention that one should be careful with hot drinks anyway). these things tend to only happen in the us. they don't (or hardly, and at least not with such high money claims) happen in europe.
First of all, the French were in the trenches in WWI, not WWII. In WWII, the French were caught off guard by a surprise German invasion and decided to roll over and play dead. Second, B-52s didn't enter service until 1957, long after WWII and the Korean war. Third, the US was already preparing for war long before Pearl Harbor by building up military strength, converting civilian factories to military production, increasing the presence of troops in England, providing equipment to the allies, planning an invasion of northern Africa and France, selling war bonds, and rationing fuel and a few other key products. Pearl Harbor just hastened the timeline for declaring war by about six months. Finally, when we entered the war Russia was an afterthought. We didn't start considering Russia a major player in the post-war world until Yalta.
I'm an American, and I'm very sick of hearing the "we bailed your ass out" comments all the time. Get over it already.
These comments are a gross over-simplification of how and why the US entered the wars.
Also, you are forgetting that Sweden never entered WWII, so we couldn't have bailed their asses out.
How do you figure we saved Sweden's ass three times given that they never entered ANY war that we have. Sweden has been a historically neutral power and played no part in WWI, WWII, or the cold war.
I did not claim that your *help* was not crucial (but many Europeans also fought against the axis forces beyond the Brits and the Americans and they had lots of losses too).
Nor did I imply it would have been better to live under a marxist regime.
But saying something as gross as "shut up" that you said above makes me think that, according to you, I should be grateful for your actions, submit and shut up. I am happy for how things turned out and even thankful for the help, but:
1. I prefer to see it as a mutually advantageous situation where both the US and western Europe won something out of the sacrifices (if I'm happy for not living under the soviet regime, you should be at least as happy that not all of Europe and European know-how fell under soviet control). Most Americans prefer to see it as a "gift" to Europe that benefited Europe alone --and this is simply not true. In this respect I find the term "foreign wars" misleading. They may not have been fought on US soil but were every bit as crucial protecting US interests.
2. History teaches that we should not easily decide the outcome of "what if" situations because we simply do not know how things could have turned out if this or that had or had not happened. Who is to say that western Europe could not have somehow resisted soviet occupation?
It is so typical to see people sum up other countries in mostly meaningless stereotypes. What do you know about the US aside from what you have gleaned from fluff news stories or heard from other people with extremely limited insight? You've got maybe half of the picture correct, if you're lucky.
Ah, another American under the illusion that he lives in a "free" country because it has a written constitution. The U.S isn't the be-all and end-all of democracy, law and order.
Maybe U,S citizens should get out more and learn about the world outside the U.S. Yes, there really is one out here you know...
Why don't you also take a look at this
Yeah, don't sue the kid...no money there. Sue the phone company for giving him the connection and tools to commit such an horrific crime. I still say the phone companies know that the only real use for ADSL is MP3 pirating.
That is why I got ADSL.
BTW, if anyone wants a good MP3 file you can get one at-
http://www.teleport.com/~wenner/anassong.mp3
Oh shit...sorry Taco...I just made you a criminal in Sweden....sorry about that.
A couple of mails from the mentioned lawyer, and responses to them, are available at
:p
http://www.danbbs.dk/~phnyx/danish.htm
- of course they are in danish... not sure whether there is an online danish -> english translator available...
You can't be serious. The RR has settled down quite a bit over the last few years, but it wasn't long ago that they were (once again) trying to rid the American society of the evil of homosexuality. Remember Colorado's Amendment 2, and Oregon's Measure 9? And you think the RR doesn't try to restrict freedom? And it's not just that the RR engaged in this garbage to begin with, it's that they used EVERY sleazy trick in the book - it was a very sad, very pathetic attempt to win at all cost. After all the dust settled, and the amendment was ruled unconstitutional, the RR has been behaving itself. What I found most interesting were reports that Colorado voters were complaining that their "vote meant nothing" since the amendment never became law. The irony here is that the constitutional process worked EXACTLY as it should have. On the other hand, I detest the systematic efforts by the Democratic party to socialise everything they can get their hands on. Got a problem? A new government program should be able to take care of it! Screwed up your life by making stupid decisions? Another reason for a new government program! It's a never-ending process of usurping individual responsibility. The answer? Libertarian. Objectivism.
This is the age where I pity Judges/Courts who really want to practice Justice.
X X&stype=stext&q=%2Bmp3+%2B%22artist+name%2 2
& sa=I'm+feeling+lucky
:)
I feel it is wrong for a person to intentionally link to illegal material so that other people can break the law.
However - hypothetical case - what if it wasn't illegal for that person (different country), but only illegal for the person's website operator? Now you see what Judges have to put up with - technical issues aren't the only headaches.
Intent becomes more and more a critical factor.
What if the person links to a "search URL" on a search engine?
e.g.
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&kl=
Not illegal?
But what if one day someone creates a "Link Engine". A "Link Engine" will help reduce those 404 document not found errors.
Site owners register link's with the LE. e.g.
http://www.link-it.com/mysite/mp3/stuff.mp3
goes to
http://www.somesite.com/~blah/mp3/stuff.mp3
Surfers will use that link to get to stuff.mp3. If the site owner moves the file somewhere else they just have to change it on Link-It, and everyone else can still use http://www.link-it.com/mysite/mp3/stuff.mp3
Basically an additional layer of abstraction on URLs.
Now the "link engine" starts to get closer to the original case.
No such thing as a Link Engine yet?
Already Google has a "I'm feeling lucky button".
So you can just create a URL like:
http://www.google.com/search?q=shania+twain+mp3
Don't impress you much?
After this we'll be discussing virtual URL link hijacking, through link keyword spamming. Ah the wonders of having too many toys to play with.
Cheerio,
Link.
*LOL*
Has it ever occurred to you that most other countries offer the same "social" benefits as Sweden, and that those benefits usually are BETTER than in Sweden, our dear country with the highest taxes of the industrialized world!
I am soooo tired of those uninformed mongoloids who continuously repeat the dogma of our socialist government/intelligentia; "we have free medical care, education et c..." - NO, it's not FREE, you're all paying 70% of your income to get it, regardless of if you're taking advantage of it or not.
We dont have free speech in the UK? I think we get away with quite alot. Though Im glad we dont tolerate speeches of the like that the klu klux klan can give. If my country ever tolerates hateful shit like that, I'll leave. I feel your reading alot of crap on the limits of free speech in the UK. Royal bashing over here is a sport.
The reason why I (and most other people) don't use buses has nothing to do with riding with poor people. Buses are inconvenient and take twice as long to get anywhere. The only places where buses and subways are popular are cities where you can't find or afford parking at your destination.
Buses are inconvenient and take twice as long to get anywhere.
And for a minor inconvenience you don't do the ecologically right thing. I understand this if you live far away from work but if it's like 30 minutes by bus then the only reason I can see for using a car is if the whole family is going somewhere at the same time. Public transport is the way to go; these systems should be developed further. American cars traditionally have large engines, consume more gasoline and consequently pollute more. What's even worse is that many families have more than one car. One of the reasons for this is that driving is practically free compared to other countries. For instance here (Finland) a liter of gas costs $1, which is IMO very good environmentally.
I know this may sound a bit like preaching, but we need to do something about the environment. I predict that in the next 50 years we will encounter the biggest ecological disasters ever caused by man. Something needs to be done and quickly. It's a shame the goverments consider spending on the environment a necessary evil and international treaties on environmental matters aren't strict enough.
ACThe fact of the matter is, The USA is a *REPUBLIC*. A Democratic *REPUBLIC* in fact.
If this was a pure democracy, the rights of the minority would be non-existant, as fear from the majority would trample over the minority.
"I pledge allegiance to -- and wrap myself in -- the
flag of the United States Against Anything Un-American, and to the
Republicans for which it stands, two nations, under Jesus, rich
against poor, with curtailed liberty and justice for all (except
blacks, homosexuals, women who want abortions, Communists, welfare
queens, tree huggers, feminazis, illegal immigrants, children of
illegal immigrants, and you if you don't watch your step)."
Personal freedom isnt dead in Sweden. There hasnt been a verdict yet (he'll be freed, imho), only a report in a german mag. where they probably dont know anything about swedish law.
The added words certainly explain why that stanza of the pledge lurches along so arhythmically.
Exactly. Western Europe/Scandinavia is much more liberal in its culture than the puritanically based U.S., but the one reason I still like this country is the First Amendment.
Well, I can't speak for the other countries, but the finnish constitution basically grants these rights as well. (freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom to peacefully protest). Here's a few selected excerpts of other rights in the finnish consititution (extremely free translation):
- Firing people without a legal reason is not permitted.
- Everyone not capable of living a dignified life (due to circumstances of being unemployed etc.) is guaranteed necessary welfare and care.
- The state has to provide the necessary healthcare to everyone.
- No one can be sentenced to death, tortured or treated in a way that is inhuman. (there's the possibility of an exception to this during war, deserters will probably be shot)
- The state has to try to provide everyone with a clean environment and the responsibility for that belongs to everyone.
- No one working in the military can be elected as a representative. (IMO, a good thing)
- Gender equality.
- All men are equal before the law.
- Discrimination based on gender, age, origin, social status, religion, belief, opininion, health, handicap (etc.) is not allowed.
- The secrecy of confidential transactions of information (phone calls, letters, etc.) is to be preserved, ie. privacy is guaranteed. There's an exception for criminal investigation and national security, but the rules regarding that are quite strict.
We also have the priviledge to pay a _lot_ of taxes (50% or more isn't uncommon if you consider the sales taxes to be part of the taxation). ACIt was a Roman (when Rome was effectively a country, between about 200 BC and 400 AD) who said
"Ignorance of the law cannot be an excuse in the eyes of the law."
On one level that's tautological, but at that time there was not enough law to prevent a normal person being able to read up on all of it, or at least have a feeling for most of it, though there was probably more than we might think.
However nowadays _everyone_ is ignorant of most law, and where the law is counterintuitive or nonsensical, I think ignorance should be an excuse, though I understand that it won't be.
I only wish Russia was like that when things settle down, i.e. a nice and peaceful place.
This is what we wish for as well. One of the biggest fears is that things go wrong in Russia. We're next to it and that's not a nice thought. One can only hope that the Russian people won't be agitated into voting someone not fit to rule in the office. There are a few people that are trying to do this. Zhirinovski is the first person to come to mind.
Glad you liked it. It's maybe a bit too peaceful here sometimes =) The Finnish culture is really hard to fit into anything, because we have been bouncing between the east and west before independence and after the second world war we had to walk a tightrope between the east and west. The good thing is that at least I'm under the impression that our relations with Russia are quite good right now and our politicians are accepted as mediators in many conflicts, because we're generally seen as unbiased.
There are good and bad things about every country. I think we are a reasonable compromise. The usual complaint is about the taxation, it's not easy get filthy rich by just doing well-paid work, since it's taxed progressively.
About the original post. The music industry is charging too much money for the CDs and not enough of the money is going to the artist. Granted, it is the music industry that makes the artist known and becoming successful is not possible without its help. This is the power of marketing.
ACThe only bullshit here was produced by you.
I study law in Sweden and I say without hesitation that the personal freedom in Sweden is by far greater than the freedom in the US. This is of course a hard matter to decide upon (if you have one right in Sweden which you dont have in the US and opposite, how are you going to compare the value of each?).
Secondly, and more importantly, the entire lawsuit is quite bogus, it's the kind of thing where they flex their muscles and hope that others will read and fear (no matter the outcome). He won't be convicted, period.
What kinda of crack are you smoking to be calling
Sweden a corrupt third country? At least here we
dont go around killing eachother in school with AK47:s...
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Actually (and somewhat surprisingly), it's from a video game(!) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri -- I like it so much that I've got it committed to memory. I actually use it a lot -- I keep hoping that other people will pick it up. As far as I can tell, it's original to the game. My girlfriend thinks it sounds like Toqueville (you know, the author of Democracy in America), but it's not.
There's one other quote from the game that I like almost as much, on the subject of genome:
To look into the very stuff of life -- to stare into the looking glass and watch a thousand generations march by -- that, friends, is both our greatest curse and our proudest achievement.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So, who wants to raise a billion from an IPO and use it to set up a real off-shore data haven? Maybe set up in the Cayman Islands or somesuch, run a few fat pipes in, and give the finger to all those in the world who would deny you access to information.
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free access to information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, while the free nation gradually constricting its grip on free discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Actually, the God clause is not traditional. The original pledge of allegiance read as following:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The phrase "under god" was added in the McCarthyist 1950s as an attempt to distinguish the United States from "godless Communism," a convenient excuse for the religious conservatives then in power. It is not part of the original Pledge, and hence does not reflect any opinions our founding fathers may or may not have had. It just reflects the opinions of the McCarthyists.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Anyway, I wouldn't mind living there, if it wasn't for the language.... This is one of the difficult parts about moving in Europe. Moving is not the problem, it's when you settle down somewhere, you definitely notice the shortcoming of not being able to speak the country's language on a daily life basis.
To get back in the subject, it was a bad move from music industry... just makes you wonder WHY exactly do artists need pimps, and just rises the hate bar one step further up...
Like the french music industry collaborating with nazis during the war, or american music industries desperately trying to survive... the wrong way.
Kitos! :-)
---
"Hasta la victoria siempre!" El Comandante
But those people are actually completely independent from the executive and legislative branches. No politician can ever "throw out" a judge.
Besides, I can give numerous examples where the government has lost (at least in Germany where the system is roughly the same), and some of them very painful.
Personally, I like this system better, because juries consisting of "common people" tend to judge much more emotional and minorities may be sentenced just because they are miniroties.
Sebastian
The thing I find most objectionable is that people are finding out about the rules by breaking them.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
You got it backwards...
It is not the site he linked to that is suing him... It is the recording industry. This legal battle is over whether providing the location of an opportunity to commit a crime is in itself a crime. Because so many people use analogies to explain these things, here are a few:
1. In one context, this would be telling a terrorist where he can purchase bombs and then telling him what to blow up.
2. Another context would be telling someone where the neighborhood dealer is.
3. Yet another circumstance would be pointing out an unlocked door to a stranger.
In each of these cases, a person is providing a link to an opportunity to do a crime. The first analogy will surely be brought up by the prosecuting attorneys. The last case should be mentioned by the defense attorney. The real question is how dangerous we, as a society, consider information to be. If information is harmless (Sticks and stone will break my bones, but words will never hurt me), then we should consider links to be completely benign as any other form of speech. If information is totally dangerous, then we should ban all three forms of linking. Obviously, neither extreme is correct, and it is left to us to decide what balance must be struck.
Personally, I believe that information is highly dangerous, but that it is best to let people use their own judgement in using it. We shouldn't police thoughts or communications, only actions.
-B
Please don't bite my head off, but I don't see what's wrong here. Someone created a webpage with a link to files that are illegal to distribute.
But it is the responsibility of the person who sets up the files to ensure that they are legal to distribute, not the linker. If I link to mp3.com, where many legal-to-distribute files reside, and it turns out an mp3 there is illegal to distribute, should I be held liable? An mp3 is not illegal by definition. Or what if I link to a story on a news site that turns out was plagiarized? Again, am I liable?
Now, the fundamental difference here may be intent, that this kid knew these files were being distributed illegally. But at the very least this means that the plaintiffs should be required to show that he knew the distribution was illegal, which raises the bar significantly.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
If you think that committing crime is bad, then talking about crime being committed is equally bad.
Sorry. Doesn't follow that easily
If I, for example, say that such and such a record is good, then that is akin to linking to it -- it is up to the other person to ensure that they obtain their version legally. If that weren't the case, then advertising would encourage stealing (since seeing an advert on a wall could be construed as inviting someone to walk into a store and steal whatever is advertised)
The responsibility for the infringement lies with the person who uploads the files (for distributing) and the person who downloads (for illegally obtaining)
John
John_Chalisque
There is a similar case in Denmark. No verdict yet though. The lawyers persuing the case has always send threathening letters to participants on the Danish newsgroups, apparently based solely on keywords in the articles. One person who got the letter was simply responding to an offtopic article offering warez, asking the author to use the "forsale" groups instead.
Oh, and it is the same lawyers who in the C64 dayes would claim that a 14 year old boy who collected game warez had cost the software publishers $30.000 in lost profits (the combined value of all the games).
I had an idea regarding "frivolous" lawsuits and payment of court costs. When a jury sides with the defendant, they have could THEN have a vote on whether the suit was frivolous and the plaintiff should have to pay court costs and a fine, or to say that the decision was a fairly close one, and the plaintiff made a reasonable suit and should owe nothing.
Satelite latency isn't that bad for the latest bunch of LEO contellations (Iridium, Globalstar, Teledesic). It won't beat a direct fiber connection, but most of your latency isn't in transport delay anyway, it's in coding, switching, and processing delay.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
If you say, "click on my friends links to find Mp3's, warez, and instructions to make a bomb" then you are saying that those are the reasons that visitors to your site should visit those sites.
If you say, "Here are my buddies' web pages", then I don't think you should be held liable.
<tim><
Yes, but this case falls somewhere in between the two. I know the fact that my neighbor is a fence...is it now illegal for me to convey this information to others? Certainly if I wanted to publish an article were I note this man is a fence it is clear I realize that many people will read this article and use it to obtain illegal items but I am clearly not aiding and abeting.
It seems this would only end up with everyone claiming they were publishing information merely for journalistic purposes only...cataloging illegal music on the web like those stupid disclaimers on warez sites.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Yes but you are tacitly assuming the reader of the site is in a country where this is illegal. If I told you tomorrow I could hope a plane with you and fly fown to a country with liberal drug laws and give you some weed there I would be safe.
As the kid does not know the laws the reader of the site is subject to it seems ridiculous to hold him responsible
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Do I dispute the fact that this kid may have been a little punk? No, although I certainly don't know enough to make that judgement myself. However just as we can't stop KKK members from organizing b/c of free speech issues the fact that this kid may have been a schmuck is irrelevant.
The point of the matter is the law is rightfully, IT IS ILLEGAL TO DISTRIBUE COPYRIGHT MATERIAL. The law is not it is illegal to disclose the location of copyrighted material. If you made 1000 windws CD's and I told someone that you had done so I merely passed along information I did not violate that law.
And I not that this all this kid did do was WRITE. He wrote etc.. he did not do ANYTHING but write.
In addition the issue at hand is not whether the kid deserves to be punished or even if it IS illegal it is whether it SHOULD be illegal and I am arguing that it shouldn't
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
damn't that was posted as plain text. Forgot how to make html show up as literals
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
This is ridiculous, whoever filed this suit should get their asses sued off for malicious prosection. EVEN if you grant the fact that linking to mp3's may be illegal it is clear that this law suit is not filled to set a legal precident or even to stop this kid from linking to mp3's. If either of these were the case they would have sued a *real* site like mp3.lycos.com (as someone already pointed out) or some smaller equivalent in sweden.
But no, they are suing a 17 year old. Isn't it clear that they are not trying to use the lawsuit to win but as a weapon in and of itself. Isn't this illegal (with various penalties) in most civilized countries?
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Yes, it doesn't look that bad because the only possible use for these mp3's is illegal, however, the precident it generates is terrible. It says the government is free to jail me if "the only consequences of the information I provide are illegal." Effectively this is what is being argued a 17year old has provided certain information (links to mp3's) and is being sued because this information can only be used for illegal purposes.
IT IS A HONEST TO GOODNESS FACT THAT AN MP3 RESIDES AT THE END OF THE LINK.
What if the WSJ was to do a report that pointed out the locations of illegal mp3s? Surely we wouldn't consider this to be illegal so we have put the government in the dangerous position of deciding what information can have a "legal" use and what information is only "illegal"
The bomb making parrelel is wonderful. A book that tells how to make bombs *should* be legal but it is giving information that can only be used for illegal purposes. Now the government has to decide when chemical eductation ends and illegal material starts. What about anarchistic manefestos? Marx? In fact the slipery slope continues until we are prohibeted from displaying material which challenges the current political framework because the necessery consequence of acting on such information is to do things which are currently illegal.
Also this is NOT equivalent to driving the getaway car. This kid is not accused with standing over their shoulder helping type in the URL he merely provided information.
Is warez.com a problem? No, for their is no underlying philosophical reason that someone shuold control all of their productions. In fact in a better world we would not have copyright laws. Copyright laws were adopted entierly pragmatically in order to make sure that new works were continued to be published. Is warz.com stoping microsofts next release? NO! As such it really isn't a problem. Besides even if it was the solution may be worse than the problem
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Now I don't actually have any knowledge of sweden so I can't comment on that particular instance, however, I would like to point out some differences between the freedoms offered by the united states and that offered by many european countries.
Many european countries have much less puritanical cultures than the united states hence as a matter of fact they end up allowing many more things than the united states. For instance various sorts of drug use, nudity etc..
However, the united states, despite outlawing many things has much greater protections in the system for those who are extremyl at odds with society than many european countries. Sure, the culture may be much more lax there but if you fall outside (preech hate speech in germany, engage in sadomasochistic homosexual play in england etc..) the line or the will of the country changes in its attitude towards freedom you are much more at risk.
While I would much prefer to live in a liberal culture I must argue that the american system is better *as a political system* not necesserily in the niceness of living there. Sure in the short term freedom is nice b/c it lets you do things but this is not the real point of allowing personal liberties.
Free speech stops the flow of ideas in the society from stagnating due to conformity. It keeps society alive by presenting disenting opionions (hence freedoms which let you digress from the mainstream are much more important than freedoms that let you do things). Secondly freedoms serve their main political purpose when the government/society starts to turn bad. Hence the insulation of freedoms from the will of the majority is also an important system.
It is sort of a free beer/free speech issue. One kind of freedom gives you nice things to do and makes you happy. The other protects you against a rainy day and is better for philosophical reasons.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
If you were to start your own country, would you really be free?
Would you have everything you need to be self sufficient or will you be depending on world trade? Will all your members be judged non-threatening to countries such as the USA? What happens when you decide to create a little military defense or a few members trade weapons as a hobby, such as a certain group did in Waco, TX? Sooner or later, your group is going to get the attention of a restless NSA and CIA and every other three letter acronym of every major capitolistic and communistic country out there. Your little country will get noticed and be subject to much debate, much of it in the "free press."
Can there ever be such a thing as freedom or world peace?
Hmmmm....
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I read an article that the web is "19 clicks wide" on average. ( I may have seen it here on Slashdot ) However if you could get sued for linking to an mp3 directly and they decided to sue for linking to a page that was linked to an mp3 then everybody on the net could get sued.
I guess it is time to use gopher again.
*wink*
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Well what if the mp3s are located in, and were ripped by a citizen of, a country which does not have copyright laws? Is it illegal to tell people to go to a different country to take advantage of different laws?
;)
Wouldn't that mean that I could face jail time if I told people which countries legalized (or at least don't prosecute for use/possession of) certain drugs? This could be good, OTOH, because at least we'd be rid of some lawyers
Depending on where you're at, you can post 'illegal' mp3s, because they're not illegal everywhere.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
People don't get the point of this lawsuit. Pages that offer free downloads are supported by advertising and partnerships with other sites. If someone links directly to the download, it completely bypasses the site's only mechanism of revenue. What this lawsuit is arguing is that MP3 and GIF are essentially no different.
This seem's counter-intuitive, but it's a good point. If a person used the Slashdot logo on their page and they linked directly to the GIF residing on Slashdot's servers, do you think Rob would be very happy? Maybe that would be cool with him, but I doubt it. This is essentially what is happening with a direct link to MP3. The host is being bogged down by extra traffic from people who don't even know where they are. This is the real issue here. Does that justify lawsuits against 17 year old hobbyists? Make your own mind on that, I've already put my Karma in enough risk.
PS - The stuff about this opening Slashdot to suits of the same kind is sheer nonsense. It's not about links, it's about fake content.
LoaderCopyright is a serious issue and there are many people who make their lives from producing copyrightable material, be it software, music, prose or whatever.
Linking to other sites is the lifeblood of the web, without it the usefulness of the things disappears, but you while you cannot always control what's on the other end of the link, you can decide whether to link to it.
As a webmaster, linking to another's site is endorsing that site, whether you provide a disclaimer or not. By linking to another site you are promoting it and, implicitly or otherwise, telling your readers that that site is worthwhile.
Therefore, by linking to a site which you know to be illegal you are opening yourself up to charges (criminal or moral) of aiding and abetting.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
The difference is that a printed bibliography does not give you access to the material (of course, this is one of the benefits of an electronic bibliography). As an example, suppose "Huckleberry Finn" (or "Origin of Species") is outlawed in your state. Including "Huckleberry Finn" in your bibliography is fine, but including contact information for the underground library is another matter.
But this brings up an interesting thought. If it's illegal to include a hyperlink to (hypothetically) http://joes_music.com/like_a_virgin.mp3, then can you get around this problem by printing the URL as plain text?
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Come on!
Whether a person hosts the MP3s himself (or herself), or links to another person's MP3s (which I believe is EVEN worse -- for small, small kinds only...), it's essentially the same. (Note that I'm talking about a direct link here.) Does people care where the URL points to? Do they download _less_ MP3s if they see that the URL is absolute and not relative? Pretty unlikely, don't you think?
So, to sum it up: If you first think having (and spreading) illegal copies of music (aka piracy), linking (directly) to it is just as bad. Perhaps not juridically (I'm no lawyer), but at least (IMHO) morally.
Whether copying music you don't already have (e.g. on CD) (optionally helping others to do the same) is `bad' or `good', is another debate, of course.
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
With all due respect... when you're referring to `major record labels ripping off musicians', do you ever consider:
1. Have the artists chosen those record companies themselves?
2. Do they get money (if even a fraction) for every CD sold?
I sincerely hope you're answering yes to both. If they'd want their music to be free-for-all, they would have published it themselves. (Yes, the record contract probably prohibits that, but they didn't _need_ to sign one, did they?)
Again, I didn't mean the last post as an MP3 debate (this one probably is). It was just to point out that _linking_ to an MP3 was no `better' than publishing one yourself.
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
I'm trying to send you mail, but I only get `ragemail.com domain unroutable'... (I think it would be better to continue this discussion via mail.)
Any ideas?
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
OK....
Although soem of the URLs say "search", I didn't do any searching, just clicked on links.
And I have now just proved how easy I can get to male pr0n on-line -- oh, no, what have I done?!
A similar ruling happened in the case of Scientology versus Spaink and providers in the Netherlands. See the end of the ruling at:
:)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/verd2eng.html
For instance, it says:
DECLARES it to be the law that by having a link on their computer
systems which when activated brings about a reproduction of the
works that CST has the copyright to on the screen of the user,
without the consent of the plaintiffs, the Service Providers are
acting unlawfully if and insofar that they have been notified of
this, and moreover the correctness of the notification of this fact
cannot be reasonably doubted, and the Service Providers have then
not proceeded to remove this link from their computer system at the
earliest opportunity;
The good news is, Scientology itself appealed the ruling
For the most part, /. is widely viewed by American Internet users.
;-)
Hm - do you mean American or U.S.? America is still a bit bigger than the U.S., last I checked...
As for U.S. freedom: Sure, the problem is just that the freedom seems to stop rather abruptly as as soon as somebody else manages to get one of these weird U.S. patents and thinks you're infringing on it or when you do anthing related to cryptography and try to export it. Yup, looks like freedom... >:->
Not to mention all those funny state laws that go round the Internet to amuse the rest of the world - wasn't there even a state(district/whatever) where it's illegal to have sex before marriage or suchlike? Very free indeed...
Take it with a pinch of salt, though. I'm actually convinced that overall the U.S.A. aren't any more or less free than any other working democracy on this planet. I just get the impression that different countries seem to have very different notions of freedom - and I doubt that it's possible to judge one to be better than the other.
HAND.
Argathin
17-year old Swede sued
A Swedish teenager has to go to court because his website contains links to copyright-protected music. The Swedish recording industry is trying to create a precedent with this suit.
Stockholm - The 17-year old Swede Tommy Olsson is being accused of providing copyright-protected music for free download on his webpage. The suit has been brought by the Swedish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) consisting of 53 record companies. Olssons webpage contained links to the music files. His attorney Per Olof Almer argued that Olsson didn't create, copy or transfer the files himself. "He only spread the information on where to find them".
This is the first case of its kind in Europe said the attorney for the recording industry, Magnus Maartenson. The Swedish IFPI has moved against approximately 1000 websites for copyright violations in the last two years. Tommy Olsson though is the first person who has to appear in court because of his website. The music industry quite obviously is trying to create a legal precedent with this case: "It's not about the whole recording industry pushing on one 17-year old" emphasized Maartensson.
Olsson made only a few hundred dollars from advertisements on his webpage said Maartensson. If found guilty, he will have to pay a fine of 150 to 250 Dollars. This amount will not be enough to deter others said Maartensson. "But if he is found guilty, we can sue him for damages and that will be a much bigger amount." The sentence is expected for next Wednesday.
Will "Der Spiegel" now sue me for copyright infringement ? Things are getting crazy on the web
In the United States, you cannot be sued for linking to illegal material. Remember the suit a photographer whose images were linked to from IMDB brought? It was thrown out of court...
Forget the legal system for a sec and think about this.
In order for an end user to read a site of mine, their system must establish a link to my system and then data is transfered directly from me to them. If I have a link on the page they've just 'downloaded' that points to an MP3 somewhere, and
that user follows that link, then their system connects directly to the new destination. They don't go via my system to get there, and the MP3 doesn't travel via my system to on route back to them. Once the end user has a copy of my page on their system I'm cut out of the loop completely.
A URL is no more than a sign post, something that provides the browser with a route to a destination. How on earth can anyone be sued for that? It's obviously the work of some semi technically literate lawyer who thinks he's onto a nice little earner.
Macka
Ok, so no one took me to court, sued me, or tried to bring civil charges against me. But my original college hosted web site was unfairly banned because of a link.
I was one of (if not the) first person to have a web page at Ohio University. My page was up before the guy who setup our first web server had his up. So to try and show what was possible I created a site (on OU's first linux box) to host local area artists. I had a few of my photos, a few of my bosses paintings, and a link to a CS student's "body art" page.
On his body art page he had photos of his..."Prince Albert" go look it up if you don't know, all I'll say is ouch! So my homepage linked to my art site which in turn linked to the "Body art" page which linked to its creators photos of his own personal body art.
Well finally my college within the university (Visual Communications) gets with the program and creates their own website including a list of links to student created pages. (A bunch done for a "web design" class that taught to create large imagemaps in photoshop and called them webpages, and a few independly created pages). I asked for months to get listed on the indepent student pages.
Finally after nearly a year I got an answer why. Apparantly the head of VisCom and visited my site and declared that it contained pornography. Amazed I scheduled an appointment with him to find out where he found porn on my site!
He then explained how he found the photos of the "Prince Albert". Needless to say I was amazed. After nearly two hours of arguing he finally agreed to link to my site only because the linux box that hosted the art site was being taken down because the CS department coulden't find anyone in their college to take over as sysadmin once the original sysadmin graduated and went to work for a local ISP.
Ain't college great?
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
pooptruck
If record companies are ripping off the artists, it's OK for you to rip off the record companies (and by extension, the artists), right? If the price of a CD is more than you'd like to pay, this somehow justifies theft, right?
As long as people continue to pay the record companies in ANY form, they'll continue right on doing what they've done for decades. If you steal the music, then YOU'RE just as guilty of hurting the artists as the record companies. Just don't BUY it. This is the only way that the market will be allowed to correct this problem. What could be easier than NOT giving someone your money?
Their point is, in some small way, understandable. But the implications are more severe than I think the court will ever realize. Is it, for example, illegal for a newspaper to write about problems with drugdealers in a certain park? The paper is, implicitly, telling their readers where to go to find a drugdealer. That is in my eyes equal to a link to another site that contains mp3:s.
But, and that is quite clear, the IFPI do this not because they think their argumentats are right but because they want to scare people off. They have also sent a letter to every univeristy in Sweden, where they claim that "most illegal software and music is spread through the computers of universities." In the same letter they claim that the university is legally responsible for everything downloaded to it's computers. They are, of course, lying. But if it scares universities into checking their students actions, the IFPI has succeeded. And that scares me.
There are scattered reports in swedish newspapers that the 17-year old did not only have links, but that he had actual files as well, and that those files are the main reason for the IFPI:s actions. I'm not sure if those reports are correct.
On an amusing sidenote, one of the Swedish tabloids described the case with a mild misunderstanding: "The 17-year old is charged for having files in the illegal MP3-format on his homepage." Not only was the music copyrighted, it was in an illegal format as well... :-)
FYI: the coffee was 50 degrees over the allowed limit. The woman suffered some serious burns and was hospitalized for a few days. McDonalds now serves their coffee at the correct temperature.
This isn't something you heard in the sound bite.
Dumb, dumb, verrry dumb. Almost any nation has laws that control the possibility of communicating with the outside world bypassing the normal channels.
Check your country laws for details.
You are simply not be allowed to transmit.
In btw in some countries even receiveing equipment is subject to licencing...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
In two clicks from Janes site, I got to Lycos, which from there it's fairly easy. (even without searching) I was going to try...but would that be considered a waste of time? anywho, point understood.
Yup, bout the same as what I was going to say.
theres not many good reasons to drive a car in the city, most people are just too selfish to give up their car. 'Busses are bad, because you have to sit with poor people, who can't afford cars.'
I represent One less car.
"Professional" jury ?? How nice... So if I sue Swedish goverment, my case will be judged by people who are being paid by this goverment...
Very "profesional" way of making sure that goverment always wins.
Here in Denmark 3 kids (one at the age of 17, don't know about the others) has also been sued for linking to sites which contained illegal MP3 music.
2 of the three boys has got "free process" (I don't know what it is called in US, but I hope you know what I mean), because there don't excist any law on this area.
KODA (IFPI in Denmark) writes on their homepage that if you're linking to pages with illegal "stuff", then you're responsible too (maybe not directly for the files, allthough they would like that, but you have some sort of resposibility!).
IMHO it is going to be hard to get them convicted, because, when you link to a site, you can't know if/when that site change what it contains.
Fortunately, law-experts in Denmark has the same opinion...
I think that taking the position that this "tea rodent" is being maliciously prosecuted, or that the case is unfair is the wrong thing to do. I think that we should speak out more on the injustice and lack of freedom of other countries when compared to ours. While we continue to see our freedoms erode somewhat, they are still a veritable smorgasbord when compared to other countries. What's happening to this kid is a damn shame...and we ought to be angry about the situation in general...not just this particular case.
=h=
What?
I'm not disagreeing with you, however: I think that what the plaintiffs will argue is that this shouldn't be afforded the same legal status as a simple citation. Without having read the text of the lawsuit, or actually seeing the page in question, I can pretty easily think up an almost convincing argument. It might read something like this:
Kinda scary. I can almost convince myself with an argument like that.
I'd have to say no.
The reason I don't think the argument would hold up is that no prosecutor would argue that this was a matter of citation: it's transmission of stolen goods. In the eyes of the law, this may be tantamount to telling all your friends about a good place to buy stolen merchandise. By doing so, you become a part of the distribution channel, and suddenly you're staring at an "aiding and abetting" charge.
I'm kinda repeating myself, though. I argued this better here.
Please don't bite my head off, but I don't see what's wrong here. Someone created a webpage with a link to files that are illegal to distribute. There really is no legitimate reason to do this, and he obviously went to some effort to help people find these files. This is blanantly aiding someone else in committing a crime and is quite different from a search engine randomly linking to an illegal file because the program said to do so. Since when do we (we being any society) protect people who purposefully commit crimes? If I made 5000 "archival backups" of Windows NT and put them in a big open crate in a busy intersection and then ran away, only to find all of them had dissappeared, that doesn't mean I haven't done anything wrong.
Misery truly loves company.
One question: where are you going to get these fat pipes running from if you're the last bation of freedom on the planet?
I found "tea rodent" to be amusing.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Seriously, what are the limits? If I create a Geocities site and put some "illegal" content on there, and link to it from my site, I think most people would realize that it's part of the same logical site. But what if I link to a site run by someone else?
Remember that in most countries it's illegal to give someone help in breaking the law. If I link to a site where someone can break the law, isn't that the same as helping them break the law?
The real issue here is that the courts don't understand the technology, and as such will make stupid rulings.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
It is much the same here - just the taxes aren't quite that high. Whether or not I ever use Medicare or Medicaid, I still have to pay the taxes to support those who are unable to do so. The charities should be put back in the hands of churches and such - I have no wish to help a man who cannot help himself.
Give a man a fish and he shall eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he shall eat for life.
In this context, a link is exactly like as if he had it on his hd. Their concern is, if he has an a href tag on his page that points to an mp3 file, people can come and download it, which steals revenue from artists. Nobody really can say if this is true, mp3s may be promoting artists, or may be hurting them, but traditional view is that mp3s steal revenue. Anyway, it's clear that the link in this case is equivalent to having the file on his site, isn't it obvious? Many pointed out: "what if i have link to a page with links...?" Well, that's why we have juries. I guess if the links says "here you can get some mp3s" then jury will agree he's guilty, if it just says "here's a nice page to visit" and the page has various links including some links to mp3s.. then he isn't guilty because he may not have known there were mp3s there and in fact mp3s might have been added after he linked the page.
- Rainy
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
In U.S. intellectual property law there is this notion of "contributory infringement," which means that even if you are not actively and immediately responsible for a copyright infringement, you may share some of the responsibility if you helped it happen.
Contributory infringement is most often applied to, say, publishers who reprint a copyrighted work submitted by a third party with no rights to that work. But I believe that it has also been applied to people who knowingly provided resources (e.g. a postage meter, a CD burner or a Xerox machine) for the purpose of large-scale copyright infringement, even though they never actively took part in the copying.
Depending on the context of the original web site, there may be a strong argument to make that the teenager in this case was a contributory infringer. For example, if the links on his web site said "Here are good places to get free MP3s of the latest N'Sync tunes!" then it's pretty clear that he was directing people to the MP3s with the expectation that they would download the pirated material, i.e. he's deliberately helping the copying happen. But say that his site was a technical exposition of the MP3 standard, with links to technical specs, ripping libraries, compression algorithms, and also happened to include links to sites which happened to include some illegally-ripped songs. In such a case it's much harder to demonstrate infringement.
Last point: I do not much agree with traditional intellectual property theory and do not in general care for the notion of copyright. Within that framework, however, this does not seem like a really outrageous case.
But what if I create a website that doesn't link to anything and isn't linked by anything? It'll be infinite links away from everything, thus raising the average to ifinite....
(DISCLAIMER: I should really stop drinking this mutch cola)
Good point. I stand corrected.
There have already
be one convicted in Denmark.
For linking to mp3.
He were convicted becours
the web page were
inviting to crimes.
(coping copyrighted music).
Knud
When a jury sides with the defendant, they have could THEN have a vote on whether the suit was frivolous
/. recently. What do you call this idea... MetaJury? MetaJustice? :-)
Hmmmm... sounds similar to a system implemented here on
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Bleh. I've heard this before, that it's important to protect our heritage, and our traditions.
Why?
Think of it like a free market economy, but with culture. If your culture is less attractive than others (stupid restrictive traditions, lame rituals, etc) then your children will likely not follow it, if they have a choice.
The whole push to preserve culture is based on giving people less choice. Limiting the outside influence they can be exposed to, so that they'll do the only think they know.
You can see it in culture, where for instance there are limits on the ammount of foreign TV shows and local artists are subsidised not based on skill, but on quota. You can also see it in religion, where people forbid teaching of other religions or non-religious viewpoints (think Kansas) so that the children will think the way their parents want them to.
It's not like preventing others from speaking makes your viewpoint any more compelling, but if someone is exposed to one viewpoint from everyone around them while they grow up, often they will believe it just because that's all they know.
Culture works in a similar way. You can get someone to practice your culture by smothering other cultures, but if your culture offered something of value, then people would pick it without being forced or deprived of options. And if they don't, then it's probably because your culture is nothing but a collection of useless rituals and stupid beliefs that hold no objective value.
Yes.
They're dangerous inefficient. Letting barely trained people drive polluting hunks of metal at great speed past pedestrians is a dumb idea.
If people paid taxes equal to the cost of urban driving then large cities could have good enough transit systems that people wouldn't need to drive.
Highway driving is fairly expensive. A car with a few people eats up a lot more fuel than those people's seat on even a farily luxurious bus.
Few people actually need cars and with a bit of decent city planning even less would.
Then let people drive outside of cities where they're less likely to drive drunk (people drive home from bars, etc, usually not from state to state, while drunk) and less likely to run off the road in a populated area.
If someone wants a car to drive on private property, or on interstate highways, or in similar situations, then let them. But if they want a car to drive in the city because they can't be bothered with transit, then screw 'em. (I only know a few drivers who I think are good enough to deserve a license for city driving. The rest of them... It'd be like giving guns to kids after a one-week anger management course and a few target-practice sessions.)
What utter crap. How about this - I totally agree with the teenagers who stole your car so they could learn how to drive. Sounds pretty reasonable. *cough*
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Yeah, but that doesn't become effective to January 1. That's still being worked on as an administrative nightmare that will (I hope) fall flat on its face.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
This whole "I'm only linking" bull is no excuse, if you link to the file deliberately or help someone obtain illegal product you are in the wrong and you are an accomplice to the distribution of "stolen" material.
I agree. If this kid intentionally posted links to MP3's that he knew were illegal, he's in the wrong. I also think that it would only be fair for him to have to forfeit the profits on advertising from this page. I don't think he should be liable for "lost profits" on the MP3s, unless it can be proved that he owned the target site also.
What bothers me about all of this is the general paranoia that seems to exist about MP3s. Someone else noted that the article mentioned the "illegal format" of the files that were linked to. (?!)
It's troubling to think that if I post MP3s of my pitiful performances with a musical instrument, or my sensless ramblings, that I could be suspect simply because the files have ".mp3" at the end of the filename.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
That's what I find so scary. Why shouldn't music be free, or at least let's have record labels who understand the idea of giving out, say, 1 track per album, as a free "sampler"?
As with warez, to some extent, and cannibis to some (other) extent, the way to deal with the "problem" (if such there be) is not to clamp down on it, to use the piss-ignorant cops to stamp on everything (relevant or no), but to accept it, to make it less of a "shock! horror!" thing.
You can now put 'best of warez' on your MyNetscape portal. Where's the criminal excitement gone?
Now let's do a similar thing for MP3s.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Lets all chip in and buy an Island, then we could start our own country, The last free country in the world!!!
Homer -"I call President!"
Mr. Burns -"Vice President!"
Smithers -"Aww crap..."
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
http ://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,91180- 144345-1010275-0,00.html
that's why we make such great movies and commercials. The competition of a free market makes advertising very important, thus highly skilled, and finally, highly effective.
The problem is you end up with a consumption culture (always needing that new toy or to see that new movie) that is necessary to drive a growth (acceleration not speed) driven market. This consumption culture, while it looks really cool from the outside, is nothing more than an image and is in essence an empty shell designed to sell stuff. That is the culture overrun that other countries fear and fight (while their impressionable children embrace it).
+&x
To be honest I hope he wins.
Every industry is waking up to the fact that the Internet empwers individuals and they're running scared suing everyone.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I was lucky to have teachers who knew the Educational Editions of software were useless in my computer courses. At least now, I have a real future. And I totally agree with people who cracked Unix boxes so they could learn about the system.
I am sick and tired of people who think a Utopia of no "visible" crime can sustain itself regardless of human nature, especially the Big Brother and blood sucking racketeering instincts.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
People kill people, not websites.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
If you want someone to have to have loaded your html before loading your MP3 or GIF files with a Referer: pointing to that html, then program your web server that way. When something is technologically protectible, there's no need for political protection.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If I tell you how to make a link to an illegal mp3 site, am I helping someone to do something illegal? You just expressed an opinion saying that it should be. When does it stop? If I mention Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, should that be illegal? I'm telling you the name of a document that encourages people to act according to their conscience even when it goes against the law. What about a newpaper that prints the URL of a site distributing copyright-infringing MP3's? You're proposing prior restraint, which is almost never considered acceptable in free speech cases.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
God, sometimes I think that things are posted on /. just to see the "Oh my god, this is injustice of the worst kind, worse than ethnic cleansing" people scurry out from under their refrigerators when the light goes on. It's refreshing to see the (usually only) one voice of reason that gets posted in response to these "Look out, mind control is coming to get you" stories.
These stories, usually taken out of context, almost always have very specific issues being challenged, as "loader" here has very calmly pointed out. Thank you for doing that.
Please try to find out all of the information about it before replying to a story like this. In this particular situation, you don't need to freak out, your "rights" (whatever that means) are not being threatened, it's just one specialized case in sweden that hasn't even been tried yet.
Big Brother is not on your computer; he's at least a few hops away...
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Look, the 19 links thing was an average, given any two pages on the web. You people didn't even read the article, you just saw "19 clicks away" and jumped to conclusions.
The average means this: given any two pages at random, they will be ON AVERAGE 19 links away. That means that sometimes they will be one link away, and sometimes they will be hundreds of links away, but on average, they will be 19 links away.
Sheesh.
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
The best remedy to this type of harassment suit has been debated for years, and (IIRC) the current suggestions are:
With an affirmative defense, the suit is dismissed immediately once the defendent objects and claims this defense. You don't like the fact that my personal car is red instead of blue? You even filed a suit against me, claiming it's against the neighborhood covenents? Tough, that's not something the courts will enforce. (They might enforce restrictions on *where* I park the car, especially if it's a business vehicle, but not the details of any personal vehicle.)
This idea isn't without controvery. What happens to a homeowner who files suit over a legitimate grievance, but who simply can't afford to push the case against a multi-million dollar company?
In this case, I am 100% certain that the suit will be quietly dropped within a short time because there is no fscking way they could win. (Their worst nightmare is actually *winning* the case and facing the backlash of their affluent, young market.) However they will consider it a victory since it will put a bit of doubt into the back of the minds of other people who may want to put up links or content.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I disagree. Unless you yourself are providing the mp3's on your site, then what the hell are you really doing wrong? Giving directions? Some previous posts have already mentioned that telling someone where to go to get drugs isn't illegal. The seller and buyer are the ones doing the illegal activity. In fact, one small short step farther would be to condemn a person for simply KNOWING where to buy drugs. Anyway, web sites are dynamic. You could link to a healthy site called allfree.com (freeware for instance) and then a month later it's sold, or degenerates to an illegal mp3 site some day later. This means anyone with any links on their site is in jeopardy. But, to be a devil's advocate to my own self, if the person was providing a download link to the mp3 itself, then I guess it would be the same as saying "oh, you don't have to go to the dealer", go to us middle men, and we'll UPS/FedEx it to you! ---------------- Dustin (43 GB of full-album MP3's, so who am I to talk?)
What criterea would you use to judge the relative freedom of a country?
Percentage of the people in jail?
Percentage of the people killed per year by the justice system (death penalty, killed by cops etc.)?
Number of laws that a person is subject to?
Equal access to justice regardless of wealth or race?
Take a brief second and think about which countries are free and which are not?
I know this is off topic but in no way does the parent post deserve to be moderated to 5.
War is necrophilia.
Just wondering? What would this bod for internet portals like Yahoo? It returns links to illegal material like mp3's.
Why give any examples when others are so eager to do it for you? I make posts dissing the US (where I have not lived for almost a decade) here all the time, and most of the time they are either ignored, or granted with just critisism and comment. Yet, although their are probably 100x as many Americans reading this as Swedes, one Sweden dissing comment deep down in a thread gets me 7 angry replies in half an hour.
Which is sort of what I was talking about...
-
As fucked up as this may be, the Swedish legal system is a lot more sane than the american one. We have professional juries, and even if found guilty they are unlikely ask for anything like "punitive damages" or cede to the ridiculous cost estimates of American counterparts.
Hell, most of the time we don't even lock up our violent criminals...
-
Personal freedom isnt dead in Sweden. There hasnt been a verdict yet (he'll be freed, imho), only a report in a german mag. where they probably dont know anything about swedish law.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Either you don't live here or you are blind. Bar the far east, Sweden has one of the most collective value systems in the world. There has never been individual freedom here, which is why we thrived for a while (50s-60s-70s) and then went right to the shitter today. Same reason places like SIngapore can thrive now, but are heading straight for the shitter tomorrow.
Say what you want about the American regime, but until now America has had better individual freedom then we do - by a long run. American kids may be forced to say the pledge of allegance in the morning, but that is nothing compared to silent indoctrination into the social (-ist) system that goes on from the the very start here.
Since my childhood was split evenly between the two countries, for once I do know what I am talking about.
-
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Since the person in question was specifically and knowingly pointing to pirated content, however, that's more like a go-between faciltating a transaction between a junkie and a dealer. He might not touch the drugs himself, ever, nor necessarily the money, but he's certainly a willing accomplice, and part of the racket; and I'm pretty sure most places would bust 'im."
:) Which in effect is the same as a link? To me all a link is, is telling someone the address of a site. Sort of like a street address.
I was actually thinking about that. Isn't putting a link in the web page the same as telling everyone, "You can get drugs at 9213 Dearborn, Ave. Some City, Some State"
I mean hey, I told you exactly where to get the drugs.
I don't think I've ever heard of someone getting arrested for someone telling someone else where to get drugs.
Also wouldn't this also be the same as me telling you that you can get yourself stolen computer equiment from Joe Blow at 3124 Neato Street, Some City, some State.
Is it it illegal to tell people where they can do illegal things? I don't ever recall hearing someone getting arrested for telling someone else where to find some thing illegal.
- lakdjfalkdj -- Cuz all the good nicks were taken:)
If this world was *moral* or *ethical*, there wouldn't be lawyers would there?
Is the major record labels ripping off musicans moral and ethical in your book as well? I sure hope not.
Face it, this society is built on greed, and if sueing a 17 year old in Sweden would help reap in the reprecussions from copied mp3s and preserve the multi-billion dollar empire, then hell, there's no *moral* or *ethical* problem behind it!
Wake up and take your daily dose of caffine!
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
1. If choice the the only freedom we have, we live in a pretty sick sad world. Yup..
:)
2. Yes, the artist do get their share, but most newcomers sign deadbeat contracts that they will hardly ever make decent money out of.
3. Most artists earn most of their money by performing live.
4. If I have my freedom to link to stuff ideas/files/whatever taken away from me, they might as well take my right to talk about them.
5. As long as the perpetrator does not physically store the data/information/whatever in a medium that is directly traced to him, then it *should* not be a problem.
6. It is consistant with the canons of justice, that no person should be held liable for crimes he did not commit. He did not actually break the copyright agreement by putting a file on his website. He only linked them from someone elses' site. He did not directly profit from this action. People could might as well visited his site without downloading on the files. Thus, he did not copy the content, nor distributed the content. He was merely *refering* to it.
7. The final moral responsibility is with the person who makes the decision to download the file or not to. Although I may not agree with this stance myself (as I said before), this is the stance taken by the tabacco firms on illnesses caused by tabacoo consumption;
8. Which directly relates to what you said, "they didn't _need_ to sign one, did they?". Which translates to - "Well, they didn't need to smoke, did they?" and "Well, they didn't need to click on the link and download the mp3, didn't they?"
9. Which brings up the question, why is (or isn't) euthanasia legal where you live?
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
On September 15, we will know if the court indeed finds that links to mp3 files should be considered a violation of the Bern copyright convention.
Tell your friends about xenu.net
The court dismissed the suit completely. This was, as many said, a PR stunt by the IFPI, because the dismissal won't get the media converage the suit got.
Swedish source: Computer Sweden, Åtalet ogillas i svenskt mp3-mål
Tell your friends about xenu.net
Daveo! Oh daveo, where have you gone? Daveo speaks with his person in the first. Since when did this begin, oh daveo? Don't be discouraged, my son. Though they may fight your strange modes of speech, do not back away from the battle! Natty says that the third person will prevail over the blandness of the first.
I'm not sure how they can sue someone for having a link to some resource on the web. Wouldn't it be like suing people for having bibliographies in their book/articles?
I can understand the issues with embedding someone else content in your own frames, or using someone else artwork (gif, mov, etc.)
But just suing for just giving a pointer to it, that doesn't seem realistic. I wonder how what's their rationale.
This isn't the first case of it's kind.
Does anybody else remember this? There was a site that posted a photograph on the net, breaking the owner's copyright. The owner sued, not only the person who posted the picture, but the sites that linked to the picture, and to the sites that linked to the sites that linked to the picture.
The suit on the sites that linked to the copyright violater was eventually dropped, but not after making enough noise to scare the bejesus out of several website owners.
There's are more lawsuits happening over people linking to other sites. Right now, Ticketmaster is fighting tickets.com in court. If you want a ticket, go to tickets.com and in many cases tickets.com will link you to the ticketmaster webpage. Ticketmaster is suing because tickets.com is making it's business off the Ticketmaster web page.
I do NOT see any difference between linking to a site or publishing the URL for a web page to specifically buy tickets. Moreover, you can't be held liable for merely linking to a site that provides illegal content. But my guess is, the courts will see it differently. Especially with the Ticketmaster lawsuit.
It's the end of the World Wide Web as we know it, and I'm going to puke.
This sounds like it could easily be fixed. Create a plugin that checks the referring page from the URL request. If its valid/local let the download occur.
Essentially just leaving things open like this is equivalent to leaving a pile of money on the sidewalk in front of the shop and complaining when people steal it. A good lawyer could argue that there was the impression that the material was free for all use unless specifically marked otherwise. Its toeing the line but possible, especially when there is a way to restrict the downloads transparently.
I hope that when you are shot in the head and paralyzed by your spouse's lover and left to fend for your crippled self that you enjoy the same loving attitude that you display so well now.
I advise you in the interim to establish your own fiefdom on some undiscovered island so that you can only contribute to those things which you actually "use". I can only imagine how advanced your civilization will turn out.
Have a nice life scumbag !
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Does Sweden also support the pernicious notion of civil lawsuits, where the defendant has essentially no chance of winning unless they're prepared to spend an enormous sum of money?
There are civil lawsuits, but since the loser pays, if you win, you've spent the other side's money, so that is not much of a problem.
The end result is that people only sue if they're real sure of winning.
*I* think the good thing about the Swedish system is that the loser pays the costs for both parties. That ends most frivolous lawsuits long before they even started.
I actually like the US jury system better than being judged by third rate politicians as in Sweden.
OK, so this is off topic. Sue me...
There are more dividing lines.
1) A non-active textual link vs hypertext link.
2) A link to a page containing illegal material.
3) A link only usable for viewing copyrighted content.
4) A link that starts an illegal content download.
In case 4) you could argue somewhat persuasively that the web author has knowingly created an object whose normal and expected use causes the law to be broken.
I also have to wonder if a company profiting from advertisement on a site with links to illegal content is liable.
The trouble with this is that to obey the law you need a lot of knowledge of a rather difficult and murky field, online copyright law. This is heading towards a world where it will be impossible to publish on the web without a lawyer and a staff of people to do ongoing research on the legality of all links (as they change.)
We will probably spend the next twenty years and who knows how much money defining copyright law for the web in the courts, and then even more money enforcing that law. Worse, the only real benefit will be to the distribution channels, not the content artists or end users.
where in the post did you see that? daveo (I ;0) have been and in the future will try to use the third, but it won't be an instant thing to change the nature in which one speaks.
-DAVEO
or could there be another motive in this, such as setting an example for people, since *many* more people link tp mp3s than produce them, and maybe that would reduce mp3 usage even more?
-DAVEO
My point with the pledge has nothing to do with any of this. My point is, that the flag stands for the people, not for the government. The red stripes in the flag actually represent the people's seperation from England. Also, I do not pledge my allegence to the republic, but to my fellow people of the country. If it ever came down to the people against the government, I already know which side I would be on. That's what our flag represents - freedom and revolution - not blind allegence to a republic. That's why I say the pledge that way.
Also, I do not agree with the belief that pure democracy would necessitate fear. Fear is a state of mind. There are many laws that do not represent the views of the majority.
Also, the people are actually free to make laws, through initiative and referendum. We can even make constitutional amendments, by achieving a 2/3 majority of popular vote. This doesn't work, however, because anything controversial never actually gets printed on the ballot. But this country was not designed in a way that 500 people were supposed to control 250 million. I believe it was originally designed as a republic because of the impossibility of a democracy at the time. But anyhow.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Slashdot links to alot of web sites, which link to lots of web sites, which link to lots of web sites. In all everyone is only 19 clicks away from any point on the web. Does that mean we are all guilty.
I am sorry but as we would all agree, this is a lame lawsuit.
"Heeeeeeell know."
yes yes yes, I intended to write "no".
From now on I shall withhold comment until after morning when sobriety has shown it's ugly face.
Killing spammers is too good for them.
But, I have to say that I have very little pity for the kid.
How many times have you seen sites where they say "Oh, the files are not here on my servers. I only link to them." Like Lycos and MusicSeek say that they don't have the files there, that they only link to them after you search. You know what? I don't have to leave those sites to download files which are copyrighted, I put in my keyword and search. As far as the user is concerned, the files are downloaded right from those sites. This whole "I'm only linking" bull is no excuse, if you link to the file deliberately or help someone obtain illegal product you are in the wrong and you are an accomplice to the distribution of "stolen" material.
IMHO it's like giving someone the name and address of a fence and letting them use my phone to make the deal and my garage for the purchase. Would the cops give a rats rectum if I was not the one who stole the product? Heeeeeeell know. To me, this is the same type of situation. This kid (and don't get me wrong, I do pity the dude, just not much) was knowingly directing visitors to copyrighted files.
Now, if I link to a site that then links to a site for downloading an illegal file, sure, there is no reason to sue. But none of the sites which my sites link to direct the user to anything illegal, and I check that sort of thing. If a webmaster wants to, hell, be my guest. But if you link to illegal shit and you do it on purpose, and someone sues, busts, or otherwise comes after your butt, you bring the karma on yourself.
Anyhow, rant rant rant, I'll shut up and drink my beer.
Killing spammers is too good for them.
Hmmm. Lots of pages generate links, and many allow links to be added by others. Search engines tend to be in this category... does that mean that they are liable, since they'll spit out pages with links to pirated material? Personal auction/trading sites also tend to be of this category, although sites like E-bay are trying to clamp down on people offering anything they consider contraband or controversial.
If it's restricted to obvious, conscious intent (like specifically describing the content. Were one to link to a free hosted page, ala Geocities, and then that page lapsed and the address got re-used for somebody brazenly and stupidly distributing "w4r3z"... that doesn't seem like it should be prosecuted as long as ignorance is plausible.
Since the person in question was specifically and knowingly pointing to pirated content, however, that's more like a go-between faciltating a transaction between a junkie and a dealer. He might not touch the drugs himself, ever, nor necessarily the money, but he's certainly a willing accomplice, and part of the racket; and I'm pretty sure most places would bust 'im.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
oh no, i guess i'll be getting sued next; i have some friends who have mp3s and i think i have their phone numbers written down somewhere!
jesus.
well i have to say now that links are going to be illegal. i used to run a geocities (cringe!) and as i found out that a ton of ppl linked back to my page, i wonder if they are going to try and do a guilt by assoiation deal. i am not sure but some times the info i need is "for education only" i use a few hacker web pages and 2600 to help deal with secerity issues.
> exactly where does legal accountability stop?
I think the legal accountability starts when:
a) you recognize that the site you are linking to contains illegal material, and...
b) you intentionally link to it anyways.
Here's a more down-to-earth example: suppose my neighbor has a big ol' house with a beautiful garden. He also happens to be the neighborhood fence.
If I don't know that, and I tell my friends that they should really visit his place to check out his lovely petunias, I've done nothing wrong. However, if I do know the score, and I tell people that I can hook them up with a great deal on a linux laptop (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)... there's a pretty good case for aiding and abetting.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
I think this dude should be moderated as funny. Either this or he doesnt have a clue what hes talking about.
Sweden do have free speech. Even censorship is illegal, which means that if you want to publish anything, nobody has any legal right to stop you. If you publish anything illegal it can be stopped afterwards but nobody can stop you from publishing it first. The ONLY exception to this movies when showed on the cinema. I dont really know why they have this exception. This is what our open-source constitution says.
Its quite obvious that you dont share political values with most of the people here in sweden. We have this "collective value system" because we want it. It might not be everybodys cup of tea and obviously not yours but the society provides us with a certain security, free education and other stuff at the expense of a little higher taxes, which is why some rich people doesnt like it.
This is just a political thing for you, and doesnt have to do anything with this lawsuit because youre pissed at the path politics is taking here.
The kid will most likely have better chances here than he would have in the US because were not so money-oriented.
Well, it looks like the should also sue yahoo.se since they also link to illegal MP3 sites.
Hum, that may be because Yahoo.se has lawyers to defend themselves, what a 17 years old boy doesn't.
GFK's
According to the article the verdict is expected before next wednesday. I don't think that's a long time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a whole, the Russian people have historically been pretty docile. It has been the Russian leadership that is bad, not the Russians themselves.
all it takes (in most systems) is a few minutes to fill out some forms, and a few dollars for a filing fee. You could sue someone for thinking about MP3's if you feel like it, there's absolutely nothing to stop you.
So the fact that this suit has been filed means nothing at all. The question is what happens to the suit. AFAIK, no one's been successful with this kind of theory yet, but that doesn't mean they never will.
why they are suing a 17-year-old, how can they get money from him?
They picked this teenager because he is small and weak, naive and poor, relatively speaking. Once they win, they can then use the precedent to clobber the more powerful adversaries.
mmmm... Swedish tea rodent...
These poll resuls show that about fully one third of slashdot users are from outside the US. :)
Has anyone been to lycos.com lately? Try their MP3 search on your favorite recording artist and see how many links you can come with. While most of their links are worthless, every now and then you can get a decent MP3 file. This case ought to scare the s**t out of them.
I was referring to the issue of links to copyright infringing material in general, not this particular case.
I can understand what the IFPI is trying to do here (I don't agree with it of course), but exactly where does legal accountability stop? If you can be sued for linking to a file, what about to a page containing files, and so on? Why do I get the feeling that this issue is going to spend a long, long time in legal limbo?
At 14.00 local time here in sweden we will have the virdict. That will bee in aproxemently 2 hours and 20 minutes.
...considering there are dozens of sites like http://mp3.lycos.com/ that make a living off the advertising revenue from pages that do the exact same thing?
I mean...why the hell doesn't the "Swedish disk industry" (thanks, BabelFish!) go after the major targets with 1) more money 2) more accountability and 3) a broader audience ?
Yes I know...Lycos is an American company and I suppose the Swede was local. So what then if he had used XOOM or GeoCities to post the links? Would then he have gone completely unnoticed?
I can't possibly imaging any judge stupid enough to buy into the "accomplice" mentality. I mean, there is no way that linking to information could be considered helping the crime any more than pointing out the nearest pawn shop makes you party to the sale of stolen property.
Here's the scary part...what if he had linked to a page that had links to illegal MP3s? What if he had linked to a page that had a link to a page that had illegal MP3s?
As we just learned...chances are that every site on the Internet is less than 19 links away from stolen or illegal content so...who gets to decide where to draw the line that primary links are illegal but secondary or tertiary are less so?
Fah...someone get this kid a good lawyer. The poor "Swedish tea rodent" (again, BabelFish) needs to win this one or we are all screwed...
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
i think that it is idiotic to sue some one for having links to external sites. if they are allowed to sue people than i have commited over 100 offenses of linking to sites (on my company's and personal homepages combined). i hope no one sues me for driving traffic to their site.
Right, The US is a Thrid World Contry. Scandinavia is a lot more civil and advanced.