Do you know what "marginal cost" is? No, you obviously don't. So let me put an end to your ignorance: it's the cost of producing an additional unit of a product. Producing more copies of Avatar costs almost nothing, what costs a fortune is making the first one.
Now that you know that, I expect you to apologize for your disrespectful outburst. And next time, remember to make sure you actually know what you're talking about before you start spewing horsecrap, thank you very much.
You're talking about profit margin (that is, the result ob substracting costs from revenue). I'm talking about marginal cost (that is, the cost of producing an additional unit of a product). Therefore, I cannot properly answer to your message, since we're not talking about the same thing.
Note that I said "and there are no exceptions to it", yet you're mentioning exceptions such as fair use. I never actually claimed that the exclusivity doesn't exist, only that what I quoted is only true if the exclusivity exists and if there are no exceptions to it (and therefore, that it isn't true if either of those two premises aren't). So while you might not have noticed it, you're actually agreeing with me.
First, IP laws are not necessary in order to have the ability to receive credit and resources from any work. Second, I doubt it would take you more than five minutes to find no less than several dozens of examples of people doing it without receiving resources from it (credit is an entirely different thing, though, because even the most permissive legal licensing, the Public Domain, still requires giving credit).
First, big publisher A wouldn't do that, because they would gain nothing. Second, you're comparing massive copying with small scale copying, even if both were not for profit.
you are choosing to deprive the copyright holder of the exclusivity that he or she is supposed to be granted by their copyright to decide who may copy the work.
Assuming such exclusivity actually exists and there are no exceptions to it... Which is a lot to assume.
I'll go for the discussion, and ask you to tell me what legal system considers theft any instance of "obtaining something you're not entitled to have", even if nobody is deprived of any property. Becase by that logic, one could even argue that me fucking your wife would be theft.;)
Not really, the copyright holder still has that right. The only way to steal that right would be to effectively prevent the copyright holder from actually distributing the content under any circumstances. Which is pretty much impossible.
I did, and I don't see why you told me to. Also, I learned nothing new from reading it. So, care to enlighten me with regards to your purpose in having me read that?
Please note that he didn't say anything about it not being illegal (even though there are places where it is legal). Quite the opposite actually, since he described it as "an offense". Therefore, I don't think he'd expect the case to be dismissed.
Stealing movies is not very different from stealing medicines, food or anything else.
Yes it is. The marginal cost of movies is practically zero, whereas that of medicines or food, however low, isn't. Also, replicating medicines or food is not as easy as replicating a physical copy of a movie. And if it were, it would be our moral duty to replicate those medicines and food.
The front page is different, its an unprotected point of entry, if they author of the page didn't want you to have access then it wouldnt be created that way.
Absolutely nothing (unless a page is password-protected and you don't know the password) prevents you to visit any other page directly, as long as you know the URL, so the front page is not really different from other unprotected pages. Besides, if the author of the page didn't want you to have access to other pages then he wouldn't link to them.
Unlinked pages (that is, pages one can only access by knowing the URL), however... But then again, only those who know the URL could access them (except the occasional cracker trying to be where he shouldn't be, but that's probably illegal anyway), and I'd assume if they know the URL they also have the right to access the page. And if you're not linking to it, why make it publicly available anyway? Just require a password to access it.
However, that's still largely irrelevant, as far as the legality of making a temporary copy for the purpose of browsing any given page is concerned. Because that was the topic of this conversation, wasn't it?
A reasonable expectation might be for people to go to the front page and from there check the authors copyright notice. It would be unreasonable to place a copyright notice in a place that requires people to have already agreed to conditions before considering them, but the same argument cant be applied to other content.
Unlikely, for the reasons outlined in the previous paragraph. I think you are seeing problems where there are none. Also, see next paragraph for an example of how it's not always unreasonable to place copyright notices in places you can only access after agreeing to conditions.
Other pages on the website _could_ be protected by passwords or click through license agreements which state copyright license conditions, i doubt an implied license would cover access to those protected pages, an implied license is only supposed to be minimal.
Yes, and no. Even if there's a requirement to use a password or agree to a license, there's still an implied license, as long as said implied license is required due to the circumstances of the content or of the way in which it is delivered. For example, take any message boards you want. When you sign up, you usually have to go through a document outlining a set of rules that you have to agree to. Said document does not contain a license that allows making a temporary copy of the content, yet it's still legal to browse it. And it's not the front page, and to access it you need a password... And there's a copyright notice in the footer of just about any page of the boards.
On the other hand, the implied license would only cover very specific acts (the distribution of the content by the ISP, the temporary copy made by the browser, etc), and access to protected pages is unlikely to be one of them, though temporary storage of the content as a result of browsing once you're granted access would be covered by the implied license (just like for unprotected pages, since the only thing that matters is that you have the right to access the content: that right is implied if it's unprotected content, and explicitly given if it's protected and you're granted access by legitimate means).
So, in short: an implied license only applies to circumstances that require it, and always applies if the circumstances require it.
Deep link cases i think they are arguing that there isnt an implied license to link to one of those protected pages, that they need a license. The counter is that if it has a URL that can directly access it (as opposed to dynamic content) then the content isnt hidden/protected, its like a front page.
There's no need for a counter. If it's not hidden or protected, then it's obvious the author intends people to be able to access it. So, why object to something t
What ive been able to understand (since yesterday hehe) about an implied licence is that its a "common sense" type thing, its a licence to do just enough to achieve a required task.
For example, when playing a DVD it could be argued there is an implied right to be able to copy it into memory or the play can cache it to disk in order to play it.
Exactly. Hence my example of a computer's RAM.
With a website i think there must be an implied license to view the front page, and anything reasonable to achieve the purpose of finding a copyright notice on the site. But it get hairy after that and gets tied into the deep linking cases.
Not at all. The front page is not different from any other page, in that accessing any page in a website actually requires that you temporarily store a copy of it. Since it's required and temporary, and everyone expects it to work that way, all three conditions I previously mentioned apply, and thus browsing a page from a website (be it the front page or any other) clearly falls under the "implied license" provisions.
Please note that this does not necessarily make linking to torrents (or to the actual content that you would get from that torrent) always legal. The "implied license" provisions only apply to the legal publication of, or access to, copyrighted content (that is, it applies to the songs you willingly publish in your band's website as a promo, but not to the rip of your version for which Joe Torrent uploaded a torrent to IsoHunt, or even to the torrent itself).
I think if these people pushing the case that deep linking is bad started winning then this implied license could be reduced.
And then we'd see cases like the one I described earlier about a guy getting sued for visiting someone's website.
ISP is different, there are special exceptions granted for "Common carriers"
So, is the browser a "common carrier"? Is my computer a "common carrier"? Because as soon as I turn it on, I'm temporarily storing copyrighted content on its RAM.;)
The term i think we are working around as i mention in my other post is called an "implied license", i suspect thats the situation with a web browser.
That must be it, by that name or any other. For example, I'm fairly sure we don't call it "implied license" here, but there are still provisions in our law to make temporary storing or transmission of copyrighted content not illegal under certain circumstances, including but not limited to, that storage or transmission being a necessary part of the process of legally accessing and/or using the content. Thus, an ISP, my computer's RAM, and browsing the web, are not considered infringement.
Anyway, it'd be funny (though not in a good way) if that was not the case. Imagine something like this: "You visited my website? I'm gonna sue you for a bajillion dollars in damages, you damn pirate!". Absolutely ridiculous.:P
Okay, you're not lying, you're just delusional. I apologise.
Then get off your high horse and apologise again, because I'm not delusional.
Well that's the crux of the matter. If it was already established that linking to files whose function is to facilitate copyright infringement was illegal, then there'd be no reason for this to be dragging through the court system. This order, if it goes ahead, would provide an important precedent in establishing that such links are indeed illegal *in Canada*.
Fixed for clarity. Also, note that the function of those files is not to facilitate copyright infringement. At least, not necessarily, and certainly not always.
Your argument more or less boils down to "they're only linking to other sites, and linking to things isn't illegal". However it's quite clear that if that was actually an established fact, then this case wouldn't exist and there wouldn't be a slashdot story about it.
Not quite. Linking to things may or may not be illegal, depending, among other things, on what you link to (try linking to child pornography, for an extreme example). My argument is more along othe lines of "it's not illegal for me to tell someone that I know a dude who has a copy of certain content, so why should it be illegal for IsoHunt to do exactly the same?"
Rather, this case is about establishing whether or not your supposed fact is actually a fact.
That would require the fact that you seem to think I'm referring to was indeed the fact I'm referring to. And I'm starting to doubt it is.
And so far, it looks like such links will not be protected. While that is disappointing, I do think it's a correct and inevitable interpretation of the current laws in Canada.
Fair enough. If the canadian laws do, in fact, state that such links are illegal, then so be it. But then the charges should be "illegal linking of files", not committing (or aiding to commit) copyright infringement. Also, it'd still be a stupid law, and in compliance with said law I'd expect canadian judges to start sending people to prison because they told someone that they know someone who has a copy of [insert your favorite copyrighted content here].
I'll admit I'm making a lot of assumptions about the laws that apply in this particular jurisdiction, however the fact that the case has been before the court for years, and that the judge has proposed this order, suggests that my assumptions are correct and the Canadian laws regarding copyright are very similar to those in my country. Either that or the judge is going to shortly find himself looking for a new job, which would be an excellent and highly amusing result, but one which I consider unlikely enough to dismiss the possibility.
*agrees*
The arguments used to try to defend this kind of site look about as stupid as all the "X on a computer" or "X on the internet" patents which are regularly derided by the/. community (where X is some very commonplace thing that shouldn't be patentable). You can bet someone who made a living from providing millions of people with references to drug dealers would be charged with something, and his claims that he had no idea that people would actually go and buy illegal drugs from the people he said could supply them with illegal drugs would be laughed at.
*agrees, except on the part about the arguments used to defend this kind of site being stupid*
I think your point is that web browsing isnt violating copyright because its not intentionally storing the copyrighted material permanently.
Not exactly. It's not copyright infringement because it's not intentionally storing the copyrighted material permanently, but also because it is the only way of accessing that particular publication of said material, and because that is the way everyone intends it to work.
Sounds like a reasonable starting point, but i think there is still lots of room for debate.
Hardly, for the three aforementioned reasons.
It could be argued that its unintentional copyright violation, which is of course still a copyright violation.
But it's not. If the copyright holder intends me to access that content in exactly that way, and furthermore it's the only way to access that particular publication of said content, how is it copyright violation?
And AFAIK temporary usage (or medium shifting or whatever) is only valid if you have a proper license for the medium your are moving it from, which isnt the case when browsing copyrighted material on the web.
I doubt that is the case anywhere in the world. It certainly isn't where I live, or in any other country I've been to. If that were the case, any ISP would be liable for copyright infringement.
There aren't many jurisdictions which give you the right to download a copy of copyrighted material just because you've bought a copy in another format. Even fewer give you the right to give someone copyrighted content if that someone else happens to have already bought a copy. Imaginary rights don't matter, even if they are morally sound and ought to be real rights.
The fact that you don't know those jurisdictions doesn't mean they don't exist, and the fact that you don't have certain rights doesn't make them imaginary. The vast majority of countries in the world allow (or rather, do not disallow, which is the same given how any sound legal system works) both of those things you mentioned. Also, most European countries allow you to make a copy of copyrighted content even if you haven't previously bought it.
This is completely irrelevant, of course. It doesn't really matter if an individual has the right to download some particular copyrighted content, because the site they're downloading it from does not have the right to distribute it (or to assist in its distribution). isoHunt is not indexing torrents hosted and blessed by the copyright holders. This is not difficult to determine, despite what you want to believe.
Again, IsoHunt is not distributing (and is only aiding to distribute it for a very specific, and twisted, definition of "aid") copyrighted content. In which country is it illegal to tell someone that I know a dude who has a certain album or movie? Because that is the only thing IsoHunt does, it doesn't guarantee that this dude will give you a copy of anything, or even that he still has any given content.
Anyway, even if you were right, since IsoHunt has no way to determine if said distribution is legal, the whole issue is irrelevant. Imagine, for example, that a friend of mine asks me to deliver a sum of money to a certain person that I do not know. Now, that person could be the owner of the apartment my friend rented, or a hitman that my friend wants to hire to kill someone. If he were the later, in any sound legal system I wouldn't be considered guilty of aiding to commit murder.
It doesn't matter if you believe, like me, that fighting this kind of distribution is harmful to their business. If they want to spend millions of dollars making a movie and then make actually watching it so difficult that nobody does causing them to become bankrupt, then that's their right. Even if it is stupid and short-sighted.
*agrees*
I don't really see how European laws affect rulings by the Canadian court system about a site hosted in Canada.
I never said they did. That was not the point of me mentioning Europe.
I don't imagine the German courts would allow a German site to host pro-Nazism content because it happens to be perfectly legal in the United States.
Neither do I. Also, I don't imagine the Canadian courts would disallow a Canadian site to host links to copyrighted content just because distributing said content is illegal in the USA (or in Canada, as long as hosting mere links is not also illegal).
Your entire argument seems to be based on unlikely possibilities such as "the person downloading it might already own a copy of it", as well as your confusing your own moral code with the actual laws.
Au contraire. Not only is that possibility not unlikely, it's not even necessary in certain parts of the world (again, most of Europe), and I'm not confusing my moral code with the laws (it's actually you who is assuming all laws are similar).
That was the point of using a comparison to something that was unlikely to register in your own moral code as being okay. These cases are based on the current law, not what Joe Torrent thinks the law ought to be.
The thing is, the only one here thinking the law ought to be a certain way is
Au contraire, read the GPL again because you must only comply with the license if you distribute the software (be it in source or binary form, with or without modifications), or modify it[1]. If you merely make a copy, there's nothing in the license with which you must be in compliance, since there are no special obligations to those that make a copy because there's no way that in doing so they would breach the license.
As for your first question, please note that I said there are differences betweeen making something available and making something available online, and between the copy you absolutely must make when you access content published online and the copy you make when downloading something off a P2P network or DD (that is, Direct Download, the prior DL was a typo) site. Not that it was ALWAYS okay to copy copyrighted material. Allow me to explain with an example:
You are a musician, and you publish a song, or an album. Evidently, it's not the same to publish it by streaming it in your website and by putting it on a CD for sale at stores. To access the later, you must go to the store and buy it, to acces the former you must store a (temporary) copy of the content locally to be able to play it, simply because that's how streaming (or actually, browsing any website) works. Unlike a copy obtained from a P2P network or DD site, that temporary copy is made automatically, with no need for any action by the user in order to make it, and without the possibility to NOT make it. Do you see the difference now?
Finally, regarding your second question: that depends on the laws of each country.
[1] Modification is a bit tricky, however. If you modify a GPL software so it is mixed with non-GPL software, technically you ARE breaching the license, but as long as you don't distribute the modified version nobody can know that you are breaching the license.
Way to miss the point (protip: there's a difference between making stuff available, and making stuff available online, and between the copy you make in order to access material published online and the copy you make when you download from a P2P network or a DL site).
Also, I see no problem in merely copying (that is, making copies) of GPL'd software. The license allows that. A completely different thing is what you do with these copies, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know what "marginal cost" is? No, you obviously don't. So let me put an end to your ignorance: it's the cost of producing an additional unit of a product. Producing more copies of Avatar costs almost nothing, what costs a fortune is making the first one.
Now that you know that, I expect you to apologize for your disrespectful outburst. And next time, remember to make sure you actually know what you're talking about before you start spewing horsecrap, thank you very much.
You're talking about profit margin (that is, the result ob substracting costs from revenue). I'm talking about marginal cost (that is, the cost of producing an additional unit of a product). Therefore, I cannot properly answer to your message, since we're not talking about the same thing.
Note that I said "and there are no exceptions to it", yet you're mentioning exceptions such as fair use. I never actually claimed that the exclusivity doesn't exist, only that what I quoted is only true if the exclusivity exists and if there are no exceptions to it (and therefore, that it isn't true if either of those two premises aren't). So while you might not have noticed it, you're actually agreeing with me.
First, IP laws are not necessary in order to have the ability to receive credit and resources from any work. Second, I doubt it would take you more than five minutes to find no less than several dozens of examples of people doing it without receiving resources from it (credit is an entirely different thing, though, because even the most permissive legal licensing, the Public Domain, still requires giving credit).
It wouldn't grind to a halt. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to explain why.
First, big publisher A wouldn't do that, because they would gain nothing. Second, you're comparing massive copying with small scale copying, even if both were not for profit.
you are choosing to deprive the copyright holder of the exclusivity that he or she is supposed to be granted by their copyright to decide who may copy the work.
Assuming such exclusivity actually exists and there are no exceptions to it... Which is a lot to assume.
would probably have been better in response to the parent or GP.
Thought so.
Breaking immoral laws is always morally justified. Now we just have to agree on when exactly a law is immoral.
I'll go for the discussion, and ask you to tell me what legal system considers theft any instance of "obtaining something you're not entitled to have", even if nobody is deprived of any property. Becase by that logic, one could even argue that me fucking your wife would be theft. ;)
If you borrow said copy, and then copied it, and gave the borrowed copy back, then it's not theft, but a copyright infringement
And yet again: not always, not everywhere.
Not really, the copyright holder still has that right. The only way to steal that right would be to effectively prevent the copyright holder from actually distributing the content under any circumstances. Which is pretty much impossible.
I did, and I don't see why you told me to. Also, I learned nothing new from reading it. So, care to enlighten me with regards to your purpose in having me read that?
Please note that he didn't say anything about it not being illegal (even though there are places where it is legal). Quite the opposite actually, since he described it as "an offense". Therefore, I don't think he'd expect the case to be dismissed.
It is copyright infringement.
Again, not always, not everywhere.
Making a copy is an offense
Not always, not everywhere. Remember that in your effort to change our language. ;)
Stealing movies is not very different from stealing medicines, food or anything else.
Yes it is. The marginal cost of movies is practically zero, whereas that of medicines or food, however low, isn't. Also, replicating medicines or food is not as easy as replicating a physical copy of a movie. And if it were, it would be our moral duty to replicate those medicines and food.
The front page is different, its an unprotected point of entry, if they author of the page didn't want you to have access then it wouldnt be created that way.
Absolutely nothing (unless a page is password-protected and you don't know the password) prevents you to visit any other page directly, as long as you know the URL, so the front page is not really different from other unprotected pages. Besides, if the author of the page didn't want you to have access to other pages then he wouldn't link to them.
Unlinked pages (that is, pages one can only access by knowing the URL), however... But then again, only those who know the URL could access them (except the occasional cracker trying to be where he shouldn't be, but that's probably illegal anyway), and I'd assume if they know the URL they also have the right to access the page. And if you're not linking to it, why make it publicly available anyway? Just require a password to access it.
However, that's still largely irrelevant, as far as the legality of making a temporary copy for the purpose of browsing any given page is concerned. Because that was the topic of this conversation, wasn't it?
A reasonable expectation might be for people to go to the front page and from there check the authors copyright notice. It would be unreasonable to place a copyright notice in a place that requires people to have already agreed to conditions before considering them, but the same argument cant be applied to other content.
Unlikely, for the reasons outlined in the previous paragraph. I think you are seeing problems where there are none. Also, see next paragraph for an example of how it's not always unreasonable to place copyright notices in places you can only access after agreeing to conditions.
Other pages on the website _could_ be protected by passwords or click through license agreements which state copyright license conditions, i doubt an implied license would cover access to those protected pages, an implied license is only supposed to be minimal.
Yes, and no. Even if there's a requirement to use a password or agree to a license, there's still an implied license, as long as said implied license is required due to the circumstances of the content or of the way in which it is delivered.
For example, take any message boards you want. When you sign up, you usually have to go through a document outlining a set of rules that you have to agree to. Said document does not contain a license that allows making a temporary copy of the content, yet it's still legal to browse it. And it's not the front page, and to access it you need a password... And there's a copyright notice in the footer of just about any page of the boards.
On the other hand, the implied license would only cover very specific acts (the distribution of the content by the ISP, the temporary copy made by the browser, etc), and access to protected pages is unlikely to be one of them, though temporary storage of the content as a result of browsing once you're granted access would be covered by the implied license (just like for unprotected pages, since the only thing that matters is that you have the right to access the content: that right is implied if it's unprotected content, and explicitly given if it's protected and you're granted access by legitimate means).
So, in short: an implied license only applies to circumstances that require it, and always applies if the circumstances require it.
Deep link cases i think they are arguing that there isnt an implied license to link to one of those protected pages, that they need a license. The counter is that if it has a URL that can directly access it (as opposed to dynamic content) then the content isnt hidden/protected, its like a front page.
There's no need for a counter. If it's not hidden or protected, then it's obvious the author intends people to be able to access it. So, why object to something t
What ive been able to understand (since yesterday hehe) about an implied licence is that its a "common sense" type thing, its a licence to do just enough to achieve a required task.
For example, when playing a DVD it could be argued there is an implied right to be able to copy it into memory or the play can cache it to disk in order to play it.
Exactly. Hence my example of a computer's RAM.
With a website i think there must be an implied license to view the front page, and anything reasonable to achieve the purpose of finding a copyright notice on the site. But it get hairy after that and gets tied into the deep linking cases.
Not at all. The front page is not different from any other page, in that accessing any page in a website actually requires that you temporarily store a copy of it. Since it's required and temporary, and everyone expects it to work that way, all three conditions I previously mentioned apply, and thus browsing a page from a website (be it the front page or any other) clearly falls under the "implied license" provisions.
Please note that this does not necessarily make linking to torrents (or to the actual content that you would get from that torrent) always legal. The "implied license" provisions only apply to the legal publication of, or access to, copyrighted content (that is, it applies to the songs you willingly publish in your band's website as a promo, but not to the rip of your version for which Joe Torrent uploaded a torrent to IsoHunt, or even to the torrent itself).
I think if these people pushing the case that deep linking is bad started winning then this implied license could be reduced.
And then we'd see cases like the one I described earlier about a guy getting sued for visiting someone's website.
ISP is different, there are special exceptions granted for "Common carriers"
So, is the browser a "common carrier"? Is my computer a "common carrier"? Because as soon as I turn it on, I'm temporarily storing copyrighted content on its RAM. ;)
The term i think we are working around as i mention in my other post is called an "implied license", i suspect thats the situation with a web browser.
That must be it, by that name or any other. For example, I'm fairly sure we don't call it "implied license" here, but there are still provisions in our law to make temporary storing or transmission of copyrighted content not illegal under certain circumstances, including but not limited to, that storage or transmission being a necessary part of the process of legally accessing and/or using the content. Thus, an ISP, my computer's RAM, and browsing the web, are not considered infringement.
Anyway, it'd be funny (though not in a good way) if that was not the case. Imagine something like this: "You visited my website? I'm gonna sue you for a bajillion dollars in damages, you damn pirate!". Absolutely ridiculous. :P
Okay, you're not lying, you're just delusional. I apologise.
Then get off your high horse and apologise again, because I'm not delusional.
Well that's the crux of the matter. If it was already established that linking to files whose function is to facilitate copyright infringement was illegal, then there'd be no reason for this to be dragging through the court system. This order, if it goes ahead, would provide an important precedent in establishing that such links are indeed illegal *in Canada*.
Fixed for clarity. Also, note that the function of those files is not to facilitate copyright infringement. At least, not necessarily, and certainly not always.
Your argument more or less boils down to "they're only linking to other sites, and linking to things isn't illegal". However it's quite clear that if that was actually an established fact, then this case wouldn't exist and there wouldn't be a slashdot story about it.
Not quite. Linking to things may or may not be illegal, depending, among other things, on what you link to (try linking to child pornography, for an extreme example). My argument is more along othe lines of "it's not illegal for me to tell someone that I know a dude who has a copy of certain content, so why should it be illegal for IsoHunt to do exactly the same?"
Rather, this case is about establishing whether or not your supposed fact is actually a fact.
That would require the fact that you seem to think I'm referring to was indeed the fact I'm referring to. And I'm starting to doubt it is.
And so far, it looks like such links will not be protected. While that is disappointing, I do think it's a correct and inevitable interpretation of the current laws in Canada.
Fair enough. If the canadian laws do, in fact, state that such links are illegal, then so be it. But then the charges should be "illegal linking of files", not committing (or aiding to commit) copyright infringement. Also, it'd still be a stupid law, and in compliance with said law I'd expect canadian judges to start sending people to prison because they told someone that they know someone who has a copy of [insert your favorite copyrighted content here].
I'll admit I'm making a lot of assumptions about the laws that apply in this particular jurisdiction, however the fact that the case has been before the court for years, and that the judge has proposed this order, suggests that my assumptions are correct and the Canadian laws regarding copyright are very similar to those in my country. Either that or the judge is going to shortly find himself looking for a new job, which would be an excellent and highly amusing result, but one which I consider unlikely enough to dismiss the possibility.
*agrees*
The arguments used to try to defend this kind of site look about as stupid as all the "X on a computer" or "X on the internet" patents which are regularly derided by the /. community (where X is some very commonplace thing that shouldn't be patentable). You can bet someone who made a living from providing millions of people with references to drug dealers would be charged with something, and his claims that he had no idea that people would actually go and buy illegal drugs from the people he said could supply them with illegal drugs would be laughed at.
*agrees, except on the part about the arguments used to defend this kind of site being stupid*
I think your point is that web browsing isnt violating copyright because its not intentionally storing the copyrighted material permanently.
Not exactly. It's not copyright infringement because it's not intentionally storing the copyrighted material permanently, but also because it is the only way of accessing that particular publication of said material, and because that is the way everyone intends it to work.
Sounds like a reasonable starting point, but i think there is still lots of room for debate.
Hardly, for the three aforementioned reasons.
It could be argued that its unintentional copyright violation, which is of course still a copyright violation.
But it's not. If the copyright holder intends me to access that content in exactly that way, and furthermore it's the only way to access that particular publication of said content, how is it copyright violation?
And AFAIK temporary usage (or medium shifting or whatever) is only valid if you have a proper license for the medium your are moving it from, which isnt the case when browsing copyrighted material on the web.
I doubt that is the case anywhere in the world. It certainly isn't where I live, or in any other country I've been to. If that were the case, any ISP would be liable for copyright infringement.
There aren't many jurisdictions which give you the right to download a copy of copyrighted material just because you've bought a copy in another format. Even fewer give you the right to give someone copyrighted content if that someone else happens to have already bought a copy. Imaginary rights don't matter, even if they are morally sound and ought to be real rights.
The fact that you don't know those jurisdictions doesn't mean they don't exist, and the fact that you don't have certain rights doesn't make them imaginary. The vast majority of countries in the world allow (or rather, do not disallow, which is the same given how any sound legal system works) both of those things you mentioned. Also, most European countries allow you to make a copy of copyrighted content even if you haven't previously bought it.
This is completely irrelevant, of course. It doesn't really matter if an individual has the right to download some particular copyrighted content, because the site they're downloading it from does not have the right to distribute it (or to assist in its distribution). isoHunt is not indexing torrents hosted and blessed by the copyright holders. This is not difficult to determine, despite what you want to believe.
Again, IsoHunt is not distributing (and is only aiding to distribute it for a very specific, and twisted, definition of "aid") copyrighted content. In which country is it illegal to tell someone that I know a dude who has a certain album or movie? Because that is the only thing IsoHunt does, it doesn't guarantee that this dude will give you a copy of anything, or even that he still has any given content.
Anyway, even if you were right, since IsoHunt has no way to determine if said distribution is legal, the whole issue is irrelevant. Imagine, for example, that a friend of mine asks me to deliver a sum of money to a certain person that I do not know. Now, that person could be the owner of the apartment my friend rented, or a hitman that my friend wants to hire to kill someone. If he were the later, in any sound legal system I wouldn't be considered guilty of aiding to commit murder.
It doesn't matter if you believe, like me, that fighting this kind of distribution is harmful to their business. If they want to spend millions of dollars making a movie and then make actually watching it so difficult that nobody does causing them to become bankrupt, then that's their right. Even if it is stupid and short-sighted.
*agrees*
I don't really see how European laws affect rulings by the Canadian court system about a site hosted in Canada.
I never said they did. That was not the point of me mentioning Europe.
I don't imagine the German courts would allow a German site to host pro-Nazism content because it happens to be perfectly legal in the United States.
Neither do I. Also, I don't imagine the Canadian courts would disallow a Canadian site to host links to copyrighted content just because distributing said content is illegal in the USA (or in Canada, as long as hosting mere links is not also illegal).
Your entire argument seems to be based on unlikely possibilities such as "the person downloading it might already own a copy of it", as well as your confusing your own moral code with the actual laws.
Au contraire. Not only is that possibility not unlikely, it's not even necessary in certain parts of the world (again, most of Europe), and I'm not confusing my moral code with the laws (it's actually you who is assuming all laws are similar).
That was the point of using a comparison to something that was unlikely to register in your own moral code as being okay. These cases are based on the current law, not what Joe Torrent thinks the law ought to be.
The thing is, the only one here thinking the law ought to be a certain way is
Au contraire, read the GPL again because you must only comply with the license if you distribute the software (be it in source or binary form, with or without modifications), or modify it[1]. If you merely make a copy, there's nothing in the license with which you must be in compliance, since there are no special obligations to those that make a copy because there's no way that in doing so they would breach the license.
As for your first question, please note that I said there are differences betweeen making something available and making something available online, and between the copy you absolutely must make when you access content published online and the copy you make when downloading something off a P2P network or DD (that is, Direct Download, the prior DL was a typo) site. Not that it was ALWAYS okay to copy copyrighted material. Allow me to explain with an example:
You are a musician, and you publish a song, or an album. Evidently, it's not the same to publish it by streaming it in your website and by putting it on a CD for sale at stores. To access the later, you must go to the store and buy it, to acces the former you must store a (temporary) copy of the content locally to be able to play it, simply because that's how streaming (or actually, browsing any website) works. Unlike a copy obtained from a P2P network or DD site, that temporary copy is made automatically, with no need for any action by the user in order to make it, and without the possibility to NOT make it. Do you see the difference now?
Finally, regarding your second question: that depends on the laws of each country.
[1] Modification is a bit tricky, however. If you modify a GPL software so it is mixed with non-GPL software, technically you ARE breaching the license, but as long as you don't distribute the modified version nobody can know that you are breaching the license.
Way to miss the point (protip: there's a difference between making stuff available, and making stuff available online, and between the copy you make in order to access material published online and the copy you make when you download from a P2P network or a DL site).
Also, I see no problem in merely copying (that is, making copies) of GPL'd software. The license allows that. A completely different thing is what you do with these copies, of course.