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Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#81
post #48
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, and not that I'd like to be sued for placing links, if the link in my page is something like Avatar Movie Download , the argument that the page had the text of the Holy Bible in it last time I checked might not be very convincing. So I can see how someone might mull.

Have you ever used the Pirate Bay? The links there are actually magnet links (i.e. BitTorrent links) and they just look like random gibberish. What you get on the Pirate Bay is descriptions of these links. So it's more like: Avatar HD Trick is, that description may or may not actually be true. The content is submitted by PB users. The PB, AFAIK, doesn't actually vet this information. And, BTW, not all of the content…

Have I ever used the Pirate Bay? Why, it's illegal! Have you ever used the Pirate Bay?

Anyway, I crafted my link for comedic value rather than "realism", and then my point was that someone could put, on a web page in their own full control, a link that points to pirated copyrighted material beyond reasonable doubt. You talk about the difficulty of a site with user-submitted content to place limits on what that content can be, which is relevant if someone proposes draconian copyright enforcement measures, but it does not refute my point. As to PB having non-pirated content - sure, and the red light district probably has businesses that sell food, but PB is like my link example in that nobody would buy a claim that its main use isn't pirating copyrighted content.

Again - perhaps it's reasonable to have laws letting people get away with it because any alternative laws are worse (or we could have no copyright law, etc.) All I'm saying is, you don't have to be completely ignorant to say, hey, there are guys who don't only piss into the swimming pool but they do so standing on the springboard, and how about we discuss ways to stop them.

Also, and somewhat independently from the above, you mention in a sister comment that you're a filmmaker. That's interesting - I didn't know you were - and I guess I'm an aspiring filmmaker myself. But that is different from being dependent on the income from filmmaking. Someone trying to live off their own films is in a pretty tight spot right now because basically they compete against a near-infinite amount of de-facto free-as-in-beer content. You mention that Hollywood is alive and well but many in Hollywood disagree, it hurts them a lot - as to someone with a smaller budget, making a profit is unlikely. I don't know how matters could be better, though perhaps if it were illegal to sell/give up the authors' rights, and if we'd be forced to pay per view or some such, and the enforcement of it all was practical, things would be better. Or they might have been worse, I dunno...

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#82

In related news: Internet mulls increasing irrelevance of Europe's top court. Seriously, what are they going to do? Outlaw "unchecked" hyperlinks? Really?(!) Good luck with enforcement, guys!

Somebody has to provide business for all those lawyers sending notices to small site owners. Soon Getty will be able to sue not only for having an Awkward Penguin meme on your site [1], but also for linking to any social media site that might have images of Awkward Penguin on it.

[1] https://www.getdigital.de/blog/getty-images-wants-license-fe...

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#83

> Europe's highest court is considering whether every hyperlink in a Web page should be checked for potentially linking to material that infringes copyright, before it can be used. A hyperlink is just an address of some kind that client software interprets in a certain way allowing users to easily send network packets to it. Whatever response comes back to a request directed at that address is entirely determined by…

We can't keep reasoning about digital age by way of pre-digital-age analogies. The first internet pioneers have died of old age now.

It's time to stop assuming courts and lawmakers are incapable of understanding technology without brick & mortar analogies. Hyperlinks are like hyperlinks, not like phone book entries, and courts will have to rule about lawsuits like these.

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#84
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, and not that I'd like to be sued for placing links, if the link in my page is something like Avatar Movie Download , the argument that the page had the text of the Holy Bible in it last time I checked might not be very convincing. So I can see how someone might mull.

I think that's more where this legislation is coming from. Some people have built a business on aggregating links or embeddings of copyrighted material and those sites always use the legal defense of "we don't host any of the content so it's not our problem." I imagine this is very frustrating to copyright holders, so it's reasonable that they would seek redress of some kind. Of course, making any copyright-infringin…

[deleted]

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#85
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, and not that I'd like to be sued for placing links, if the link in my page is something like Avatar Movie Download , the argument that the page had the text of the Holy Bible in it last time I checked might not be very convincing. So I can see how someone might mull.

I think that's more where this legislation is coming from. Some people have built a business on aggregating links or embeddings of copyrighted material and those sites always use the legal defense of "we don't host any of the content so it's not our problem." I imagine this is very frustrating to copyright holders, so it's reasonable that they would seek redress of some kind. Of course, making any copyright-infringin…

The elephant in the room is that Google actually do host copyrighted content on YouTube (which is its primary use case), but they're so big they're untouchable.

Let's go after the big guys before the little guys, eh?

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#86
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this is any excuse if the intent is so clearly to profit illegally off of other people's content. Trying to paint Pirate Bay as this altruistic organization that just wants to distribute some Linux distros is such bullshit. The information wants to be free brigade always seem to overlook the tons of sleazy ads and malware that accompanies all of these file sharing sites.

Well, large corporations using political influence to extend copyright terms effectively forever to prevent works from ever entering the public domain against the express intent of the Founders (at least in the U.S.) aren't exactly the white knights in this story either. Look, I'm a filmmaker. I believe in copyright (for limited terms), and I believe in using the law as a mechanism to enforce the interests of copyrig…

"large corporations using political influence to extend copyright terms effectively forever"

Yup. However, don't forget that it takes two to do the crony capitalism tango -- private- and public-sector actors. :-)

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#87

> Europe's highest court is considering whether every hyperlink in a Web page should be checked for potentially linking to material that infringes copyright, before it can be used. A hyperlink is just an address of some kind that client software interprets in a certain way allowing users to easily send network packets to it. Whatever response comes back to a request directed at that address is entirely determined by…

For a different spin on that example, say you sold a directory of crack dealer's phone-numbers called 1800-dragon-chasers. It seems clear its aiding in a criminal enterprise and not a totally innocent knowledge product. I wonder if you could be charged for that.

What if the point of distributing said directory is to motivate people to relentlessly prank-call them? ;-)

Re: Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks

#88
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's more where this legislation is coming from. Some people have built a business on aggregating links or embeddings of copyrighted material and those sites always use the legal defense of "we don't host any of the content so it's not our problem." I imagine this is very frustrating to copyright holders, so it's reasonable that they would seek redress of some kind. Of course, making any copyright-infringin…

The elephant in the room is that Google actually do host copyrighted content on YouTube (which is its primary use case), but they're so big they're untouchable. Let's go after the big guys before the little guys, eh?

[citation needed]
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