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European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

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Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#11

Post by morganvachon »

seszett wrote: post #6
cm3 wrote: post #2

How can this work? A link is just a reference to a mutable destination and there's no way to guarantee that what's pointed at stays legal after the link was put up. It can change at any time and turn into something illegal, even though the original content was not. I do get the intent here, but it absolutely misses the point. Edit: The ruling acknowledges the target is mutable, but it also says that the poster of a l…

Have you read the decision[0] though? It specifically addresses this. > it is to be determined whether those links are provided without the pursuit of financial gain by a person who did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website or whether, on the contrary, those links are provided for such a purpose, a situation in which that knowledge must…

I realize this is the EU, but if this ruling were to happen in the US, sites like cracked.com who link to copyright-encumbered content all the time (mostly Youtube clips of movies and TV shows, often produced by highly litigious houses like Disney/Marvel Studios) and make a ton of money from ads, would quickly be sued out of existence.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#12

Post by icebraining »

cm3 wrote: post #2

How can this work? A link is just a reference to a mutable destination and there's no way to guarantee that what's pointed at stays legal after the link was put up. It can change at any time and turn into something illegal, even though the original content was not. I do get the intent here, but it absolutely misses the point. Edit: The ruling acknowledges the target is mutable, but it also says that the poster of a l…

Mens rea.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#13

Post by seszett »

morganvachon wrote: post #11
seszett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the decision[0] though? It specifically addresses this. > it is to be determined whether those links are provided without the pursuit of financial gain by a person who did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website or whether, on the contrary, those links are provided for such a purpose, a situation in which that knowledge must…

I realize this is the EU, but if this ruling were to happen in the US, sites like cracked.com who link to copyright-encumbered content all the time (mostly Youtube clips of movies and TV shows, often produced by highly litigious houses like Disney/Marvel Studios) and make a ton of money from ads, would quickly be sued out of existence.

Would that be a bad thing though? Those websites are purposefully acting in a way that doesn't respect the copyright of the owner of the content they want to show.

That they do this through a third-party host shouldn't be that important.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#14

Post by icebraining »

morganvachon wrote: post #11
seszett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the decision[0] though? It specifically addresses this. > it is to be determined whether those links are provided without the pursuit of financial gain by a person who did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website or whether, on the contrary, those links are provided for such a purpose, a situation in which that knowledge must…

I realize this is the EU, but if this ruling were to happen in the US, sites like cracked.com who link to copyright-encumbered content all the time (mostly Youtube clips of movies and TV shows, often produced by highly litigious houses like Disney/Marvel Studios) and make a ton of money from ads, would quickly be sued out of existence.

Usually the amount taken of a work is evaluated for a fair use defense, as is its inclusion in a broader work (article, in this case). Taking a small excerpt of a movie for purposes of parody is different from publishing a photo wholesale.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#15

Post by cm3 »

kuschku wrote: post #9
cm3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that's the case, and I didn't read the legal text, but how would you protect yourself against that? Would we have to keep tamper-proof screenshots (or archive.is-like snapshots) for each external link posted?

Read the legal text please – the article that was submitted is basically full of lies.

Read now. The ruling acknowledges the target is mutable, but it also says that the poster of a link on a page that's for-profit must check the target content. However, I cannot find anything how one should prove it was legal at time of linking. The only sensible thing I can find is that once notified a link has to be taken down. Did I miss something?

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#16

Post by Drakim »

cm3 wrote: post #15
kuschku wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the legal text please – the article that was submitted is basically full of lies.

Read now. The ruling acknowledges the target is mutable, but it also says that the poster of a link on a page that's for-profit must check the target content. However, I cannot find anything how one should prove it was legal at time of linking. The only sensible thing I can find is that once notified a link has to be taken down. Did I miss something?

Perhaps it would work the other way around? The prosecutor has to positively prove that when you established that link, it was pointing directly at illegal content (and based on the context of your linking, that you knew it was illegal).

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#17

Post by morganvachon »

icebraining wrote: post #14
morganvachon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is the EU, but if this ruling were to happen in the US, sites like cracked.com who link to copyright-encumbered content all the time (mostly Youtube clips of movies and TV shows, often produced by highly litigious houses like Disney/Marvel Studios) and make a ton of money from ads, would quickly be sued out of existence.

Usually the amount taken of a work is evaluated for a fair use defense, as is its inclusion in a broader work (article, in this case). Taking a small excerpt of a movie for purposes of parody is different from publishing a photo wholesale.

I agree, but again using Cracked as an example, they have many times linked to a 30+ minute video to make a one-sentence joke. That's far beyond fair use as far as the law is written. They also obviously do not get prior permission from the publisher; a typical older article from Cracked will have embedded videos that show "this was removed for copyright violation" placeholders.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#18

Post by cm3 »

seszett wrote: post #6
cm3 wrote: post #2

How can this work? A link is just a reference to a mutable destination and there's no way to guarantee that what's pointed at stays legal after the link was put up. It can change at any time and turn into something illegal, even though the original content was not. I do get the intent here, but it absolutely misses the point. Edit: The ruling acknowledges the target is mutable, but it also says that the poster of a l…

Have you read the decision[0] though? It specifically addresses this. > it is to be determined whether those links are provided without the pursuit of financial gain by a person who did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website or whether, on the contrary, those links are provided for such a purpose, a situation in which that knowledge must…

Yes, I did. Please see my sibling comment and EDIT addendum.

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#19

Post by icebraining »

morganvachon wrote: post #17
icebraining wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the amount taken of a work is evaluated for a fair use defense, as is its inclusion in a broader work (article, in this case). Taking a small excerpt of a movie for purposes of parody is different from publishing a photo wholesale.

I agree, but again using Cracked as an example, they have many times linked to a 30+ minute video to make a one-sentence joke. That's far beyond fair use as far as the law is written. They also obviously do not get prior permission from the publisher; a typical older article from Cracked will have embedded videos that show "this was removed for copyright violation" placeholders.

You don't need prior permission if it's fair use, and it can still be fair use even if the video is removed (the DMCA ensures it has to be taken down regardless, at least until the uploader sends a counter-notice, and YT goes even beyond that).

Still, the 30m for a single joke might be infringing, yes, but so what? If it would be infringement if they served the video from their own servers, why shouldn't it be by embedding from YT?

Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

#20

Post by pdkl95 »

icebraining wrote: post #14
morganvachon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is the EU, but if this ruling were to happen in the US, sites like cracked.com who link to copyright-encumbered content all the time (mostly Youtube clips of movies and TV shows, often produced by highly litigious houses like Disney/Marvel Studios) and make a ton of money from ads, would quickly be sued out of existence.

Usually the amount taken of a work is evaluated for a fair use defense, as is its inclusion in a broader work (article, in this case). Taking a small excerpt of a movie for purposes of parody is different from publishing a photo wholesale.

> amount taken

Since a link doesn't take anything from the original work - it only references where the work may be found - then this amount is zero.

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