I agree, this is bad for the internet. However, some context is missing: The case was in the Netherlands, regarding the website GeenStijl linking to leaked playboy pictures. The court said that 1) GeenStijl made money from it 2) they should and could have know, and most probably knew, that this content was illegal (because they posted it as 'leaked nudes!!'). The combination of these (earning money from content that…
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
#52> EU Supreme Court: Hyperlinks are legal, even when linking to illegal publications
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/09/eu-suprem...
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#53Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#54Earlier 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…
IANAL, but my reading of that is if one makes money from one's site (e.g. by having ads) then EU will assume that one knows whether or not linked content is infringing. Because €10/month from adwords is totally enough to hire a lawyer to evaluate every link that users post. Anyway, how does that "specifically address" GP's question about mutability? That isn't even mentioned in the bolded text.
There are other more unambiguous statements acknowledging existing case law which appears to rule out webmasters falling foul of websites' mutability like: The user makes an act of communication when it intervenes, in full knowledge of the consequences of its action, to give access to a protected work to its customers, and does so, in particular, where, in the absence of that intervention, its customers would not, in principle, be able to enjoy the broadcast work
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#55Illegal content? I guess they mean copyrighted content? Isn't that pretty much the entire internet? Even this comment is my intellectual property, so will this make you a criminal if you link to this comment without my consent? And isn't youtube making money of copyrighted content, or does youtube have a special deal with the court that only they are allowed to do this?
A previous ruling of the CJEU covered a similar situation to your hypothetical, and ruled that once something is made freely available to the general Internet by the copyright holder, they lose the right to control who can link to that content. Of course, they retain the right to control who can copy it.
YouTube has a system in place for reporting infringing content. It's not necessarily very effective, but it's better - from a legal standpoint - than being told repeatedly that content is infringing and but intentionally and knowingly republishing links to the content each time another set of infringing copies gets taken down.
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#56Techdirt has a good writeup on the new ruling. One of the good points made on Techdirt, is regarding search engines which are obviously for-profit. How in the world would Google keep from linking to material which is violating someone's copyright? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160908/11305735465/terri...
simple: google has no idea what it indexes. Please read the full ruling, which explains this only applies to those who willingly and intentionally link to content they _know_ is illegal, _and_ do so for monetary gain. Which is perfectly reasonable. The article posted to HN is pretty much fear-mongering for te purpose of getting some clicks.
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#57I agree, this is bad for the internet. However, some context is missing: The case was in the Netherlands, regarding the website GeenStijl linking to leaked playboy pictures. The court said that 1) GeenStijl made money from it 2) they should and could have know, and most probably knew, that this content was illegal (because they posted it as 'leaked nudes!!'). The combination of these (earning money from content that…
What if the link had consisted of a prominent section "How to find it" consisting of the words (I'm making this up) "Search Google for leaked playboy pictures from 2011 , and click on the first link, which should be a site named after a fish." Now it is a passing reference to how to find it -- but your criteria that 1) they made money from it, and 2) they could know and should know that this content is illegal. Well,…
Intention and knowledge is the best dividing line, in my opinion, and courts certainly take it into account. HN blindly reproduces what people post, whereas the link in question was posted by the site editors themselves - that's a clear distinction, and in fact many lawsuits (in the US) were based on it.
I do disagree with the court's decision to presume that any publication for financial gain is done with knowledge of the copyright status, though.
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
simple: google has no idea what it indexes. Please read the full ruling, which explains this only applies to those who willingly and intentionally link to content they _know_ is illegal, _and_ do so for monetary gain. Which is perfectly reasonable. The article posted to HN is pretty much fear-mongering for te purpose of getting some clicks.
It's not that easy. What if the MPAA, Playboy, etc. send file filenames to Google and say "It's illegal to link to this file and if you do so, you are willingly and intentionally violating our copyright" Is that really what we want? It's a slippery slope when courts make these rulings without really understanding the impacts.
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#59This ruling will take about 20 seconds before it is abused for profit.
Re: European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
simple: google has no idea what it indexes. Please read the full ruling, which explains this only applies to those who willingly and intentionally link to content they _know_ is illegal, _and_ do so for monetary gain. Which is perfectly reasonable. The article posted to HN is pretty much fear-mongering for te purpose of getting some clicks.
It's not that easy. What if the MPAA, Playboy, etc. send file filenames to Google and say "It's illegal to link to this file and if you do so, you are willingly and intentionally violating our copyright" Is that really what we want? It's a slippery slope when courts make these rulings without really understanding the impacts.