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European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

searchengineland.com

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

#161
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything you link is "for money". Do you have a Google ad on your hobby blog? Technically, you're getting paid for it. So why do people have Google ads on their hobby blogs? Could it be that it's actually for money , not just "for money"? If it's not for money, why even bother running ads? Sounds to me like a pretty good indicator of intention.

I use ads on my hobby site to pay for my hobby site. I make like $10 a year off of it. I run ads because I'd rather not pay out of pocket but I hardly consider it as something that makes me money for the sake of making money.

[deleted]

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

#162
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we shouldn’t have different internets for different countries. But instead of applying US law globally, we might want to instead apply EU or Chinese law globally. It can’t be that laws that only 300 million people can vote for are applied to billions of people.

I'd rather the laws of a country which enshrines freedom of speech to a greater degree than any other be the set of rules governing the internet than the laws of a place where you can be fined for jokingly giving a Nazi salute.

Yeah, publications like Gawker media (which had much more style than geenstijl.nl) can vouch for US freedom of speech...

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "they" I meant the judges. Personally, I think not having mens rea as a standard is killing any possibility of user-generated content, since any such site could be convicted if any of its users posted an infringing work. The Safe Harbour provision is one of the few good parts of the DMCA, but it requires judging mens rea, and once you have to judge that, adding linking doesn't have bring any further issues. In Bri…

I'm outside of my league with this mens rea discussion (didn't look into the details) but obviously the fact that you've performed what amounts to copyright infringement through quoting the phrase you discussed, is quite a different problem from this infringement link. Let's make it explicit. The Pirate Bay is a common site for piracy, so I went there to get you this link: * https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/15706308/…

you do know more about this than I do however.

Maybe, but remember that a little knowledge is more dangerous than none, and it's all I have :)

That said, from what I can tell, I don't think it's murky - according to the court, all of those levels would be infringing.

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

#164
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The court also concluded that, if the linking was done for commercial purposes, it must be presumed that the person publishing the links knew that the linked material was illegally published. So... no more search engines, then?

how are search engines supposed to figure out if a link contains illegal content or not

The judges will likely wash their hands of the matter as they neither know nor care how people are supposed to comply with the law. So it will boil down to lobbying by the people with money to ensure that their businesses can continue to operate. And if the requirements for compliance crowd out competition, so much the better.

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it would be infringement if they served the video from their own servers, why shouldn't it be by embedding from YT? // Because then the infringement, if there is one, is YouTube's and not the linker-to-YouTube's.

No, according to the courts, (in the EU) it isn't. My question is: why shouldn't it be?

EDIT: I mean, should it be.

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

#166
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, Google does not know what is illegal and what is legal, so they can't be sued over this particular ruling.// Only because "Google" chooses not to. Execs in control of what Google links to know that it links to illegal/tortuous/immoral content -- leaked nude images, say -- they make money from advertising alongside those links and by inclusion of such links so they can provide a 'comprehensive' search. Google…

I think you've misunderstood - Google, I am sure, is aware that it probably links to illegal content. But it has no way of knowing what is illegal or not - so it would not meet those conditions. It's a completely different situation to the case in question.

They can moderate sites before adding them to a search index. In newspapers usually there is an editor who checks articles before print, why not make google do the same? So there will be no illegal and immoral content and the users will feel safer. Google is very rich and therefore can afford moderation, they just don't want to respect european law.

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

#167
post #38

Techdirt 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.

If you say that Google has no idea what it indexes then we can say that the creator of Silk Road had no idea what was sold there, he just made a clone of ebay. Well in the end everything depends on the judge's interpretation of the law. Especially when it allows different interpretations.

In fact google just doesn't want to moderate illegal content. It doesn't even remove the websites with infringing material, only single links.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious question then is how you classify a pirate bay clone that has no ads. No profits.

Are you being serious here? How do you think courts deal with these issues every day ? Common sense. A pirate bay clone would still be knowingly and intentionally distributing links to infringing material, whether or not doing so without a financial incentive is illegal depends on the jurisdiction.

If only determining that something is infringing were that easy. Given that everything fixed in a tangible form is copyrighted, and then copyright lasts until after the author has died, I have to know who fixed the material, when, and if they're still alive. It's an impossible situation, and you're glossing over it like it's easy and automatic.

So: common sense doesn't enter into it.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is one form of government censorship.

Copyright is supposed to be a temporary monopoly granted by the demos , the reason for which is to enrich the space of published artistic works. It's so sad to see it perceived as an imposition by authorities. Not wrong, just sad.

The "temporary" part seems to have disappeared, at least in the USA. Very, very little material enters the public domain every year. The rules about copyright (instant when fixed in tangible form, long lasting, can last for years after an author's death) make it almost impossible to tell based on the material itself, whether that material is copyright. I have to conclude that today's US copyright is an imposition by authorities, albeit a subtle one.

But you should look up the history of copyright. The Licensing of the Press Act of 1662 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_166...) was essentially a censorship law. Copyright is censorship of a sort.

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