Crookes, RIAA, MPAA, ICE — 'Linking Is Publishing' 369
newtley writes "What do Canada's Wayne Crookes, the Big 4's RIAA, Hollywood's MPAA and brand new ICE agent Andrew Reynolds have in common? They all claim linking is the same as publishing. Crookes is using it to demand Canada's Supreme Court effectively shut down the net in Canada. With the RIAA and MPAA providing the 'initiative,' the Obama government is using Andrews [read ICE — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to try to shut down innocent sites for, and on behalf of, Hollywood and Big Music. The sites are 'accused of contributing to online piracy, and it was essential for the domain names to be seized without a trial and without giving the sites a chance to respond. Why? Such sites are 'destroying the US economy.' Forget about legally appointed courts, proof or due process. Hollywood and Big Music rule."
Destroying the US economy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Linking is Publishing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting.
I guess that means that every single time the US Government has mentioned Wikileaks at press conferences they have themselves published all the documents available at Wikileaks?
I mean - mentioning the name of a website while talking, that's pretty much the same as linking in writing.
I guess Wikileaks is off the hook for publishing the documents then ...
Linking can be deceptive! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm all for laws which ban deceptive linking.
There are all kinds of web sites out there whose operators scrape content, and steal bandwidth, creating the appearance that they created the content and are hosting all the images and other download materials themselves.
This is usually done to try to boost search engine rankings, to bring traffic to other content.
Such practices should be illegal.
It should only be fair use to make this kind of link:
<a href="target site">honest text</a>
It should be obvious to the end user that this is a hyperlink, and the text should make it clear that the user is navigating to someone else's site. An optional nofollow would be allowed, but no other attributes.
Any other form of linking (such as targetting a page into a frame or iframe, or using tags sourced from another site) should require the permission of the target site in order to be legal.
The difference between linking and embedding can't be defined by the underlying technology, but by how it looks. Is there an intent to deceive? If it looks like copying is going on then it must be considered that way.
Re:Linking != publishing (Score:2, Interesting)
Well if you run a company called "PoachAssist - The Best Spot to Find Animals you Want to Poach" then I'd say you can at least be hit for aiding and abetting
Re: Be ready to voice an opinion. (Score:3, Interesting)
Very difficult my friend, for the people that are the loudest are right...kindergarten logic.
The real question is, when will be the tipping point in America? At some point there will need to be a march on Washington not for piracy, but privacy on multiple fronts. When these issues start affecting even more of the masses in a daily fashion, this may happen. Everything from airport scanners, to cell phone tracking, to packet inspection, to... I just wonder what will be the metaphorical straw to break the camel's back.
Personally, I'll gladly pay for my gas and beer costs to march on Washington, as soon as a big enough march is organized. For now our job is getting the next door neighbor concerned, bringing this to "main street". Make it applicable to them, in a subtle non-trollish manner (haha). The one thing that can save America, or any other nation who is driven by the will of it's citizens, is to educate and make the issues tangible, clear-cut.
I refuse to believe there is nothing that can be done. To have a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, well...you have to start with informing the people.
Stop the presses! (Score:5, Interesting)
Time for the IT giants to step into the ring (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the RIAA:
That gives us a 2008 estimate of 12 billion dollars in revenue for retail sale of music. Presumably for the RIAA, who "create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States [wikipedia.org]". So a total of about $14.2 billion in revenue.
Now, obviously we also need to take the MPAA into consideration. Again, using 2008 numbers:
Ticket sales grossed about $10 billion. [the-numbers.com] And since quite a lot of people seem to claim (and no, I have no source handy) that home video sales is about the same as ticket sales, then we're looking at around $20 billion in 2008.
Apple's revenue for 2008 in the Americas was $14.5 billion [eweek.com]. Granted, that's a larger geographical area than RIAA's numbers, but then again Apple is a relatively small company in the IT landscape.
How about some of the bigger fish?
IBM reported revenue of $103.6 billion, and pre-tax profit of $16.7 billion [ibm.com].
So, the movie and music industry combined gets up to around $35 billion in 2008 in the US.
IBM (world wide) - $103 billion
Apple (Americas) - $14.5 billion
Google (world wide) - $21.8 billion [google.com]
Microsoft (world wide?) - $60.4 billion [microsoft.com]
Oracle (world wide?) - 22.4 billion [oracle.com]
Dell (world wide?) - 61 billion [dell.com]
Seriously - why the fuck are the IT giants just turning their back on the complete and utter gang rape on things like the Internet, when most of their products would die off the moment it stops working the way it should.
Just buy out the fuckers, boot the executives, lawyers, assistants etc. from their penthouse offices (literally boot them out over the balcony) and just kill off these massively debilitating parasites.
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an older guy who can afford to buy cd's and stuff.
I choose not to, though. I'm one of those who has had enough bullshit from big media and now ACTIVELY WANTS TO SEE THEM GO BANKRUPT.
I no longer view pirates as kids with no money; I view them as equalizers in the new david and goliath struggle.
I also buy used cd's so that no money goes back to the media companies. the last new cd I bought was probably over 10 years ago.
"meet the new customer; NOT the same as the old customer!" /apologies to The Who
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)