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Censorship

Legality Of Linking To Be Tested In Court? 316

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-could-be-the-big-one dept.
M-2 sent us a Wired story about (surprise) the RIAA's latest lawsuit. This one is against an MP3 site that links to pirated MP3s: and in some cases, it does so quite blatantly... but they aren't technically serving any copyrighted content themselves. The RIAA wants to shut the site down, but also get a ruling on if linking constitutes copyright infringement. The future of the Web pretty much hangs on the freedom to link, so it'll be interesting to see where this one goes.
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Legality of Linking to be Tested in Court? More

Legality of Linking to be Tested in Court?

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  • "Further, hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying is involved. "

    If this is true, then where's the basis for another lawsuit? Is the RIAA planning to take this up to the Supreme Court?
  • Hi,
    Whilst I may be as pissed over this as the next Slashdotter, it's not really surprising is it? The RIAA do not "understand" the internet. To them, it represents something that is different and allows for open communication much more than ever before.

    The RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) are all about keeping things closed. They exist because some group of people "artists" thought that they should implement some kind of industry hard boy to monitor what goes on and to crank down on anyone that so much as whistles the latest teeny pop song from Miss Spears without paying her record company a royalty. Not only would she be unlikely to receive any money that I paid in royalties, but she would be lead to believe that the RIAA had her best interests at heart.

    So I am trying to establish the point that the RIAA represents everything which is closed and restricted in the record industry.

    Now as I said, the internet comes along and all of a sudden the RIAA has a lot of potential "violations" of copyright and they decide to act. They have repeatedly attempted to have any online music initiatives quashed as soon as the started.

    I'm not just talking about the illegal activities - don't you wonder why every artist doesn't have full versions of their videos online for streaming? etc.? It's not that the artist is concerned that a few technically minded, or even "script kiddies" would figure out how to store the poorer quality streamed content to watch later, it's that the RIAA and those like them have attempted to convince the artists and their record companies that there is no alternative to "stamping out" these internet users - and clearly every internet user is an obvious pirate (a-hoy there) waiting to happen.

    The RIAA is in a somewhat different position than the MPAA as, currently, bandwidth offerings to end users in many developed parts of the world are plain crap. They are not really sufficient for anything like reasonable quality video to be streamed in real time and without latency issues. Hence the MPAA (don't get me started on the MPAA), although it acts like an idiot, doesn't have to worry so much. On the other hand, music can easily be encoded in to an mp3, vorbis, mpeg1-2, aac, , and whilst they may not be of the best quality at the reasonably "low" bit rates commonly offered online (in the 64-196kpbs range) they are perfectly reasonable for every day listening and indeed I am listing to a large playlist at the moment as I type this. Thus the RIAA is concerned about the "illegal" uses of "its" music. What they do not seem to realise is that the number of violators is proportionally very small. If you were to investigate each and every download through napster you would probably find that they represent less than 0.001% of the music purchasing population (or something). Such a small figure is clearly "unacceptable" from the RIAA's point of view, but then I ask you to investigate how much those users already pay to the RIAA and to record companies for the music that they listen to. How many of them (like myself) feel moral implications for downloading music that they have not licensed to listen to? When you take all of these actions in to account, I bet that the picture changes somewhat.

    Now let's also think about the cost of purchasing music in this day and age - music is rediculoulsy expensive. I am currently listening to "Toca's Miracle" which came on a collective albulm. This was fairly expensive, but not too bad when one considers the cost of purchasing music singles. On the other hand, I have a copy of "Go Let It Out" from Oasis sitting here on my desk, which cost about £3 for just one song! If I had been able to purchase that song online and then download it to my peecee, I would probably have done so. I could then have avoided paying the costs for packaging and pressing and the CD itself. I haven't touched that CD in months, it is somewhere in my mp3 collection but I've not used the CD since I bought the music. If I could have a choice between bying a CD in the shop for music that I am likely to listen to in a CD player, to take with me in my portable, etc. or downloading and putting in to my collection and paying less, I believe less "piracy" would occur.

    So I hope that I have established my points concerning the RIAA as a general organisation. Now let us consider their latest blunder.

    Instead of supporting the enabling-technology of the internet, the RIAA has decided that it represents a (very very minor) "threat" to its business and so must therefore die. The RIAA knows full well that online music "piracy" is much smaller than they make it out to be and they also know fully the consequences of their actions.

    They aren't just trying to have this one site shut down and to stop "illegal distribution of mp3s", they would like to have a legal precident for the linking to sensitive or illegal information established. The RIAA has no particular vested interest in the internet, their friends at the MPAA certainly do not. The many other groups that the represent and have associations with may use the internet ("because everyone else does"), but they'd happily return to 10 years ago when internet usage was not commonplace in the home (it still isn't relatively speaking) and what usage did occur was mostly educational in nature. Certainly the MPEG group didn't exist and such high compression codecs as we have today were "dreams" on a whiteboard somewhere. Back in the "dark old days", the RIAA had much more control over music distribution. They were able to clamp down far more easily on offenders because some kind of physical transfer was typically required. They are _scared_ of the internet and the tremendous possibilities ahead.

    They have no vested interest in particular therefore they do not care if they try to destroy what they have created - as making responsible the linker would certainly do.

    --
    If you read this far then yes, I am karma whorin.
    Jon.
  • # Begin Rant I think people have to be a little more realistic about all this stuff going on with MP3z... I mean come on, we all know it' illegal. I certainly beleive that MP3z have a place in the market. It makes awesome promo material. In the eighties people traded bootleg tapes and copied tapes for their friends. Now the same is true for MP3z. Granted it takes place on on a much grander scale because of the easy at which people can trade via the internet, but I think both sides are really missing the point. MP3z and data transfer is here to stay! You can't stuff the toothpaste back in the tube or stop this craze in any way. RIAA should be focusing their resources on how to harness it not hinder it. At the same time however I think we should stop slaggin' people so hard about needing to make a buck. I agree they make too much money, but they still need jobs. Music can't be FREE if a musician wants to give away their music that's their perogative, but they can't have a label and do it. You want free music and to promote MP3z boycott the labels. They're the jerks in this whole stink. I on the other hand support artists like Limp Bizkit (The best band in the world), who embrace MP3z because they are a band for the people and people respect that. I download MP3z of my favorite artists like LB, RHCP and the HIP, but I still buy theur discs cause I wanna support them. Linking is illegal I think we should face that, but I still think the RIAA is wasting their time cause they'll get nothing accomplished if the get a ruling anyway. Are they going to continue to sue the 4 million people that post illegal links? I think not! If you're worried about not making enough money why the hell are you spending so much money in a hopeless legal venture!?!? # End Rant
  • One should look closely at the free speech implications of in any way restricting linking. A link to copyrighted / objecionable / illegal material is simply a referral, or an expression of knowledge of this material's location. Would one be held accountable for prostitution for pointing out where the red light district is, or for drug dealing by pointing out where the crackhouse on the next block is? What comes next, making it a crime to simply know where this material resides?
  • http://mp3.lycos.com [lycos.com]

    I haven't seen the RIAA after these guys yet. Oh wait, maybe they have the resources to fight back. Hmmmm, might not want to go there.

  • jelousy is such a sin. show me your women then.
  • This kind of action is getting out of hand, I really think that the US courts are just pushing web sites away from the US. That the beauty of a global network.

  • Argh (Score:2)

    by Troed ( 102527 )
    A case like this has already been in the supreme court in Sweden ... He was found NOT GUILTY of copyright infringement, although they commented that if he had been tried for _assisting_ to copyright infringment he might've been found guilty ..
  • There were a lawsuit in Norway about this a few months back, where the judge made it clear that the boys in question had done something illegal. It sounds just like this one...
  • Copyright infringement is illegal. That means outright stealing. Pointing fingers may be impolite but it is clearly not stealing. Nor is linking.

    Three words: Aiding and abetting.

    Finally, unless you can offer a suggestion to prevent abuse given you're so inclined to argue against other supposed abuses please don't waste people's time guess-legislating.

    Either you're missing punctuation marks, or your sentence structure is bad. Can you say it again?

  • I am a bit confused here.. Doesn't the RIAA have anything better to do other then sue everyone? All the money they spent on laywers, where does it come from? Oh wait, could it be the money they steal from Artists/Bands?
  • or even better, the RIAA should realize that people want MP3s, and put up material on the artist's homepage. Then there's not much reason to support the pirate sites with traffic and they would have a captive audience of devoted fans. But, hey, why think rationally when you have billions of dollars and can change the law whenever you need to.

    --
  • It's very clear cut for us. When you have angry businesses yelling at judges about it, it gets sticky. That's what I meant. If you've been reading along, a ruling in China decided that deep linking can be illegal in some cases. If that doesn't making linking a little bit sticky, tell that to the Chinese...

  • How did they find this site? (Score:5)

    by haystor ( 102186 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:28AM (#973096)
    If this site is illegal, how did they find it?

    By extension, wouldn't the site they came from be illegal also?

  • Umm, the MPAA has tried to enjoin 2600 from linking to sites that contain DeCSS. Judge Kaplan will rule on this pretty soon I suspect. (A matter of weeks).

    Openlaw filed an amicus brief [harvard.edu] on the MPAA's motion to enjoin hyperlinks. Some of the issues are common, some won't have the DMCA's draconian features to help them.

    If the MPAA loses their motion, the RIAA will almost certainly lose theirs. The contributory claim is weak, and the direct copyright claim is frivioulous.

    In Ticketmaster v Tickets.com [gigalaw.com] the Federal District Court wrote:
    "Further, hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying is involved. "

    The judge also rejected Ticketmasters claims that merely visiting internal pages of a website can constitute creation of a contract.
  • looks like search engines will become illegal then. unless the engines will filter out anything associated with mp3s. hell, why doesn't riaa propose to change all the routers on the internet to start filtering out anything associated with mp3s?
  • GIVE ME LINKING, OR GIVE ME DEATH!

    Shakespeare:
    TO LINK, OR NOT TO LINK! THAT IS THE QUESTION!

    ???:
    LINK FREE OR DIE!

    The 1st Amendment (not to be confused with the 1st Post!)

    Congress shall pass NO LAW abridging the right of the people to link one Web site to another.

    :)

  • It still makes very little sense... they're killing their own PR (as if rigor mortis hadn't already set in) so that one site in the US may not link to it. That doesn't mean that people in the US can't get to it, it just means that people in the US can't tell other people where to get it. It's as simple as that. The RIAA will continue to shoot themselves in the foot, until their legal department runs out of money (ha).

    --
  • sorry... I screwed that up nicely...

    Paine was the "Maximize good, Minimize harm" guy, that Mills based his philosophy on, right?

    sigh... all that fricking Jesuit education, and you'd think that I could keep these guys straight...
  • Nice to see that the RIAA is willing to destroy one of the most significant developments of the century to protect their bottom line. Who cares if it opens an entirely new method of human communication. Who cares if it could greatly speed developments of all sorts of technology by allowing peers to collaborate at great distances. Who cares if it could sustain economic growth well beyond previous models. A few users might trade copyrighted content on it, so it's got to go.

    If they succeed in their path, the damage that they will have done to humanity will be far greater than the damage they claim to be suffering currently. I hope the judge will assign their greed and stupidity exactly the value it deserves.

  • The Mpeg Layer 3 format is freely usable by anyone.

    No it can't [mp3licensing.com]; there's a USD 2.50 royalty per unit on encoders with a USD 15,000 per year minimum. For example, THOMSON multimedia already got BladeEnc [mp3.no] to remove encoder binaries. And I heard they're going after LAME [sulaco.org] next.

    On the other hand, Ogg Vorbis [xiph.org] is patent-free.

  • People are going to starting getting sick of the RIAA's whining. Its like the Elian Gonzalez thing, people hear way to much about it, they get sick of it, and they either stop careing or they start hating the source of the problem.

    The rich bastards over at the RIAA should stop while they are ahead. Public opinion is going change real quick if we keep watching them sue everyone for anything little thing having to do with mp3's.

  • At long last Mr. Jack Valenti, have you no sense of decency, at long last sir, have you no sense no decency...

    (ok... how long before the mistakes in this parody/quote are pointed out? I give it 3.2 seconds...)

  • (IANAL, of course....)
    For example, let's take Google. They know that they link to illegal stuff. MP3s, warez, pr0n that is someone else's property, etc. etc. Are they also guily of contributory infringement?
    To quote cshotton above, Google has a "legitimate, non-infringing" excuse for linking to illegal MP3s. They link to everything, and it would cost too much for them to identify and filter out the illegal stuff; having links to illegal content in their database is just a side-effect of their business.

    Likewise, I think it's reasonable for a news site (such as Slashdot) to publish links to a site with illegal content, because such links only show up on Slashdot when the other site is newsworthy.

    On the other hand, if you have a Web service whose primary business is providing links to illegal MP3s, then you have a much weaker case. (And judging from all their obnoxious banner ads, mp3board.com is trying to make a business out of this service.)

    Now, suppose someone wrote a Perl script that scanned the Web for illegal MP3s, and then posted random comments to Slashdot containing links to those MP3s. Most of the comments would get busted to "-1, Offtopic", but if the script put some identifying keywords in the Subject line, it would be easy to search for the links in Slashdot's archives. Would Slashdot have a legal obligation to delete these comments from its servers?
    --

  • Re:Hardly... (Score:5)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @09:27AM (#973135)
    There is a difference between speech and exploitation. If I videotape a movie with a handheld camera and sell the tapes, that's not free speech, it's a sale of art that I do not have the legal right to sell.

    MP3.com and Napster are "selling" a service (actually, supporting it with ad sales, which ammounts to the same thing), and that service is to help you obtain unauthorized copies of music. Personally I'm all for it, but I'm not going to poke my head in the sand and pretend that they won't get bitchslapped for it in court.

    Like it or not, the law takes a very different view between violating copyright for fun (such as taping a CD and giving the tape to a friend), and violating copyright for profit. One crime is far less severe than the other.

    As for drug-making instructions, I agree that it is a restriction to free speech to try to stop it, and I am confident that the courts strike down such a law the first time it is challenged... but giving out instructions to cook E and selling "home meth lab" kits are two different things. To restrict one is a violation of the First Amendment, to restrict the other is not unconstitutional, just unreasonable.

    (Yea, yea, IANAL.)

  • I fail to see the huge diff between a page and a file. In every webserver I've ever used, a page was a file. The only difference was that it was expected to produce visible results in an application called a web browser. MP3s are also files (like web pages) that produce an audible result.

    Also, your analogy doesn't work because you really can't compare "give him the watch" to "link to MP3 file".

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • these are the links that try mens souls

    Hey I like that! Thanks! :)

    I knew it was Patrick Henry, I just wanted to see if you were all paying attention. :)

  • At what point a link is contributory is the real issue that must be settled.

    Exactly.

    For example, let's take Google. They know that they link to illegal stuff. MP3s, warez, pr0n that is someone else's property, etc. etc. Are they also guily of contributory infringement?

    Or, say I link to mp3board.com [mp3board.com]. Did I just break the law? Did Slashdot? I know that mp3board.com links to illegal content - I just helped you find it.

    I think that facilitating a copyright violation needs a re-examination when it comes to the Internet. Maybe people who put those files up there are committing the violation. Maybe the ISP who hosts the site is (it is probably against their terms of service too). But people who link to the material in question?

    If you enforce that standard, you are opening up a very dangerous precedent.

  • To me, there is a huge difference between linking directly to a file and linking to a page.

    I disagree. Both a "page" a "file" are merely information. Distiguishing between a "page" and a "file" is silly and abritrary, and very likely to cause problems, especially since a "page" is just a particular format of "file". I wouldn't make sense to rule, for example, that linking to HTML pages is always legal, but other file types may be illegal. What if, in the future, "pages" are no longer HTML files, but some other format? Also, even "pages" may have illegal content (e.g. UUEncoding an MP3 and displaying the resulting text as an HTML file).


    A web page is a file, but the constitution is also a piece of paper, I can burn a piece of paper, therefore I can burn the constitution. A web page is a specific type of file, that can by interpretted by a browser to convey information or link to other pages. I'm not saying a page couldn't be illegal, anything CAN be illegal in one context or another, what I am saying is that in a generic context, linking to a page would be legal. IF it can be shown you knew that page contained the full text of a copyrighted book, then yes, a "page" would be the same as an illegal MP3 file. I am trying to abstract the idea of linking to a page that links to a page that links to something illegal would be illegal (because that would kill the internet) linking directly to illegal material. Linking directly to illegal material (whether it be an MP3, or a text file, or whatever) is a concious act that in most cases can be avoided (yes, there is that tiny .00001% chance that the funny pic you linked to could become an pirated MP3 file, but there is also that same chance that a cow will fall from the sky and land on my head, I wouldn't count on either happening). There must be a level of responsibilty that goes with linking directly to a file. Ignorance is not an excuse. This is especially true when you tout on your web page that the files are illegal.


    An interesting analogy, but as with most relating the Internet to Real Life, it doesn't really work. This is because MP3Board is still not involved, even if it provides a direct link to the file. The analogy you describe would be work only if MP3Board had a service where they would temporarily store a file for you, so that you can download it directly from MP3Board at a later time, which is certainly not the case. Also, the analogy fails because the site does not "give" MP3s; in a really basic sense, all that the site is doing is "displaying" a file to a person's browser, and the person who is viewing it is making a local copy for himself.


    The whole point behind linking to a file being legal is that they are not storing the file on their computer. YEt, in my analogy, I am not storing the watch. I am passing the watch onto another person, much as a link passes a file to a person (not a good description, but I think you understand). I may not know the watch is stolen, you may not know the file is illegal, but you are held liable for the watch (receiving stolen goods is a crime, even if they are not explitied stated that the goods are stolen), you should be held liable for the file.

  • Moral imperatives never really seemed correct to me... I prefered more of the Nichomachaen Ethics as a general rule for morality, and St Thomas Aquinas for a basis of philosophy and Theology...

    Yes... it figures i went to a Jesuit university first, followed by a Franciscan one...

    And let me tell you that I dont particularly like the Franciscan theory on everything... Once he gets into time being a figment of our imagination, i had to start heavily questioning him...

    And I agree that Utilitarianism is a pretty crappy moral standard... Yet is the "official" morality of the US government... go figure...

  • I remember once several years back that there was a case in Germany where a man was arrested for linking to a neo-nazi site. The site linked to was mentioned by name on the news.

    It would be pretty easy to go to the site either by punching it in as an URL or going to a search engine and finding the site with the publicity.

    My question is, would simply mentioning a phrase (i.e. "MP3") in a public forum (i.e. television, usenet, etc), become illegal?
  • Does anybody remember on June 12 when Slashdot posted this? The only difference is, the RIAA was the one being sued [slashdot.org] - that story was much more fun to read.
  • Heck, why don't they just get it over with and sue everybody, every company, and every organization in the world?

    Didn't you read the article about that [segfault.org]?

    --

  • Actually, I'm pretty sure Outlook express still needs the http:// if we're going to be picky.

    Anyway. While I agree with you, it's always useful to know quite how stupid some people are. I forget the search engine, but one engine's stats a while back revealed that www.hotmail.com was in the top 10 searched for terms...

  • Re:Hardly... (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:53PM (#973184)
    Napster has ads? Not my copy.

    As to the profit vs. non-profit argument its pretty trivial, the only way this type of copyright infringement is going to end is not through censorship, but by going after casual MP3 traders or by a thorough change in the industry that will never happen. Imagine a few high-profile busts in your neighborhood, confiscating computers and all. How many kids would quickly wipe their Mp3's and delete Napster? I'd say a whole bunch.

    Exactly what is violating copyright for 'fun' mean? I burn a copy of Bjork's latest and give it to my pal, and he burns a copy of a Radiohead EP and gives it to me. Gasp, I just made a profit of a Radiohead CD. I didn't pay for it.

    What you really are trying to get at is, but not admitting, is that everyday copyright violations are so damn trivial its only efficient to go after major illegal disributors because they *might* have a chance of hurting profit. Fine, but do it without Corporate America trampling on my right to link and if the law has a problem with what I'm doing they can go get a warrant, not some blanket civil-rights violating law because big business is paranoid.

    I'd rather go to court and defend my MP3 collection (which could be all copies of CDs I own for all you know and may be tranfering to my other PC through Napster) instead of getting a notice from my ISP saying they're forced to close my account because of illegal linking or content. The latter assumes everyone is guilty of some crime, that certainly isn't true.
  • mp3.com's not whose getting sued here.

    Thanks for the correction. The point remains the same.

  • I hate to use the slippery slope argument, but I really think it applies in this situation.

    If whether linking to a site becomes a matter of a judge's opinion, then it is all for nothing anyways. Anyone small won't be able to afford the legal fees, and would just have to cave in to the RIAA (or whomever else's) demands.

    The right thing to do, IMHO, is to have a decision in court that sets the precedent that linking to (possibly) illegal content is not illegal. Force RIAA and everyone else to go after the people actually providing and serving the content in question.

    Of course, it is easy to see why RIAA is trying to short-circuit this. The illegal content in these type of cases is typically served from numerous free website hosting services, and is zipped or has an obscure filename in order to make it more difficult to locate. Going after the actual content providers would be much more difficult.

    Preserving our rights to link to information on the web has to be more important then making the RIAA's job easier. It really is a slippery slope :)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Now correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3)

    by Animol ( 120579 ) <jartis&gmail,com> on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:33AM (#973202) Journal
    ...but didn't a judge already rule [slashdot.org] that deep hyperlinking was alright? Isn't this just more of the same then? Perhaps if the site linked to a page containing said music files the RIAA would have *NO* say-so in the matter whatsoever, but as the site just links to the content...

    Also, the RIAA doesn't care, but how many times does a site with static links send you to WORKING MP3 downloads? Thought so...
  • I'm seeing constant references to "aiding and abedding" as relates to MP3Board's activities. IANAL, but I believe this falls outside that particular description.

    Aiding and abedding has to do with helping a known criminal evade detection or capture, often by hiding or obscuring evidence or providing inside information on the investigation. What's happening here falls more under accessory to copyright violations -- they are helping commit the crime, not helping the criminals evade the law.

    If I am wrong, I would appreciate a member of the BARR correcting me...

    --

  • this is just a good example of why i hate everyone.
  • I'm sure if they dug deep enough they'd find some shop, somewhere, selling bootleg recordings. If the shop was in the Yellow Pages, that would be a link. Therefore, Yellow Pages is promoting piracy.
  • Why should something that would normally be illegal be protected just because it's on the net?
    I hate seeing my beautiful technohaven turned into a commercial crap pile as much as the next guy.. but that's just how they want us to think..

    we can still do the same things we always have with the net. It just so happens that intentionally directing people to illegal materials is, in fact, illegal.. net or not...
  • If you introduce those poeple because you know that one of them is looking to purchase cocaine, and the other is selling it, then yes, you *are* breaking the law.. you are aiding and abetting a crime.
  • Who's talking about linking to sites? we're talking about direct links to copyrighten material.
    Direct links to mp3's on other sites.

  • Re:How did they find this site? (Score:3)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @10:54AM (#973214)
    being "neutral" consitutes a knowing decision to include possibly illegal materials.

    ...which is completely different from a knowing decision to purposely include definitely illegal materials, and promote that as part of your service.

    It's all or nothing. Accept linking or don't.

    People like you also make civil debate about guns and abortion impossible.

    Gawd, it's like walking on eggshells around here sometimes. All I did was try to point out that this might not be the cut-and-dried litmus test for hyperlinks that the posers at Wired [wired.com] want to hype it as being; and suddenly I'm surrounded by more flaming than at a San Francisco parade.

    Settle down. The RIAA is not going to take the Internet away. The sky is not falling. Save the paranoia for John Katz articles.

  • ...maybe I've been looking at the computer too much. When I glanced at the headline, for a minute it looked like the legality of thinking was going to be tested. Then again... who knows.

  • the RIAA wants everyone to be constantly monitored to see if they're listening to unauthorized music. sooner or later, we're not even going to be able to borrow a cd from a friend. people-the government won't become Big Brother, but watch out for the RIAA.
  • ...actually violating the British Telecom patent about hyperlinking??? [slashdot.org]

    I wish they'd help us with our intellectual property issues instead of just spanking us all like the bad children they claim us to be. They could be helping us be good.

    ----

  • Both sides are right. Linking in itself, is harmless. But when you *know* you're linking to a pirated MP3, and you check to make sure it really is, you're an accessory to piracy. The site that actually hosts the file should be shut down and punished harshly, while the site that linked to it (knowing that the site it linked to was illegal) should get a slap on the wrist.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If you help someone commit a criminal act (piracy), you are guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal act.
    Pirating MP3s **IS NOT** a criminal act.

    --
    Here's my mirror [respublica.fr]

  • Linking (Score:4)

    by Dungeon Dweller ( 134014 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:35AM (#973230)
    Well, linking can be a sticky issue. Nobody wants to be paying for content, only to have it become the highlight of another, more popular page, such as linking a bunch of porn to your site. Cases such as DEEP LINKING are the real toughies, but it should only be the providers of the content who have the ability to sue, if anybody, not a third party, not if they are not authorized by the providers.

    On the other hand, linking is what makes the web what it is. It can't exist without it. A ruling against linking would have to be very careful to state what constitutes illegal linking, and it would have to specify legal uses as well.

    Would it be illegal, for instance, for altavista to put a page in their engine, after pepsi has submitted it?

    I get nervous when judges come near the internet. Our fears, however, can be a little alleviated in that, supposing that people actually want the internet around, they can't outright stop us from linking to each other, the only issue might be a few trivial lawsuits which would overturn such a foolish decision.

    In cases such as this one, RIAA should be suing the actual providers, if anybody. The person hosting the sites might be aiding and abetting, but it is the person hosting the copyrighted material who is committing the crime.

  • Is it just a US patent, or is the patent valid in europe, asia and africa too? If so, then only everyone in the US who uses LAME is an infringer.

    //rdj

  • I don't have any synmpathy for these idiots (Score:3)

    by Jon Erikson ( 198204 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:35AM (#973241)

    Well, I'm sure that many /.ers will be up in arms about this latest RIAA lawsuit infringing upon their "freedom" to download pirate music, but this isn't the same as Napster, which has at least tried to make it look like they're a genuine service for minority artists rather than a tool for people who don't like paying for music.

    MP3Board.com has an automatic search engine which finds sites with MP3s, verifies that they're active and then posts links to them. Not content with providing this service for budding pirates, they then make it even easier to rip off artists by separating the links to genres such as "Legal MP3s", making it perfectly obiovus to even the dumbest script kiddie where to get pirate music!

    The sheer gall of these people is amazing, and there is no way they should be allowed to continue operating a sight that all but advertises itself as a site for pirating music. Whereas Napster has a passive role, MP3Board actively searches for content and categorises it, and as such I have no sympathy at all for them.

    For once, I hope the RIAA wins, this doesn't help us at all, and just makes those of us who are after more than the latest MP3 bad.


    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • Re:How did they find this site? (Score:4)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:35AM (#973244) Homepage Journal
    You've nailed it precisely.

    If it's illegal to link to objectionable content, how long will it be before it's illegal to link to someone who then in turn links to objectionable content.

    It could possibly lead to the RIAA suing yahoo, because yahoo links to "Joe Schmuckatelli's house of useless information", Joe links to "Hiram Lipschitz's big ass audiophile playhouse", and Hiram in turn links to "Leroy Jones's stereo equipment world" which then has links to "Sean O'Brien's MP3 universe" which has some illegal MP3s. Since out of everyone involved yahoo has the deepest pockets, you know who'd get sued.

    LK

  • The RIAA's Strategy (Score:3)

    by Chiasmus_ ( 171285 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @08:45AM (#973246) Journal
    After reading this article, it was pretty clear to me that the RIAA didn't exactly have a picture of what should and should not be illegal. The only thing that they were claiming is that since the kid who put up the hyperlinks had the knowledge that some crime was being committed, and the intention that the crime be committed, then there's some crime going on, right? Right?

    The RIAA isn't exactly a philosophical organization with a broad view of the future. They're a day-to-day business, and right now, their strategy seems pretty clear to me: they want to see what they can and can't get away with. Does shutting down file-sharing protocols have any legal validity? Their answer: Who knows? We'll never know until we give it a shot. Does shutting down hyperlinking have any legal validity? Their answer? Who knows? Let's... give it a shot.

    I cringe at the legal costs they must be incurring, but for a behemoth like the RIAA, that's really just business as usual.

    It's easy to point fingers, but I don't think we can blame the RIAA for this - they're doing exactly what any other company whose business was threatened (or perceived to be threatened) would do. Hopefully, the courts will come to their senses and realize that this is just another frivolous attempt to gag free speech in the name of big business. If they don't, we know how to blame.

    In conclusion, the only thing we can do is dilute the law by breaking it so often that a policy of salutory neglect must be followed.
  • In both cases, the crime is the same (copyright infringement) and the punishment is the same (suit for damages).

    Except the ammount of damages claimed is vastly different.

    If you run a web sight that makes money off somebody else's copyright material, they can make the case that they are entitled to royalties based on the money you made, plus punative damages for trying to cut them out.

    If you copy a buddy's CD, the most they could claim is that you are less likely to buy an album that you might have purchaced otherwise.

    Hardly the same "punishment" at all. (I put punishment in quotes because we are talking about civil lawsuits here, not criminal court. You have to commit copyright infringement on a pretty grand scale, like a large CD mastering lab, before criminal justice gets involved.)

  • I have to say that I've never liked the idea of "case by case basis".

    Without rigid standards in our law, we're plunged into chaos - any man can find his entire life completely at the mercy of any random judge or seven joe blows - and let me tell you, out here in Nevada, where some of the judges have never been lawyers (they're ranchers--I saw a guy get 40 years for cattle rustling a month after another guy got 20 for first degree murder), that scares me.

    And, come on, most of us are computer people. What would computers be like if the answer to the question "What does 'ls' do?" was "Well, that's pretty much on a case-by-case business. In Debian, it lists your files, but in Caldera, it pretty much acts like rm -r."

    In conclusion, we need good law on this. Which is why, in a sense, the RIAA's barrage of lawsuits is a good thing - it brings this to the forefront and forces us to hammer out our priorities. I believe in freedom - but not freedom behind the government's back. Freedom should be able to be pretty much sanctioned and out in the open.
  • I am *NOT* in the US. Here, copyright is a civil matter.

    And sharing files, say, trough Napster certainly doesn't bring financial gain or commercial advantage, so it cannot be criminal in the US.

    --
    Here's my mirror [respublica.fr]

  • tough week (Score:5)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:37AM (#973256) Homepage
    The future of the web pretty much hangs on the freedom to link,...

    Yesterday they said the future of the web depends on stopping those mp3 file jamming companies. Man, the web is having a tough week!

    tcd004

    send a Postcard! [lostbrain.com]

  • what to link to? (Score:5)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:38AM (#973259) Homepage
    I think this is more a case about what you are linking to. MP3board is linking directly to illegal files, which they know are illegal, and tout as illegal. TO me, there is a huge difference between linking directly to a file and linking to a page. If you link to a web page, the content can change without your knowledge. If you link to a file, it can be assumed you know what is in that file to begin with, and the chances of the contents of a file being changed are extremely slim. As long as they keep this lawsuit about linking to files, and not linking to pages, the Internet is in no danger.


    To use a (weird) analogy, consider the case of someone looking to buy a stolen watch. It is not illegal for me to say that Bob sells stolen watches down at the corner. This would be the equivalent of linking to a page, basically pointing someone in the right direction. Now, what happens, if this person goes, talks to Bob, and leaves without taking his (stolen) watch with him? Bob then comes to me, asks me to give him the watch, which I do. This is what MP3board is doing. They are handing the MP3s to people. It's not their watch, and they didn't sell it, but they are involved nonetheless.

  • This Is No Surprise. (Score:5)

    by Alarmist ( 180744 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:38AM (#973263) Homepage
    For the last year at least, we have seen that corporations, large monied organizations, and governments have all realized what the Internet actually is:

    A communications channel that could relay any data nearly anywhere in the world more or less instantaneously.

    Naturally, the powers that be want to make sure that only offical, approved information that reflects and protects their interests is disseminated. Many average citizens are content to let this happen, either unable or unwilling to understand the ramifications of this trend.

    Others, myself among them, realize that if only approved, sanitized, doesn't-upset-those-in-charge data is to be sent, then the real message will just have to go out anyway--just in a more quiet fashion.

    During the heyday of the Soviet Union, when mimeographs were sensitive technology and every document that was printed or copied was examined for ideas that did not conform to the Party line, there were individuals who, through ingenuity and boldness, managed to draft and circulate information that was priceless because it was the truth. Information distributed in this way came to be known as samizdat.

    I suggest that we get busy accumulating samizdat. When the time is right (and let us hope, and work to ensure, that it never is), then we must distribute it. Information may not care whether it is free, but people have the right not to be bamboozled and hoodwinked into submission.

  • For that matter:

    Directories.
    Slashdot (and its brethren).
    "Internet guides"
    Web portals
    Web Award Sites (like the Webby). (COuld be legal without linking but then what would be the point?)
    The "News from around the net" sections on ZDNet and CNet.
    AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ URL link functions
    URL Link functions in e-mail programs.
    This messsage [riaa.com] would be illegal, too.

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Except the ammount of damages claimed is vastly different.
    This is a difference in quantity, not a difference in quality. It is irrelevant to the original point [slashdot.org]; to wit,
    Like it or not, the law takes a very different view between violating copyright for fun (such as taping a CD and giving the tape to a friend), and violating copyright for profit.
    The law sees these as exactly the same. The remedy is to sue the infringer and recover damages. Sure, if Alice is a "pirate"(*) and produces 50,000 illegal copies, then she has caused more damage than Bob, who copied the CD once.

    But say Bob makes copies for 50,000 of his closest friends. Then the copyright owner would be able to go after Bob for the loss of 50,000 sales, just as if he had sold the copies. It doesn't matter if he profits from the copying or not, or whether he's into it "commercially" or "casually". Under the law, infringement is infringement.

    The real-world effects might be different (there's more to recover from the "pirate") and the politics might be different (the company might not want the PR of pursuing, say, teenagers). But the law is the same.

    ---
    (*) Unless Alice wears an eyepatch and goes around saying "Avast! Aargh!", she is not a pirate. But for the sake of discussion, let us temporarily agree to the cynical and silly extension of the meaning of the word "pirate".
    ---

  • Contributory Infringement (Score:5)

    by PotatoMan ( 130809 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:39AM (#973277)

    Links to pirated material would be controlled under the "contributory infringement" clause. Basically, if you help someone else infringe on a copyright (or copyleft), you are legally liable.

    At what point a link is contributory is the real issue that must be settled. I feel that if you know full well that those links go to prohibited material, you should be held accountable. There is a case in Utah concerning the publishing of LDS material on the web in which the defendants pulled the material and substituted links to other sites. These people clearly knew they were still facilitating a copyright violation.

    But, clearly, not all links to pages that violate copyright are illegal. For example, in the DeCSS case against 2600 it has not been shown that DeCSS infringes any copyright. Therefore, links should be permitted until such time as the court decides a violation has occurred.

  • Re:what to link to? (Score:3)

    by Diablerie ( 195323 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @08:58AM (#973282)
    To me, there is a huge difference between linking directly to a file and linking to a page.

    I disagree. Both a "page" a "file" are merely information. Distiguishing between a "page" and a "file" is silly and abritrary, and very likely to cause problems, especially since a "page" is just a particular format of "file". I wouldn't make sense to rule, for example, that linking to HTML pages is always legal, but other file types may be illegal. What if, in the future, "pages" are no longer HTML files, but some other format? Also, even "pages" may have illegal content (e.g. UUEncoding an MP3 and displaying the resulting text as an HTML file).

    To use a (weird) analogy, consider the case of someone looking to buy a stolen watch. It is not illegal for me to say that Bob sells stolen watches down at the corner. This would be the equivalent of linking to a page, basically pointing someone in the right direction. Now, what happens, if this person goes, talks to Bob, and leaves without taking his (stolen) watch with him? Bob then comes to me, asks me to give him the watch, which I do. This is what MP3board is doing. They are handing the MP3s to people. It's not their watch, and they didn't sell it, but they are involved nonetheless.

    An interesting analogy, but as with most relating the Internet to Real Life, it doesn't really work. This is because MP3Board is still not involved, even if it provides a direct link to the file. The analogy you describe would be work only if MP3Board had a service where they would temporarily store a file for you, so that you can download it directly from MP3Board at a later time, which is certainly not the case. Also, the analogy fails because the site does not "give" MP3s; in a really basic sense, all that the site is doing is "displaying" a file to a person's browser, and the person who is viewing it is making a local copy for himself.

    On a side note, I realize that people like making analogies so that others can understand the situation better, but very often they simply don't work when talking about pure information (especially when encoded in some way, like MP3, or a binary file, etc.) The main issue is that information can be copied easily, by anybody, at zero cost. If I steal somebody's CD, they don't have it anymore. If I "steal" an MP3 from a site, the site still has it. This is an important difference, and it's enough for flawed analogies to confuse people.

  • future of the web ... (Score:5)

    by EnderWiggnz ( 39214 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:40AM (#973285)
    look... the future of the web is going to be just fine...

    the RIAA and such (MPAA, Mothers against anything Fun, whatever) represent the mainstreaming of the web.

    They want to remain relevant. Right now, the only way to distribute CD's and whatnot is to go through them. Very few record stores have the buying power and independence to buy anything outside of the major record labels. Tower and Border's are notable exceptions.

    All of a sudden, this whole internet thing removes the need for their insane distribution. All of a sudden a scarce commodity (CD's, shelf space) has turned into a product where there is NO scarcity, and 0 marginal cost, that is, it costs nothing to produce another MP3.

    Being made completely irrelevant is not somethign that people take kindly too... so they are going to fight this every single inch of the way...

    ANd they will still lose. Why?
    Because they are attacking and accusing and criminalising the very people that they wish to have as their customers. This isnt about "protection" or "artists" its about maintaining the status quo.

    When industries, countries, whatever, have more interest in maintaining something that is old, just because it used to be that way, they begin to decline, because they are busy fighting progress instead of making progress.

    So what heppens is the world moves on to newer and better ways of distibuting music and media, while the record companies are left holding their traditional, outmoded forms, that people will cease to use.

    Dont worry, these people will self destruct in the end... its just a matter of time...

  • Hardly... (Score:4)

    by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @08:58AM (#973286)
    >but if you are in the business of directing
    >people to where they can find drug dealers, and
    >make a profit by giving out that information, you
    >are crossing the line.

    The phone company and the newspapers do it all the time. Not drug dealers actually, but will prostitution do? It's pretty much common knowledge that "escort services", "massage parlors", and "modelling agencies", are thinly veiled fronts for prostitution...

    ... But open up the PacBell yellow pages to the "E" section... Or check out the back few pages of SF Weekly or the Guardian. I'm pretty sure that all three make a profit.

    Or lets go back to drugs...

    Not too long ago there was a big flap about a bill in congress called the "Methamphetimine Antiproliferation Act" or somesuch. This bill, if passed, would have made it illegal to link to, or post on the web, information on how to make your own amphetemine; and, rightfully so, there was an outroar about the unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.

    To be opposed to the "Methamphetimine Antiproliferation Act"'s restrictions on linking, but be in favor of restricting links to MP3 sites is nonsenceically hipocritical... and just plain silly. It's okay to allow one kind of free speech to be outlawed, but not another???

    That's BS. Once you start down the path of giving up your freedoms, where does it stop?

    And I hardly see where it is relevant if the site makes a profit or not. The logic of "it's wrong to make a profit" would seem to imply that it's perfectly okat to post all the drug manuefacturing info, warez, copyrighted MP3s, and kiddie porn I want, so long as *I* pay for the hosting myself. But if I set up ONE little banner ad, suddenly I'm an evil, preditory, inhuman monster; commiting crimes against humanity.

    I'll set aside, for the moment, that most of the people *I* know who have banner ads on their sites barely bring in enough to pay for their hosting service, if that much.

    john
    Resistance is NOT futile!!!

    Haiku:
    I am not a drone.
    Remove the collective if

  • Here's a list [mp3licensing.com] of all the patents Thomson and Fraunhofer are claiming on MP3.

  • Intent is the key (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:41AM (#973293)
    Grr. Freedom of speech is not without limits. If you help someone commit a criminal act (piracy), you are guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal act. This has absolutely nothing to do with the "future of the web." It's about intent. If the intent is to break the law, it shouldn't matter that it's just a link -- a link is a mechanism by which information is obtained. Freedom of speech also comes with a certain responsibility; it's certainly not just a blanket excuse to do what you want.

    So for the record: RIAA is right to try to punish intent, and not the link itself.
  • This is ridiculous. I'm not a fan of those who like to get their music for free and then complain when companies try to stop it. I have no problem with metalica going after those that give thier work away for free.

    This new law suit is just silly and is obviously a knee jerk reaction to try and stop the mp3 thing anyway they can. I think they'd be better served going after the sites actually distributing the MP3s not jthe ones linking to them..
    I mean LYCOS has an mp3 search feature too.

    This is to be expected though as people are going a little crazy for the free (beer) mp3s. I think the industry realizes the first step to distributing (selling) music on the web is to stop those that are giving it away for free. Why buy it when it s FREE.
    The scale of the piracy is amazing and if people don't watch out and start acting responsibly I think draconian laws criminalizing mp3 trading (MDCA) will continue to be enacted.

    I alway though computer people knew that information is value. Of course the RIAA is going to try and protect its place.

    /Aram

    /Aram

  • What about the site with the mp3s? (Score:5)

    by Yebyen ( 59663 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:43AM (#973301) Homepage
    I think we've all missed a rather interesting point here... Why is the RIAA sueing the site with the links, rather than going straight to the site with the mp3s? This may be a more difficult process (I don't know what site it is, it could link to many sites...), but it's more likely to yield results.

    Oh, let's sue over something that is almost certain to do nothing, rather than sue the person who would actually have the ability to make the problem go away. Of course this way the mp3s will still be there, for anyone to access, but they'll have a harder time finding them!

    Duh.

    --

  • So are the RIAA going to sue Wired for linking MP3Board.com ?
    And what about Slashdot for linking to Wired?

    When does the buck stop?

    cheers,
    Justin.

  • The patent was on the algorithm that was developed by the Frauenhoffer (sp?) Institute. LAME developed their own MP3 codec that doesn't use F. Institute's algorithm, and is therefore free from patent encumbrences.

    Noone's going after the LAME maintainers. There's no civil recourse against someone who is not violating any patents or copyrights and who can easily prove it (open source since the beginning, after all).

    The poster was correct, then. Mpeg layer 3 is freely usable by anyone. At least, by anyone with access to a machine that can run LAME.

  • but giving out instructions to cook E and selling "home meth lab" kits are two different things.

    Well, then, how about giving the mailing addresses of someone willing to sell a "home meth lab"? That, in essence, is what Napster is doing. They're not making to illegal goods. They're not selling the illegal goods. They're just providing pointers to someone selling the illegal goods.

    AFAICT, this isn't significantly different than the ads in the back of "High Times" magazine.

  • 1. Does the fact that a webpage has links to mp3's on another page actually constitute aiding and/or abetting? It would seem to me that the person responsible for the links would have to know of a specific instance of piracy involving those links, rather than be aware of the possibility or likelyhood of piracy, to be convicted of such an offense.

    2. Is there a legitamate purpose for downloading a copyrighted mp3? For example, I have a badly sunburnt tape of , I bought many years ago. This tape won't play anymore, but lo and behold, I find the same material on the net, and make another tape. Is this a legitimate use? My feeling is that it is, as I have already paid the author, label, etc. all they are due from me.

    3. What about usenet servers? They are different from yahoo and google in the fact that they actually store, for a limited time, all sorts of stuff. What about sites like Remarq? I have pulled multipart binaries from them before (as of a year ago, it was possible, although exetremely tricky). Does the fact that they even carry an alt.bin.warez.. group imply that they are knowingly aid/abetting piracy? If they get by this by stating that there are legitimate posts in those groups, can mp3board do the same by claiming that they link to some that have both copyrighted and public-domain mp3's?

    4. This question follows from #2. If there is actually a legit purpose for dowloading a copyrighted mp3, can mp3board claim they were actually helping restore peoples' trashed media? (if the answer to #2 is no, then this point is moot)

    5. If a website has mp3's on it, when does the piracy occur, on the authoring of the site, or the first download? Suppose there is a new computer on demonstration at wal-mart. Suppose I waltz in there with a floppy and save a copy of on it. The computer is on public display, just as a webpage is. Is wal-mart guilty of the same offense as a webpage full of mp3's? The question here is whether foreknowledge that piracy could be committed equate to an act of offense?

    6. What happens when a band plays a cover? Do they have to get permission from each band? What if they tape the concert and sell an album? What about midi? What about having an mp3 of a midi under the same name and tune of a song? Can I make a midi to the tune of Old Man River with tempo, beat, and instumentation to match Jim Croce's version, and distribute the midi legally?

    7. I think the most fundamental question is what constitutes an actual infringement. By this I mean, how can a person tell that an mp3 is actually copyrighted material? Is there a physical test that has set tolerances (a waveform diff)? Or is it up to the judge who "knows porn when he sees it"? A test for plaigerism or written copyright violations has been easy and straightforward (word for word), music is not quite as tangible.

    8. If one file on a site is copyrighted, do they all have to go, or does each one have to be tested?

    I understand that some of these questions are a litle meta-physical or seem to be in need of common sense, but I feel the true heart of this matter (other than the money hungry record industry) hasn't been fully examined yet. I believe that one day, the majority of the population will wake up, yawn, and wonder what happened to the things that used to be taken for granted, then some things will change. I'm not too worried about the music industry winning these battles, because they'll only make the chains heavier and more noticeable to the average joe. It's like a really slow game of pong, the ball's in our court but hasn't hit the paddle yet.

  • Cmdr Taco Please Read The Article (Score:5)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:45AM (#973313) Homepage Journal
    *sigh*
    The amount of sensationalism associated with slashdot has reached a disturbing level. As others have pointed out the legality of deep linking has already been upheld in court [slashdot.org] also the RIAA has said that they are not going after the site for linking but for being running a site that indexes illegal material.
    From the article:
    An RIAA representative said this case isn't about hyperlinking at all.

    "This isn't about automated versus not-automated hyperlinks, this is about what they know and what they don't know," said Steve Fabrizio, the RIAA's senior vice president for legal and business affairs.

    "This isn't the RIAA coming out against hyperlinking. This is about the fact that the sources MP3Board.com are linking to are blatantly pirate sites which they are aware of. They link to sites that say 'Super Pirated MP3s.' They even have a genre labeled as 'Legal MP3s.'"

    After all aiding and abetting is still a crime in the real world so why shouldn't it be one online?

  • No, not the deep hyperlinking, not the links to illegal MP3s.

    mp3board opened NO LESS than SEVEN FUCKING WINDOWS on my desktop, one of which was the size of the entire god damned screen!

    That should be a fucking capital offense. I want to see people die for javascript BULLSHIT like that.

    UGH!

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Up until now, most places that have been asked to stop linking have done so. I think it's more of a fear of being sued thing. For example, waaay back when Dilbert first showed up on the net (when *all* of the comics were available online for free) there were a couple of people who provided links from their own home pages to that day's dilbert -- avoiding the unitedmedia page and its banners (or whatever form of ads they had at the time).

    Unitedmedia, like the RIAA, was pissed because they were missing out on the ability to serve the content with ads 'n' stuff. It's more than just "links to illegal sites", as the RIAA claims, it's links to the content that they don't get anything from.

    I'll bet dimes to dollars that if I were to link straight to an mp3 on sonymusic.com, I'd be contacted by the nice people from their legal department.

    Sure, they say that they're against links to illegal sites, but they're really against not being able to add their flavor of piss (whether it be banner ads or pop-ups) to the "illegal" content.

    --
    hymie

  • If the RIAA doesn't want people to link to certain units of their intellectual property, the solution is absurdly simple. Just GPL those files you want protected. Since you can't link from a non-GPL application to a GPL library, then neither should you be able to link from a non-GPL website to a GPL MP3. Instead of raising a huge legal ruckus of copyright infringement, just mention a possible GPL violation here on slashdot and the perps will be quickly intimidated.
  • Well, linking can be a sticky issue

    Why is that? Looks pretty simple to me.

    Nobody wants to be paying for content, only to have it become the highlight of another, more popular page

    Well, yeah, but it's a business model problem, not a linking problem. Putting stuff on the web is publishing and I don't think it's reasonable to control information about where to find published material.

    Cases such as DEEP LINKING are the real toughies

    No, they are not. I understand you want people to go through you front page so that all these ad-impression counters click and whirr, but your wishes (even if they are wishes for money and have an important name like 'business plan') impose no obligations on other people.

    Besides, it's not like it's hard to deal with that particular problem technologically.

    I get nervous when judges come near the internet.

    I get much more nervous when politicians come near it.

    Kaa
  • Moderate the previous post up. It's precisely the issue.

    An additional note, contributory copyright infringement can be mitigated if there is a legitimate, non-infringing use for the same content/data/service. Not having seen the sites in question, it's hard to tell if there is a legitmate, alternate use for the content of that site.

    An absurd example might be for a site with a list of illegal MP3s to label them as "Illegal MP3 sites that should be avoided if you don't want to get in trouble with RIAA." Then there is clearly an alternate purpose to the page beyond simply distributing (or providing access to) copyrighted content.

  • "I wish they'd help us with our intellectual property issues instead of just spanking us all like the bad children they claim us to be. They could be helping us be good."

    The problem here is that they don't want to help us! They are in it for the money and for the power, despite being an "association." They control the vertical. They control the horizontal. And they will NOT stand by while a new medium forms that they don't have control over.

    Consider that Metallica is generally considered an exception. Most of the artists (small, medium, and even really big) who have either dealt with the RIAA, or have been unable to do so because of their (small) potential sales are fairly happy with the idea of MP3. Alanis Morrisette was sued by her own record company for releasing the music she wrote and recorded in MP3 format!

    Bottom line is that the industry doesn't have the interests of the musicians or the public in mind--only their own.

  • Re:How did they find this site? (Score:3)

    by nellardo ( 68657 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:51AM (#973340) Homepage Journal
    If this site is illegal, how did they find it?

    By extension, wouldn't the site they came from be illegal also?

    Don't give the RIAA ideas :-)

    Seriously, how the RIAA found the site is not especially relevant, unless they did something illegal to do so (think of search and seizure laws - evidence can be thrown out of court if acquired illegally). Even if a court ruled that linking to an illegal site was illegal, it is a separate issue as to whether following the link is legal or not.

    Phone phreaking equipment is illegal (except to the phone company, natch) because, ostensibly, its only possible use is illegal. If the RIAA made the case that the only possible use of links to MP3 sites was an illegal one, then links to MP3 sites might conceivably be banned. However, I don't think the RIAA will be able to make that point too easily:

    • A perfectly legal use of links to illegal sites is to track down illegal sites :-)
    • If a site that was linked to contained any legal content, or if there was even a chance that it did, then following that link would be a legitimate search for legitimate content.
    • It is not the sites per se that are illegal - it is the copying and distribution of copyrighted content without authorization from the copyright holder that is illegal.

    As I understand US laws, it is perfectly legal to list illegal acts, even specific incidents, even specific individuals. If I identify individuals as law-breakers and they aren't, then I can be sued for slander or libel (depending on whether I was speaking or writing), but if they are law-breakers, I'm simply stating a fact. Even if it isn't a fact, it's only libelous if I did it with "malice aforethought", if I did it to harm the person. If my intent wasn't harm, then I simply made a mistake.

    So MP3Board [slashdot.org] is, at worst, guilty of libel, if and only if they claim that some sites have illegal content and those sites do not in fact have illegal content and MP3Board was malicious in identifying those sites.

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Like it or not, the law takes a very different view between violating copyright for fun (such as taping a CD and giving the tape to a friend), and violating copyright for profit
    Like it or not, this is not true. In both cases, the crime is the same (copyright infringement) and the punishment is the same (suit for damages). Sure, a company is far less likely to go after you for a single, not-for-profit infringement ... but the law does not distinguish between the two.

    I suppose I must add IANAL. Like, duh!

  • ...assuming the RIAA wins, and it becomes illegal to put hyperlinks to illegal sites, what about text-which-is-a-url, but not a HREF? i.e.

    http://www.piratemuic.com/metallica [piratemusic.com]
    vs.
    http://www.piratemusic.com/metallica

    The second is absolutely no different from putting a URL (or as someone pointed out, the address of a crack house) in a newspaper. Of course, the only difference is that the user has to copy-paste or retype the link in the Address box of their browser to get there, rather than simply clicking on the link, but that could be a signifigant difference to the courts. Something like how selling "tobacco pipes" is legal, but not "bongs."

    I imagine that it would be impossible to prevent these sites from publishing non-href URLs like this. Is it a link if it's not clickable?
  • Matter of fact, Slashdot had a story about this [slashdot.org] earlier this year, where a federal judge ruled that deep linking was OK, as long as people knew that they were going to someone else's site. The RIAA had a similar situation [searchenginewatch.com] with Lycos' MP3 search page, but nothing came about it.

    In this case, if MP3Board.com is throwing links to different FTP servers out, but people know that these sites aren't run by MP3Board.com, then doesn't that make it OK?

    Thoughts?

    --

  • Which is it, RIAA? (Score:3)

    by Jim Tyre ( 100017 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @07:02AM (#973346) Homepage
    OK, so RIAA obviously believes that it can sue MP3Board, it's just done so. But when commenting on the earlier suit filed by MP3Board against RIAA, the RIAA spokesmodel sez that MP3Board couldn't sue RIAA, it had to sue each RIAA member separately.

    So which is it, RIAA? You want it both ways, but if you can't have it both ways, which will it be?

    OTOH, if the RIAA spokesmodel is correct that it still hasn't been served with the suit by MP3Board, that does seem odd, and at least raises the question of whether MP3Board is serious about that one.

  • Re:How did they find this site? (Score:4)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @07:02AM (#973347)
    There's more to it than that. MP3.com is a comercial site.

    To stretch an analogy that has been used on /. before, it is not illegal to tell somebody "there is a drug dealer selling E on the corner of 6th and Main", police informers do it all the time... but if you are in the business of directing people to where they can find drug dealers, and make a profit by giving out that information, you are crossing the line.

    For somebody's personal web page (or a search engine) to say "here they be pirates" is not the same thing as hosting an ad-driven sight that offers links to copyright infringement sights as one of its services. They are in trouble for the same reason napster is: commercial exploitation without establishing a contract with the owner of the IP.

    If MP3.com loses (or, more likely, settles), it is not neccesarilly the end of the linking fight.

    (IANAL.. blah blah blah)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • All a link is a piece of data identifying another page -- it's no different than a popup window.

    Sure it is, you have direct control over what is in your popup windows. You have no control of what happens on the other end of a link.

    Remember that PETA decision from a few days ago. Let's say that you have a link to HALO.org (the Handicapped Animal Lovers Of America) because you support their agenda. They forget to pay their bill to their registrar and someone else snatches it up and then launches a site based upon the Historical Anal LoveLife Of Aristotle. How can you be responsible for that? Can someone sue you because their kid happened to follow your link and get traumatized when he sees explicit pictures of a re-enactment of Aristotle's penchant for, um YOU KNOW?

    LK

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @06:56AM (#973362)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • To quote the article, "If this kind of automated hyperlinking is ruled illegal, the Internet is going to grind to a halt," said Ira Rothken, legal counsel for MP3Board.com. But that sounds just like a search engine to me, and we had that kind of thing even before the web, with FTP and Gopher searches. In fact, pretty much everything on the 'net is a hyperlink. What if I put together a page with every single live IP address on it? I'd be linking to an awful lot of illegal content. Same with a phonebook - because it lists everything, it lists the prostitutes too.

    To quote the article again, " The original suit is requesting that the judge clarify the requirements of how MP3Board should monitor its site for illegal content, grant an injunction to block the RIAA's attempts to shut down the company, and award the company monetary damages for the recording industry's interference in its business. " - but does google monitor it's search engine for illegal content? Of course not! This is rediculous.

    This is the latest round of legal fighting between the two companies. The original suit is requesting that the judge clarify the requirements of how MP3Board should monitor its site for illegal content, grant an injunction to block the RIAA's attempts to shut down the company, and award the company monetary damages for the recording industry's interference in its business. I hope the judge grants it.

  • Consider this situation, though. Suppose you link to file ABC.ZIP on my site. ABC.ZIP is a perfectly legal file.

    Now, suppose I want to screw you over for some reason so I take 300 megs of Metallica MP3's, ZIP them up, and replace the original (legal) ABC.ZIP with the Metallica zip file which I just happened to name ABC.ZIP, and report you to Lars and the RIAA.

    Now you're linking to a real motherlode of illegal material and you're potentially screwed pretty hard. Did you do anything wrong? No. Could you have prevented it? Not unless you verify the contents of your links every single second of the freaking day. That is neither practical nor possible.

    I don't think your anology with Bob and the stolen watch is appropriate, because links are persistant, while the Bob/watch incident is a one-time event.

    Potentially, I'd be screwing myself, too, since I'm the one who's now hosting the highly illegal file. However, perhaps I'm in a country where copyright laws are rarely enforced (like many East European countries) or suppose I do it because I don't know any better- maybe you're linked to "mp3_of_the_week.mp3" on my page, and I change it every week, and one week I put something illegal there...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • i understand your concerns, and they are valid.

    However, I also have faith in people as a whole, and rely on historical evidence that no matter how much control and authority is exerted, by whatever group, that the change brought about by technology and advancement will overpower any group that stands in its way.

    Look at "A modest Proposal" by Paine. Without the "technological revolution" of the printing press, this would have never been distributed. Even though the birtish powers that be were the most powerful of its day.

    The Industrial revolution changed society as we know it, and displaced the old status quo, replacing it with a new. Even though there was much fighting and reluctance to accept the changes.

    The true answer to any industry is to accept the changes that are occuring in the market, or political environment, and change your ways to utilize these new mechansims.

    Not fight them. By fighting them, they will only become stronger, and more widespread, and more people will know whats going on.

    ANd then the companies will have to fight harder... Its an negative-feedback loop, and the ones fighting it will end up losing...

  • So a news organization that links to a MP3 site is not illegal, but a hacker group who links to a MP3 site is illegal, because of their different intents? Even though the functional value of what they do is exactly the same, and the news site might even get a hundred times the readership? Sorry, that makes no sense. If the law truly reads that way, it's a law that can and will be flagrantly ignored. Do we need more laws as ignorable as speed limits?

    If RIAA wins this case, it jeopardizes the freedom of speech of anyone who links to any original site for any reason.

    Personally, I don't believe that linking to an illegal site is aiding and abetting a crime. Linking is a form of directions; it is a passive, not an active act. An analogy might be if your friend asks you where he can buy illegal drugs. If you tell him on the corner of 8th and Main and he goes down there himself, you are *not* legally aiding him, if I recall correctly. If you drive him down there then you are legally abetting his crime.

    Providing information should *never* be illegal -- only actions should be cause for punishment.

  • Re:RIAA is becoming a joke (Score:3)

    by bfree ( 113420 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2000 @08:02AM (#973384)
    let's face it, they couldn't care less about first ammendment rights or any such nonsense, all they want is to preserve their lucrative business model. The cost of paying 20 class action suits anually by school parents where 50 students were butchered by a crazed Britney Spears fan pales to insignificance to the vast revenue gained from control of the music distribution and associated industries. It is quite like the companies who refuse to recall dangerous products because the cost would outweigh the expected legal impact, they just hope no-one realises that they knew in time to stop the deaths.
    The time has come for you Americans to start making some serious noise. Bush or Gore, whose favourite corporations would you rather have make the law?

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