Australia Rules Linking to Copyright Material Also Illegal 364
An anonymous reader writes "A recent ruling in Federal court upheld the ruling that the operator and ISP that hosted the site 'mp3s4free.net' were guilty of copyright infringement violations because they provided access to the copyright material. From the article: 'Dale Clapperton, vice-chairman of the non-profit organization Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), explained the ruling as follows: "If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you'd done it yourself. Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act."'"
The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry Australians, no more internet for you. As soon as legal departments look at this, expect all your big ISPs, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, etc to all flee Australian shores.
[1] Although frankly, with a site called mp3s4free.net what the hell did he expect?
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Informative)
Contributory infringement [futureofmusic.org]
CONTRIBUTORY INFRINGEMENT LIABILITY
The standard definition for contributory copyright infringement is when the defendant, "with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another." [2] In other words, the record labels must not only show ownership of a valid copyright and unlawful copying but must show that the P2P company 1) had knowledge of the infringing activity and 2) materially contributed to the infringing conduct. Again, this is for the purpose of holding someone other than the infringer liable for copyright infringement.
VICARIOUS INFRINGEMENT LIABILITY
Vicarious liability is another means of holding someone liable for copyright infringement even when that person or party is not the one who did the infringing. In order to find a defendant liable under the theory of vicarious liability for the actions of an infringer, it must be shown that the defendant 1) has the right and ability to control the infringer's acts, and 2) receives a direct financial benefit from the infringement.[3] Unlike contributory infringement, knowledge is not an element of vicarious liability. However, courts have determined that the combination of the right and ability to control the infringer's acts and the receipt of a direct financial benefit from the infringement suffices to hold a defendant vicariously liable for copyright infringement, even if the defendant had no knowledge of the particular infringement.[4]
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read the last few lines of tfa?
I'm no copyright lawyer, yet alone an Australian one, but seriously.... the attitude displayed by the prosecuting lawyer & judge is....scary
It sounds like "Thought Police" to me (Score:5, Insightful)
How can you give someone "permission" to infringe a copyright, patent, or other IP that you don't own? I could see that being considered fraud, like selling the Golden Gate Bridge or the CN Tower, but contributory?
If you have a group of people discussing ways to infringe restrictions or bypass IP laws, you might have opportunities for collusion or some variant on racketeering. But as a society, how can you afford to make it illegal to discuss such important issues and avenues for bringing about social change when the *AA and such get out of hand? There would have to be significant allowance for the freedom of speech in many jurisdictions; certainly I wouldn't expect the legislation around the world to be too consistent given the variety of viewpoints on the issues of IP.
Take the US patent database, for instance. Several attempts to push that database of junk patents on the EU have been rebuffed.
Those who try to create business patents forget a few key points:
The US patent database is stuffed to the brim with such junk. My favourite example is trying to claim a patent over linking a user action to triggering a sale. Whether it is a single mouse click in a GUI, web browser, menu item, popup list selection, or other user interaction is irrelevant. The basic user interaction techniques and algorithms have been discussed, designed, prototyped, and implemented since Alan Kay was at Xerox PARC.
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Not just Aussies (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a concerted effort to turn the internet into cable television. The entertainment/military/industrial complex is working with the big telcos to make sure Slashdot becomes a quaint throwback to the days of open internet. Sure there will still be geeks pining about the days when any old body could put up a web site that could get the same attention as one put up by Sony, and a couple of nobodies could come up with a Google, but face it, that's just not the way of the world.
Don't get fooled by the $12.95 per month DSL. Forces are working overtime to put ISPs as we know them out of business. When they finally put the last nail in the coffin of Net Neutrality, watch how fast things change. Then, get ready for all of the internet to look like myspace, and watch for the articles about how great it is that we're free to choose our own "friends". We're already seeing more and more of magazines like Wired dedicated to the joys of the mercantilisation of what's left of the Web.
Remember, Google became a phenomenon without adverts, and existed for years that way. Could that happen today? Think it will happen when there's no "neutrality" about the Web? Freedom never gets easier to defend.
Not all doom and gloom (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to wonder whether this sort of publishing would be anywhere near as successful, if the content industry weren't such bastards. I guess there is a market for good old customer service.
Re:Not just Aussies (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm having doubts that it is really a coordinated attack, yet it is clear that corporations want complete control of the internet. This may be not a conspiracy, but rather them having similar plans and simply wanting the net for themselves, where trampling of the users is a prelude before fight between the megacorps. There can be only a few
This is not the worst part IMHO. Really bad is the fact, that people in general (aka "the masses") do not see this grab for control. The internet as we know it is dying, because no one sees it's getting sick.
Like with political dictatorships, "it has to get worse before it gets better". Until it actually bites them in the ass, people will not care. So, I welcome our new corporate overlords, modem tax overlords, *AA overlords - come here, fuck it up and be quick about it! Maybe then the masses will notice. Maybe. Lets hope so.
Oh ye of little faith :-) (Score:5, Informative)
I'll take that bet. My money's on the world.
Historically, it has been common for industries, laws, and other Big Systems to favour the corporations in new endeavours. Twice armed is he who knows his cause is just, but thrice armed is he who gets his blow in first, and all that. Let's face it, corporations with their huge financial and lobbying power tend to be pretty quick off the mark at stealing an advantage over the public. Perhaps more to the point, until they try it, the public don't know what they have to protect themselves against.
But a little further down the line, perhaps 5-10 years for the things I can think of off the top of my head, the public always win. The next big swing I'm expecting is for DRM, when the public start to realise that they've been had. DRM is relatively safe as long as it doesn't annoy the average person and only geeks see what's wrong with it, but it's been getting serious for a few years now. As people's first MP3 players start dying or they upgrade their PCs and they realise they can't take their music collection with them, as people who spent a fortune on early HDTVs get told they can't watch HD discs they paid a premium for at any better resolution than a normal DVD because of something called HDCP, as people whose legitimately purchased software starts deactivating itself in a case of mistaken identity and costing them or their business time and money... Then the people will cease to accept it, DRM will become a political timebomb, and the politicians and lawyers will turn on the tech and media companies who advocate DRM like piranha in a frenzy. It always ends this way, when something good is corrupted by corporate interests; it's only a matter of time.
I'm standing with the faithful (Score:4, Insightful)
My money is also on the desire for free expression, free exchange of ideas and information.
But it's important to remember that the forces of greed have massive resources and, increasingly, the power of government. And because of the technology (see:Money) required to keep the internet running, it's fragile. We'll soon start hearing that a free internet is a haven for terrorists, so it has to be locked down.
If it comes, the end of the Internet as we know it will take the form of "Homeland Security".
As that old Greek dude said: "This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: When he first appears, he is a protector." - Plato
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Fortunately for all of us, the whole "no, no, you have to do this is the eeeeevil terrrrrorists will get us" argument carries about as much credibility as Tony Blair or GW Bush these days, and is rapidly becoming a ticket to not being reelected...
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That's what I mean by "it must get worse before it gets better". Until there is widespread, and I mean really widespread, not just geeks but significant portion of the society in general, movement to get rid of the idiocy, nothing will change. And that may happen only after peopl
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Unfortunately, that's the point. Your money, and that of other concerned individuals, doesn't mean much compared to that of a big industry organization.
"People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals...", as a movie character once said. And he was right. A lot of individuals already realize they've been had. Those are the ones posting on Slashdot. But the herd will continue to do whatever the cowb
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Unless they diebold an election
Re:Oh ye of little faith :-) (Score:5, Informative)
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I agree that Council Tax is wildly unfair, as are most other local taxes that have been proposed, for one reason or another. That's not really relevant to my point, though, which was simply that enough people dislike something enough, it will change.
Re:Not just Aussies (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The military brought you the internet, it wasn't the telco and media industry. DARPAnet anyone?
2. The military and intelligence agencies are going to be very interested in a very open internet because its the perfect source for open source intelligence (and that has nothing to do with software).
3. The telco and media industries are going to be very interested in controlling all there is to be seen on the net.
4. In fact large portions of the "industrial complex" part of your little equation are much more interested in having an open/neutral net than a telco/media controlled net.
You have some good points, so please don't 'catapult the propaganda'.
Re:Not just Aussies (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to keep hammering on this history. Both the corporate world and their ideological apologists are trying to convince us that it was "business" that created the Internet. This is, of course, a complete lie; all the original funding came from a US government agency (now called DARPA) that was part of the Army. The business world became interested only after the Internet was a proven success.
There are many reasons to be very suspicious of government and military agencies. But this suspicion shouldn't extend to lying about their actual accomplishments. We should give credit (and blame) where it is due, not to someone who sits on the sidelines and then claims credit for someone else's work.
Actually, I think that the funniest thing about someone bringing the military into a discussion of copyright is that the military generally doesn't get involved in copyright. If they want some information, they just take it and use it. And if you get ahold of some information that they don't want you to use, they don't charge you with copyright violation. "National Security" is a much more effective tool for punishing people who get their hands on military secrets. Copyright is irrelevant to them.
Re:Not just Aussies (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously...I am so sick of people trashing the military. They need to quit their bitching and accept the blame themselves. The military doesn't exactly make policy decisions. That is done by the politicians, picked by the people. If the military is doing things the don't like, then they need to deal with their politicians, not cry about the military who is just doing what it was told to do.
Beyond that, the unfortunate truth is that while necessity is the mother of all invention, war is the time of greatest necessity. A great deal of the technology that we have today has stemmed from military necessity. Computers, Internet, Radar, tons of vehicle related things, air travel, weather satellites (believe it or not they weren't all spy satellites), all of our space stuff.
Not a police state? (Score:5, Insightful)
Buddy, I count 23 video cameras on my 25km bike ride from home to work. That's not counting the still cameras on major intersections looking for speeders and people running the stop lights.
You and I can be held indefinitely without charges. There was just a story about a guy who was picked up, bundled up and shipped off ("renditioned") to Egypt where he was tortured for a couple of years. The only reason we heard about it was because he was THE WRONG GUY.
The government no longer needs a warrant to tap our phones or a reason (habeas corpus) to arrest and hold us. The number of documents that the current Administration has declared "Classified" has gone up by over 5000 percent, and the GAO has estimated that only about 5 percent of those secret documents relate to National Security, allowing the government to operate in near total secrecy (and better, with the appearance of openness, thanks to a complicit media).
What do you think a police state looks like?
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, from the
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I codone these judges should be taken out back and whipped within an inch of their respective lives with a giant whale penis.
I guess that makes me guilty of aggravated assault and attempted murder with a whale wang.
Somehow, I don't feel all that bad about it. *shrug*
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Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of extending this to imply that all Australian ISP's are in danger is retarded.
You didn't get what I said at all did you? Napster/etc are the equivilant to mp3s4free.net (the charges against whom, as I said was sad, but understandable).
However, the hosting ISP was also charged. Can you see how charging a hosting provider for hosted content has implications for the wider industry?
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:4, Informative)
"Don't I automatically own the copyright to anything I write? If that is so, then would having a link to any web-page that you didn't write yourself be an infringement? Are links generated by search engines now illegal in Australia?"
Doubtful. The news.com.com.com article [com.com] goes a little more in to this. He tried the "google defense" and was rebuffed. While it's clear that many Slashdotters do not see the difference between operating a general-purpose search engine and operating a site with the express purpose of providing links to pirated MP3s, the justices in this case did.
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"What we don't understand is the point of law that he used to justify his ruling. What we don't understand is how we are protected from this kind of charge when we are not trying to do anything related to music."
I don't understand the first part, either, since I'm not familiar with Australian law. But I can offer some advice on the second.
Due to the nature of their profession, many people who read Slashdot have trouble coming to terms with the fact that the law is often rather soft and mushy. We works with ones and zeros in our own profession, and it makes much more sense to us if something can be declared to be either illegal or not illegal. In many cases it is indeed quite clear, but in civil law, it's often not. And that is precisely the reason why we have courts.
To get to your point -- say you're thinking of starting a web site and you want to protect yourself from civil liability. You can start by asking yourself these questions:
And if you're particularly cynical, you can ask yourself:
So, a site like, say, legaltorrents [legaltorrents.com] would pass the test, as would, say, a book review site which posted excerpts of text for critical purposes and provided links to where the user could purchase the book. Google would pass, as well. But mp3sforfree.com, as it was operated by the fellow in TFA, would not... he failed on all five points.
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Indeed. Though what I really want is sev-1 bug filed on the damned legislature when a horridly written statute segfaults and The Law dumps core. Page their sorry asses out of bed at 2am.
Followed by The People asking harsh questions as to why the test suite wasn't run before Passing said statue into Production.
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Snide comments aside, I think this is utterly stupid. Blowing shit up is illegal. Writing a book on how to blow shit up and where to buy all the parts is not. Why should saying, essentially, "This guy, who's site you can find here, is hosting copyrighted material," be illegal?
That's a rhe
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, what happens in Surfers Paradise, stays in Surfers Paradise.
Really, would you admit passing the bar to your friends? Getting drunk and visiting a NZ sheep "farm", sure... But that? <shudder>.
Nothing illegal about the name itself, but... (Score:3, Informative)
NOTHING illegal about making a site called mp3s4free.net.
In the United States, Grokster was decided in large part because of the overall effect of Grokster's marketing of its service. The "inducement to infringe" was proven by Grokster advertising, which compared it to Napster and in effect said, "Hey, Napster is illegal and got shut down, but you can do the same stuff at our wonderful site that you used to be able to do at Napster!" Many legal commentators have noted that if Grokster hadn't so obviousl
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:5, Funny)
In an effort to inject some integrity into the legal system, the Australian government picks people at random and designates them lawyers. You too could be an Australian lawyer, and the notice just hasn't arrived yet. Before you laugh, many countries choose jurors this way, why not lawyers?
Re:The really scary part of this ruling.... (Score:4, Informative)
That means that the statement "copyrighted mp3s" is meaningless. All MP3 files are copyrighted. Some MP3 files may be freely copied, while others may not, but that is unrelated to their copyright status.
Pedantic Man, to the rescue! (Score:3, Informative)
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When looking at an MP3, you are dealing with quite a number of copyrights, all of which could be held by the original creators, or by someone else. One service that Music Publishers provide is that they buy up most of the copyrights associated with the music, making it easy to gain permission
Bizarre. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bizarre. (Score:5, Insightful)
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By your argument any search engine provides the signs to material that is going to infringe copyright (or other matherial) and so should be illegal.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Rememer that Al Capone was never convicted of being a mobster or even of any violent crime. He was brought down because the government decided that he
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Sooooo ... pharmacists and drug companies don't advertise?
Next stop - close down the local library - everyone there is either infringing copyright or contributing to it - after all, they can read books without licensing them!
Re:Bizarre. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't a joke or something hypothetical. If you pay attention to discussions in the publishing industry, one of the statistics you'll see bandied about is that each book sold is read on the average by four people. This is invariably used to show that there's a huge missed "marketing" opportunity. 3/4 of readers are getting their books without paying for them.
Now, if you look at the books you have at home, you'll probably have trouble finding even one that was read by more than two people, right? So where does this average of four come from? Right - libraries. Publishers have long considered public libraries a major cause of lost income. If they could shut them down, they would, and they're starting to see how this might be done.
Publishers have been heartened by recent "advances" in copyright law and the advent of electronic publishing. They see these as tools to end the practice of lending books to others, by moving to a system where every reader must pay for what they read. It has worked for the software industry, except for the ongoing problem of piracy. The music recording industry is slowly succeeding at making illegal the sort of sharing that used to be common when music only came on physical recording media like records and tapes. There's a good chance that sharing of what used to be printed material can also be stopped in the forseeable future.
So don't take libraries as some sort of God-given exception that will always be with us. Libraries were created by reformers who wanted to make information available to everyone despite the desires of publishers, and the publishing industry is looking forward to the day that libraries can be eliminated.
Re:Bizarre. (Score:5, Insightful)
Torrent links have a tendency to point to another location when one location gets taken down... how convenient. Taking down the location solves nothing, the problem is the link.
There is *no* valid reason to hold a torrent link to a music file or software for which you don't own the copyright (or have not the permission from the copyright holder). None, other than encourage people to infringe on the copyright.
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<quote source="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA FC/2006/187.html">
When an internet user clicked on a particular hyperlink, the music file in question was transmitted directly to his or her computer from a remote server.
</quote>
<rant>
That sounds like the definition of deep linking, which was declared illegal in Sweden by the Supreme Cour
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Nope. Keep trying though
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Let's start by linking to a Washington Post Article [washingtonpost.com] written by Dave Barry. I don't have the syndication rights to Mr. Barry's intellectual contributions, yet I just distributed a way for people to read that. I understand that the material in question is different, and I also know that the Washington Post has a policy explicitly allowing linking [washingtonpost.com]. But even if they didn't, I still don't have the right to advertise for Dave Barry without his agent or distributor's permission.
I agree. Truly bizarre.
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Mine is that telling someone how to commit a crime is not the same as committing a crime.
Bibliographies to made illegal next? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Irrelevant, IMNSHO. A webpage is a resource, so is an MP3. Different nodes of the same category.
Using your analogy, it's like putting a special button embedded in the book that will magically create a "copy" of that reference on your desk for you.
No, that would be hosting the MP3 on your own website. The web just makes following a reference a little easier.
What next? (Score:5, Funny)
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Shutdown the Web! (Score:5, Interesting)
Since almost everything published is protected under copyright almost all hyperlinks are illegal! The web as a whole is nothing but one great big collection of pirates and must be shutdown to protect the record industry!
A *gasp* COMPUTER Was Involved! (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you Australia for showing us there is a nation in the "free world" with it's head *just a little" further up it's ass than America when it comes to copyright law. Remember, every inch counts.
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Didnt this already happen in the US? (Score:2)
And yes I am too lazy to look it up.
Rethinking the law (Score:2)
Hey, I like the way this guy thinks! So, if you give someone permission to do something that is illegal, you're actually guilty of that act! Fun! There are so many great ways this could be exploited... Let me think...
That annoying bloke in accounts is
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In the words of Mel Brooks, "..all the way up to the Emperor"
Google (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Azshare.n
Google provides easy access to a lot of copyrighted material...
Thats not a good search query! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sharon is going to get really pissed off I guess...
Linking to Almost Anything Illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
So, basically, linking to almost anything on the Internet is now illegal in Australia. After all, the vast majority of what is on the Internet is copyright material.
And what if you're not the one doing the linking? For example, your site is a forum and other people post the links there? Apparently, you're guilty, too. Even if you're the ISP hosting the site and had nothing at all to do with its content, you're guilty.
What if... (Score:4, Insightful)
Power to Stop Them (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well, guess what, yes, he is that powerful. A handful of people control most of the servers that host torrent seeds to copyrighted material. If those people actually decided to play good and remove the .torrent files who obviously point to copyrighted music or copyrighted software that whoever is d
Not that Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
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Did they really? Was linking to copyrighted material considered copyright infringement in Australia before this ruling? If not, the ISP couldn't have "clearly known" that the service was infringing copyright, because it wasn't.
Was hosting a site that linked to copyrighted material illegal in Australia prior to this ruling? If not, there would have been no reason for the ISP to be concerned about.
Now that, appa
Analogies, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
We are seeing too many of those laws and court rulings that treat "cyber" crimes as something different from "real world" crimes. They are not. There is such a thing as being an "accessory" to crime, and every crime should be treated equally in this respect.
If someone creates a facility specifically designed for an illegal action, then that's a violation. If someone uses a facility created legally for an illegal purpose, without the knowledge of the owner, then the owner shouldn't be an accessory, unless he was grossly negligent. Having a chop shop is illegal, however if you rent a garage and use it to take apart stolen cars without the knowledge of the garage owner, then the owner shouldn't be considered an accessory to the crime.
The real cause of this is that this "intellectual property" thing has been so distorted from its original purpose. The reason for copyrights and patents is to give an incentive for the creation of new intellectual works. It's not the intention to create mega-corporations that manage a few "super stars" for marketing while exploring the works of thousands of artists who are forced to sell their works for very little. It's not the intention to eternally perpetuate the ownership of works from artists who are long dead. It's not the intention to create a monopolistic network of distribution for films and music where the artist must comply with the monopoly's rules if he wants to survive.
Faced by such a monster as the existing system for marketing music and films, the people are reacting. They are realizing that not all is as it should be. I for one do not agree to pay a tax to a singer such as Mariah Carey, who got $50 million from the recording company as severance pay because people wouldn't buy her "music". I do not agree to pay the expenses of other millionaire rock stars every time I buy a record from my favorite artist. The price of music and films is steadily up because there is no real competition, everything is handled by a handful of corporations who feel like they must decide what we want to watch and listen.
Now they want to move the burden of maintaining their inviable system to us, the people. That's why they are buying so many legislators to create draconian laws. In the end the current system has no chance to survive. They must realize that they cannot keep an unfair and unjust system just by declaring "illegal" any attempt to fight it.
Primary Purpose (Score:3)
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The problem is that while Google can afford a barrister, your average blogger can't. Your average small ISP can't, for that matter. So it very quickly leads to only large corporations daring to publish anything for fear of crippling legal defence costs.
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After looking around for options here in the US I was left with the impression that there were 3 or 4 ISPs, all either wholly owned subsidiaries of or limited liability companies of or conglomerized business alliances between, gigantic corporations. The same ones who try to sell me telephone and cable and water and air.
The workaround (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe a workaround would be to not provide the link itself, but only the url.
That is... no using of the a href tag.
Then, it could be considered as citing, just as books cite authors... you see the name, book, editorial, etc... and you have to manually search for it to buy it. In this case, you'd have to copy the url and enter it in the address bar.
Re:The workaround (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, right. It's impossible to get a browser plugin that scans a page for URLs and turns them into links.
I conclude that, within the meaning of s 101(1A)(a), Mr Cooper had power to prevent the copying in Australia of copyright sound recordings via his website.
That is, I think, where I take issue to the judge. That is an idiotic sentence. He had no power to prevent people downloading copyrighted sound recordings from where they got them because he hosted none of them
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Linking to an MP3 isn't a citation and when you offer the link inteh context of a site such as the onw found to be infringing copyrighted work, they are not offering a scholarly discussion of mus
Six degress of seperation (Score:2, Insightful)
Maxim
Static Vs. Dynamic world? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is not covered there is the very distinct possibility that you link to a site that does not include any infringing material, and over time, some leaks onto the linked pages.
By the act of someone else modifying content outside your control, you become guilty of Copyright Infringement.
It would be interesting to see what extent that leads on to. For example, a governmental site links to an external address. The domain owner of this site changes, take the destination of the link and serves a redirect (or hosts) a warez repository at that link.
Unless this link is monitored exceptionally well (and none of those governmental sites ever have a stale link do they!), the government would then be guilty of Copyright Infringement, and thus performing illegal activity.
Bet I'm not the only one that sees this coming.
Having a law that states linking to something is committing copyright infringement is unworkable. If the intent (which needs to be proved) was to provide access to infringing material hosted elsewhere, then this should fall under 'accessory to' legislation. But intent needs be proved that the intent was to infringe copyright, not provide access to legitimate resources that may become contaminated by an external source (in which case, the external source should be identified and dealt with by the correct bodies).
So wait a minute.... (Score:2)
Funk dat.
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"Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, broadcasting and public performance prohibited"
I'm not sure I've ever been officially authorised to lend CDs to friends. If you lend your CDs, the companies might be losing out on potential sales! oh noes!
Never mind your friends may go out and buy CDs they originally wouldn't as they've had a proper preview...
So how do you "condone" something? (Score:2)
It's the same problem as "intent". Who may say what my intent is, besides me? When a music industry exec talks about $tool and how it is used to circumvent DRM, does he promote it? How is it different from when I talk about it? Who is telling what our "intent" is?
Generally, that law holds about as much water as an incontinent dog.
My take on this (as a geek and as an australian) (Score:2, Troll)
I have no problems with the idea that knowingly linking to illegal material should also be illegal. For example, if I start telling people "go talk to bob, he can sell you some illegal drugs", that would be illegal because I am telling someone how to commit an illegal act. Same deal here, linking to a webpage containing illegal material is equivilant to telling someone how to obtain that illegal material. Human edited directories such as Yahoo should also fall under this. Search engines like googl
search results? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you'd done it yourself. Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act.
That may be well and good for static HTML sites (but who makes those anymore?), where the website 'administrator' manually types in the links, but what about dynamic content?
So let's pretend that they allow search engines to provide those links. Who would then be 'guilty'? Anyone who accidentally uses the search engine to generate those search results? Or any site that uses the google or yahoo search apis to do searching on their site? Again, is it the person typing in a search, the site that embeds
A question of intent (Score:3, Funny)
It's a question of intent. The judges wrote:
The same cannot be said of Google.(IANAL)
Re: (Score:2)
Think of this as aiding and abetting... (Score:2)
Opening the pandora's box (Score:2)
Hypothetical situation (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you still violating copyright ??
Yet another idiot who simply does not understand the subject matter he is making pronouncement upon.
I condone... (Score:2)
Guess I just infringed on a lot of copyrights, right?
If this doesn't kill free speech (which isn't constitutionally protected in Australia
Xerox? (Score:2, Interesting)
Comments (Score:2)
By the way, the copyright situation in this article probably falls in a grey area. I don't know enough details about it to make a decision over whether the judge was right or wrong.
Here's a though: How much trouble can a hotel get in if they allow a group of individuals to illegally gamble in one of the rooms they are rentin
Also illegal in the US - according to FOX (Score:4, Interesting)
http://quicksilverscreen.com/is-linking-illegal/ [quicksilverscreen.com]
So is Australia setting the precident for the US? I hope not.
Nice precedent (Score:3, Funny)
If you CONDONE someone else doing it, you're an accomplice. You don't even have to explicitly condone it, just "more or less".
No, no dangerous precedent there at all.
Welcome to the 21st Century (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand at all (Score:4, Informative)
Even if something is freeware, it's still copyrighted.
Open source like Firefox is copyrighted too.
This just get a big WTF from me.
This random image [mm-agency.com] (warning, illegal link!?) is copyrighted unless the photographer explicitly released his rights and placed it into the public domain, which is a quite rare thing to do. All created material is copyrighted the owner, even if the owner doesn't claim so, right?
Re: (Score:2)
MP3's are not illegal. I am free to record a file of my cat hissing at the dog and post the copyrighted MP3 online for free. Can anyone get it right. MP3's are legal. MP3's distributing copyrighted content without the copyright owners permission is the violation. Then it doesn't matter if it is Flash, Jpeg, WAV, MP3 or any other format. Free MP3's are not the issue. The issue is distribution of
Re: (Score:2, Funny)