No Surprise: If You Actively Promote The Fact That You Lead People To Infringing Content, Courts Will Smack You Down
from the ok,-move-on dept
I'd been avoiding writing about the Newzbin case, because, honestly, I didn't have much to say about it -- but people keep submitting it, so here's a very quick post. Newzbin, one of a bunch of Usenet aggregators, was found liable for copyright infringement of its users in a UK court. The ruling doesn't appear all that different from similar rulings elsewhere, with courts focusing on staff actively promoting the infringing nature of content on the site. In this case, it told site "editors" to promote works that were almost certainly infringing. Whether or not this makes sense in the larger picture, the message is clear: if you actively promote infringing activities, courts are not going to look kindly on your activities, even if the actual infringement is done by users. This trend has been clear for quite some time, and I'm still confused why any site would encourage its users to infringe these days. It's just asking for a legal beatdown.
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The revolution keeps on revolving, so to speak.
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Making it too easy?
What I don't understand is how the headers are somehow "worse."
Is Google similarly guilty for allowing user to search the listing of several torrent sites at once?
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Re: Making it too easy?
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Most of the time its a couple off hand posted comments based on baiting that kill sites like Newzbin. "Yeah if you are looking for VVVVVVV try searching for ...", "TV shows are easy to download ...", etc
Just had an idea ... how about an rss feed of a torrent of torrents.
or
How big would a zip file of all the current torrents at the pirate bay be?
or
an RSS feed of just the Checksums of a torrent of torrents.
... also how deep can levels of liability go legally?
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You sue the cab company that drove them to the crime scene, overlooking the fact that the cab can carry all sorts of passengers, criminals and saints alike.
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I see. So, the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers or MLB's Pittsburg Pirates must be criminal organizations.
and they only carry people to murders
Okay then, that means Newzbin really wasn't an "actual player" because they didn't index *only* infringing messages. Thanks for clearing that up.
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Soooooo
there solves it all no?
thats showing people how they can do three own videos and its not telling them at all in the least to infringe and hten if they do i can go huh i dont keep logs and i aint watching it except to keep it running.
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Notice and Takedown Not Good Enough
The closest thing I could find to that was this:
"People look at our site for movies, games and apps, pretty much in that order," said guidance for editors quoted by Mr Justice Kitchin in his ruling. "If you report movies, then you get rewarded for it because we want you to report them …you're benefiting the entire community a LOT more by making movie posts and decoding the cryptic filenames people come up with."
I couldn't find anywhere that they actually told editors to promote infringement unless you just assume that all "movies, games and apps" infringe. In fact, their TOS actually prohibits infringement and they had a notice and take-down procedure in place. Justice Kitchin, however, has decided that that isn't enough and that they must use filters to keep links to infringing files from being posted in the first place.
Justice Kitchin also said that "[Newzbin] well knows that it is making available to its premium members infringing copies of films". Now I thought that Newzbin was just an indexing site, so I really don't understand that one.
Finally, to justify his ruling, he somehow also relied on an EU ruling that hotels are liable for public performance fees if they actively promote such performances by providing radios or televisions in the guest rooms.
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Downloader Shield?
So it looks to me like the High Court in the UK just absolved downloaders of any liability because "a reasonable member" of a service could deduce that all files indexed by the service are authorized for copying. So said the court! :)
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RE: Downloader Shield?
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Meh
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never my fault - right?
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ENOUGH
ignore copyright laws on masse
lets see how the courtas handle it as we teach EVERY citizen how to delay the system as much as possible
to #20 and when you dont pay the judgement then what
PRISON
so whats the diff
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Confused.
Is that analogy about right?
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Re: Confused.
Is that analogy about right?"
No, it's more like "We provide a service whereby we will stash guns and drugs so that the custom officials won't find them. Oh, yeah, we'll pack your underwear too if you like, but nobody actually uses us to do that. wink. wink."
"What? How dare we get busted for packing guns and drugs in people's luggage?!? We pack EVERYTHING!!! That's so unfair! We're just luggage packers...."
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Re: Re: Confused.
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Yeah, that reminds me of people selling drug paraphernalia trying to claim that they aren't liable for the illegal drug use that follows. Just the other day I caught a supposedly "legitimate" store in my very own neighborhood selling what is probably the most common drug paraphernalia of all. It was right out on the self in plain view everyone, including children! I think they were calling them "Baggies", or something like that.
/s
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