Guy Fined For Posting Links To Official Broadcast Of Hockey Games
from the say-what-now? dept
Over in Sweden, it appears that a guy has been fined for linking to an online broadcast of a hockey game. We've heard stories of people getting in trouble merely for linking to unauthorized content, but this story is even more ridiculous. The guy wasn't linking to unauthorized content. He was linking to an online video feed from the official broadcaster, Canal Plus. The issue was that Canal Plus was apparently technically incompetent in how they set up the feeds, and never intended to make the feeds public. But the way they set up the offering, it was easy for anyone to quickly figure out what the full public feed was and this guy then linked to it. In other words, he was fined not for any actual infringement. And he was not fined for linking to infringing content, but for pointing to a publicly available stream that was only public due to Canal Plus' poor engineering choices. And rather than admit that it was its own poor technical skills that were the problem, Canal Plus blamed the guy:In the summons against the man, Canal Plus called his actions �an assault on the entire operations of pay TV services on the Internet� and that by publishing links to the streams broadcast openly from the Canal Plus website he had illegally made them available to the public.And the court agreed. That's the really scary part.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, hockey, links, sweden
Companies: canal plus
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
People leave doors unlocked all the time, usually out of ignorance or forgetfulness. Does this mean that they should be without recourse should someone discover such a door and tell everyone where it can be found?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Spent many a good time exploring various private universities, corporate buildings, etc... like that.
About the most they can do is escort you off the premises.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
> and you find an open door, you are legally allowed to enter.
Not sure where you live, but where I am, that's not true at all. If I leave the front door to my house unlocked (hell, even if it's wide open), that hardly gives you the legal right to just waltz into my home, sit down and start watching TV and doing whatever the hell you like.
If you do that, trespassing is the least you could be charge with. Breaking and entering would be more likely. (And contrary to common belief, you don't have to actually "break" a window or a lock to be charged with breaking and entering. The "breaking" refers to a breaking of the "close", which is an old-school way of referring to the building's threshold. So you can be charged with breaking and entering even if the door is standing wide open.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The rights holder forgot to close the shade on a "window" through which people could look through and watch something for free. The person drew the ire of the rights holder for basically telling people the street address of the un-shaded window.
People leave windows un-shaded all the time[...]. Does this mean that they should be without recourse should someone discover such an un-shaded window and tell everyone where it can be found?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The simple fact is the broadcast was publicly available, therefore there was zero infringement. It's like me telling you to turn to channel 21 and watch the show that's on right now. Which is basically what this guy did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Just because I say the bank is open doesn't mean I should be to blame if it gets robbed!
Please apply some logic to your arguments next time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Actually not.
One may be charged with "leaving keys in vehicle", but they are not charged with grand theft auto. Nice try though.
btw, ianal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The insurance will certaintly, and correctly, refuse to pay in the course of extreme negligence.
Whoever steals the car, however, still steals the car.
But we are not talking about the person stealing the car. We are talking about someone announcing the location of the unlocked car.
The question is whether the announcement is in a form that makes it clear that taking the car is stealing it, or whether it is essentially "If you want to take it, there is a car with key in it at this and that location.".
If whoever takes the car is left unclear about the availability of the car, the informant bears a share of responsibility.
The article is quite unclear about just _how_ that link was presented.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Anonymously Cowardly
People leave doors unlocked all the time, usually out of ignorance or forgetfulness. Does this mean that they should be without recourse should someone discover such a door and tell everyone where it can be found?
Trouble is, using your analogy to justify prosecuting this guy is like arguing that people take candy away from babies all the time, therefore it�s fine to use that as an analogy to support whatever point you want to make. It just doesn�t make sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There is no door...
So basically, they made it public (no door) and then got mad at him for pointing out that there was NOTHING stopping people from accessing the data.
I would change your analogy to be: If you leave a $20 bill in a public place, can you expect that when someone finds it that they won't take it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: There is no door...
Again, with the flawed analogies. Here's a fixed version:
I would change your analogy to be: If you errect a 100ft screen in a public square to display the hockey game, can you expect people not to watch it? Is it reasonable that any sane court find someone guilty for telling people where the sqaure was?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: There is no door...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Don't leave your door unlocked!!! WTF
Security through obscurity much?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
> or forgetfulness. Does this mean that they should be without recourse
> should someone discover such a door and tell everyone where it can
> be found?
Your analogy doesn't quite hold up. In the real world, if you're a total stranger, you can't contextually walk into someone's home without permission regardless of whether to door is locked or not, because people's homes are private by definition.
When a total stranger goes to a public commercial web site and finds it offering content to the public, it's assumed based on the way the internet works, that the content is authorized. It's not up to me as the consumer to investigate every stream, article and download on every site in the world to make sure the site's owner really, really, did mean to make it available.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
On the Internet, a website and it's content is implied to be public unless they are protected by a password or a paywall (a gadget that blocks content such as movies until you pay a fee).
That's because in real life, you can tell a house and a store apart just by looking at them from outside. On the Internet, you have to connect to websites to know if they're private or public. It's up to website owners to put up a gate that keeps people out and opens only when they pay or provide the right password.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
�an assault on the entire operations of pay TV services on the Internet�
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
absurd
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fined?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
HE SCORES(link here)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
While I agree the provider should make sure all their streams are accounted for, I can't say the guy who knowingly pointed to a "way around paying" for it is entirely without guilt.
At the very least, if this was the scenario, it's not at all shocking a court would fine him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
He is innocent...
This is not akin to stealing a car in any way, since no one "stole" anything, rather they didnt pay for it. It isnt a scare good, so it should not be considered theft by the old definition.
This ruling makes me afraid to use the internet. Should I fear posting anything at all on a forum? I am legitimately frightened that I may mention a "trademarked" term or accidentally slander someone, or, heaven forbid, link to something.
If I can link to it, then there should be no infringement. If this guy found it, so can anyone else who is looking.
I will be sure to tell all my friends to watch illegal hockey game streams and to only buy knockoff merchandise.
Haha
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Two teams are playing a sport in a field, the game was scheduled to be played in a stadium.. but through incompetence the stadium was never built. Instead a cardboard cut-out was placed around one half of the pitch which fooled the investors into thinking one had been built; on this half of the pitch a stall was set up which people queued at, paid money, walked through the cutout and began watching the game.
On his way to the game a dog walker comes from the other side of the park, see's the game and cannot see the stall to pay money at. Sits next to the other people and begins watching the game, he then puts up a sign saying "hey look at this, this is interesting".. for others to see who are also walking in the park. - something that is a VERY common practice in the park.
The people who did wrong here are the people who lied to the investors. They are covering their incompetence by blaming the dog walker. Some people were cheated, but it was not the fault of the dog walker.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Crimeless victims
Booo-f.ing-whooo!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bribed or incompetent courts
Ignoring for one moment that these are blatant lies that if true would mean that Bing, Google, Yahoo, and every other search engine and index of hyperlinks in Sweden would be illegal(is this true? hell no), making factually false statements to a court like this should have Canal Plus criminally charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.
"he had illegally made them available" in the same way that talking about a great new website i found to my friends, or that some movie is on TV later is illegal? So easy to prove this accusation is nonsense and not against any law.. so why wasn't this done? Or in Sweden do you really need to beg and grovel for permission to speak from unaccountable unelected groups that you have no contractual relationship with? What idiocy.
You gotta take a stand against criminals like Canal or you just make your country a hospitable place for crime and a juicy target for even worse crimes once you send out the message you are OK with your citizens being attacked and robbed without legal recourse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sweden has fallen off the deep end...
I like how a guy illustrated the lunacy: http://goo.gl/Xjy8j
With the upholding of the conviction on Pirate Bay and this I am sure we will soon see more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]