Usenet Community FTD Not Guilty For Linking To Content... But For Promoting Uploads

from the hmm dept

We found it a bit troubling earlier this year when a Dutch court found that Usenet community FTD was guilty of copyright infringement because its users merely linked to Usenet locations where unauthorized copies of movies resided. An appeals court has now apparently reversed much of that decision -- noting that just linking to infringing works is not infringement, and that downloading for personal use is also not infringement. However, it oddly still kept the injunction on FTD because it claimed that FTD promoted unauthorized uploads, saying that most "spotters" (who point out where the files are) also are uploaders. Of course, as we had noted recently, the movie studio's "evidence" on this was that one of its own investigators uploaded and spotted a film.
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Filed Under: copyright, linking, netherlands, usenet
Companies: ftd


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  1. identicon
    NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Nov 2010 @ 2:16am

    so by this ruling

    that guy that killed people with a hammer , Canadian tire is now guilty of promoting murder

    add your own example thats about as mentally challenged as the entire ruling.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Nov 2010 @ 2:16am

    p.s. this is a direct shot at the judical bench

    YOUR IDIOTS

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Marcel de Jong (profile), 17 Nov 2010 @ 3:50am

    Linking is an incorrect term, as there were no actual links on the website to the offending files, not even to the nzb index files.

    What this was, was a place were people could tell others that a certain file was spotted on Usenet. And then discuss the finds, such as rate its quality.

    Often the spotters were also the ones who uploaded the files, but that upload was not done through any of FTDs services. As FTD doesn't offer any such service.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    IronM@sk, 17 Nov 2010 @ 4:10am

    Re: p.s. this is a direct shot at the judical bench

    MY IDIOTS?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    abc gum, 17 Nov 2010 @ 4:56am

    Shoot the messenger?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2010 @ 5:00am

    Don't know what they're thinking

    Yeah, there are a lot of idiots out there.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2010 @ 5:28am

    Re: p.s. this is a direct shot at the judical bench

    What about MY idiots?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2010 @ 5:55am

    Thousands of Usenet refugees go to LimewireP(the P is for pirate) or worst they have to go to Facebook :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2010 @ 7:51am

    You're doing it wrong. It's MY ID10T5....

    fixed that for you

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    The eejit (profile), 17 Nov 2010 @ 8:12am

    Re: You're doing it wrong. It's MY ID10T5....

    now YOU'RE doing it wrong. 17'5 [\/]/\1 11>1075.

    Also, who's betting the judge was paid to leave that in? :p

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2010 @ 9:39am

    Re: Re: p.s. this is a direct shot at the judical bench

    Who is idiots?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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