Ridiculous German Court Ruling Means Linking Online Is Now A Liability

from the never-link dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a crazy decision in the EU Court of Justice, that determined mere links could be direct infringement on commercial websites (with "commercial" being not well defined). Now as various courts in the EU try to put this ruling into practice, they're already making a mess of it. In particular, a German case has set an impossible standard for a site, finding a site to have infringed on the copyrights of a photographer for merely linking to a photograph. And the backstory here is even crazier.

The image in question was originally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the photographer and put under a Creative Commons license (unfortunately, no one seems to name which CC license). And then this happened:

This picture was then modified by an unknown third person, who added UFOs to the picture that appear to be flying above the building. This new picture was uploaded by the third person on his website.

The defendant operates a website where he publishes and sells educational material that he creates. In the imprint of this website, the defendant posted a sentence that included the word “UFO”, which linked to the modified “UFO-Version” of the claimant’s picture. Clicking on the word “UFO” a new browser window in which the “UFO-Version” of the picture was shown would be opened.

The photographer deemed that this constituted an infringing use of his work and brought the defendant to court.

Now, let's just review this because we're already stretching all sorts of concepts to the point of breaking. The photographer uploaded an image under a CC license to Wikimedia Commons. Someone else modified it. Someone else -- operating a site that sells educational materials -- merely linked to the modified image from the word "UFO" -- and that's who gets sued.

This seems like a classic "Steve Dallas Lawsuit" in which the target is a corporate entity because "that's where the money is" even if it makes no sense at all for the liability to be applied there.

And here's the really nutty part: the German court agreed because of that insane CJEU ruling that says a "commercial site" should be assumed to know the copyright status of everything they link to. So merely linking to this silly modified photograph, the site itself becomes liable for direct infringement. That's insane. Yes, (depending on the CC license in question), it's entirely possible that the modified version was infringing, but that's no reason to make a site that merely links to that image liable for direct infringement over it.

At this point, if you run a "commercial" website in Europe that links off site to anything, you have a tremendous liability hanging over your head due to the insanities of copyright law.

Filed Under: cjeu, commercial use, eu, germany, knowledge, liability, linking

CBC Threatens Podcast Apps For Letting People Listen To CBC Podcasts

from the the-stupid.-it-burns dept

I really thought we were beyond this kind of idiocy by now, but apparently wherever newish technology shows up, there are technologically clueless lawyers waiting to rush in. Today's example: lawyers for the Canadian Broadcasting Company have sent threat letters to the makers of various podcast apps for letting people listen to CBC podcasts. Apparently, the lawyers at the CBC think that because a podcast app is a commercial product, that means that you can't use it to access their public RSS feeds that offer up the CBC's podcasts. Here's the email that was posted to Reddit, with the name of the specific app redacted:

I am contacting you regarding the unauthorized use of CBC's podcasts that are being used in your <app name> app.

By using CBC's digital services you have agreed to our our Terms of Use located at cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/termsofuse.html.

Under section 2(b) of these Terms of Use, you are prohibited from using our podcasts for commercial purposes without a proper licence from CBC.

I would ask to cease immediately the use of our unlicensed podcasts.

If you interested in CBC content and podcast, we can discuss a license fee model.

I would be happy to have a call to discuss further our content and services.

I actually listen to a few CBC podcasts on my commercial podcast player -- but now I have to wonder if they'll still be there. Either way, this is ridiculously stupid and clueless. As Cory Doctorow notes in his post about this, this is a return of the old stupid and debunked idea where some clueless sites believed you needed a license to link to them. Because that's really all that the podcast apps are doing. They're picking up publicly available RSS feeds and letting people listen to publicly available podcasts.

But the CBC is going one worse here: their argument is that making a tool that allows someone to load a public URL without permission is violating copyright law -- it's the same thing as saying, "Because Google is a for-profit corporation, any time a Chrome user loads a CBC page in the Chrome browser without the CBC's permission, Google is violating CBC's copyright."

It is an absolutely insane idea, and as legally ignorant as one can imagine. It's shocking that a letter of such dangerous stupidity was sent on CBC letterhead, signed by someone who apparently got a law degree at some point. If the CBC is right, then all browsers are presumptively unlawful.

There is an implied license when you put something on the web that it is there to link to. If you don't want people to load your RSS feed, don't publish it, or add a password to it. To argue otherwise is to argue against the internet itself.

One hopes this is just someone who is incredibly confused, or was just searching for extra work at the CBC, because if this is seriously the CBC's policy, then that's extraordinarily messed up.

Filed Under: cbc, copyright, linking, podcasts, rss
Companies: cbc

Terrible Ruling: EU Decides That Mere Links Can Be Direct Infringement

from the that's-not-how-this-works dept

Last year, we talked about an important copyright case in the EU regarding whether or not linking to infringing material was, in itself, infringing. The case involved a blogger in the Netherlands, Geen Stijl News ("GS Media") linking to some pre-publication Playboy photos. There had been an earlier case, the Svensson case where the European Court of Justice got things right with regards to whether or not hyperlinks could be infringing, but there were some questions left open in that ruling. The court in the Svensson case found that linking to authorized content wasn't infringing. But what about unauthorized content?

And now we have the ruling and it's not very good. Some are trying to spin it as a good ruling, because it basically says that if the link is not for profit, then it's not infringing, but the worrisome part is that if the link is considered "for profit" then it can be direct infringement. Basically, the court tries to split the baby here. It notes concerns that many people had about how posting a mere link to content could be infringement, in that many times those posting the link will have no idea if the original content is authorized. But rather than actually deal with that specific issue, it just basically said "well, if it's a for profit effort, then they can afford to figure out if the content is authorized."

when the posting of hyperlinks is carried out for profit, it can be expected that the person who posted such a link carries out the necessary checks to ensure that the work concerned is not illegally published on the website to which those hyperlinks lead, so that it must be presumed that that posting has occurred with the full knowledge of the protected nature of that work and the possible lack of consent to publication on the internet by the copyright holder. In such circumstances, and in so far as that rebuttable presumption is not rebutted, the act of posting a hyperlink to a work which was illegally placed on the internet constitutes a ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29.

Some are celebrating the flip side, which says that if the linking is not for profit and without knowledge that the work is infringing, then it's not infringing, but even that is troubling. Here's what the court says for the "not for profit" linking:

For the purposes of the individualised assessment of the existence of a ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29, it is accordingly necessary, when the posting of a hyperlink to a work freely available on another website is carried out by a person who, in so doing, does not pursue a profit, to take account of the fact that that person does not know and cannot reasonably know, that that work had been published on the internet without the consent of the copyright holder.

Indeed, such a person, by making that work available to the public by providing other internet users with direct access to it (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 February 2014, Svensson and Others, C‑466/12, EU:C:2014:76, paragraphs 18 to 23) does not, as a general rule, intervene in full knowledge of the consequences of his conduct in order to give customers access to a work illegally posted on the internet. In addition, where the work in question was already available with unrestricted access on the website to which the hyperlink provides access, all internet users could, in principle, already have access to it even the absence of that intervention.

But what the hell does all that mean in practice? Well, that's a complete mess. First of all, as we've been discussing for many, many, many years, drawing the line between "commercial" and "non-commercial" is not nearly as easy as it seems -- and it's basically the same for "for profit" and "not for profit" in the EU's new standard. Just last week we wrote about yet another legal dispute over that exact fuzzy boundary. In an age where anyone can put ads on their site, or use social media to promote their own work or business, how do you determine what's for profit? It's not hard to see how a copyright holder may, for example, point to someone linking to an unauthorized copy of their work and then point to a tweet promoting their work, and say that "well this person uses social media for profit, so this link is infringing."

And, of course, it's even worse for aggregators, search engines and the media. All of those will be considered for profit, so any link to infringing content may now be considered infringing itself. That's... really bad for the internet in Europe. You can see why the Court of Justice tried to split the baby here, but you should remember that splitting the baby isn't a good result. It's designed to threaten to kill the baby to flush out a better result. In this case, one hopes that the end result of this dangerous ruling will flush out an improved copyright law in the EU that doesn't make links infringing. Instead, we seem likely to be getting the exact opposite.

Filed Under: cjeu, commercial, copyright, court of justice, eu, eucj, for profit, linking, noncommercial, not for profit
Companies: geen stijl, gs media, playboy, sanoma

What Should We Do About Linking To Sites That Block People Using Ad Blockers?

from the weigh-in dept

Earlier this week, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) -- the same organization whose boss Randall Rothenberg recently suggested that if you use an ad blocker you hate free speech and are, possibly, a racist -- put out some guidelines for publishers looking to "combat" ad blockers. The basic crux of it: the IAB suggests that sites block people who use ad blockers from reading their content. They even created a puke-inducing acronym "DEAL" and some code for "detecting" ad blockers. Detecting being the D:

1. Detect ad blocking, in order to initiate a conversation
2. Explain the value exchange that advertising enables
3. Ask for changed behavior in order to maintain an equitable exchange
4. Lift restrictions or Limit access in response to consumer choice

Of course, it should be no surprise that this is happening at the same time a ton of online publishers seem to be following this plan exactly. It really kicked off late last year when Forbes and GQ started telling users that they couldn't read their content unless they whitelisted them on their ad blockers. In the last few weeks, Wired joined in with the same basic plan. And just this week, the NY Times announced plans to do something similar.

Publications had tried this in the past. You may recall, actually, that back in 2010, Ars Technica (owned by Conde Nast, which also owns Wired and GQ) implemented a very similar plan, blocking anyone using ad blockers -- but the outcry was so vocal and loud that it dropped the plan later that very same day. At the time, we pointed out how it seemed like a really bad idea to blame your own community, and that still holds true today. Blocking people using ad blockers seems pretty stupid for a variety of reasons.

And a big one is this: as far as I can tell, all of these sites block me. And I don't use an ad blocker. Admittedly, I do use "NoScript" to block untrusted javascript, but I happily whitelist it for many sites that I generally trust. In fact, I'm beginning to think that that's why I'm blocked on most of these sites. Others on Twitter have told me that they don't run into the ad blocker wall with NoScript. But I've noticed that on all of these sites, I had previously whitelisted the sites in question in NoScript, and potentially that's why they're now blocking me, claiming (falsely) that I'm using an ad blocker.

So here's my big question: should we at Techdirt still link to these sites if we see worthwhile stories on them (and if we realize they're blocking people using ad blockers)? As we've said plenty of times in the past, we not only don't get upset if you're using an ad blocker, we allow you to turn off ads if you don't like them on our site -- though we do politely request (not require or demand) that you support us in other ways, such as through our Insider Shop, our Deal Store or our ongoing crowdfunding campaign. But should we link to sites -- even if the content is good -- if they might annoy our community?

To be honest, this is part of the reason why I think this war on ad blockers is idiotic. Even if I was using an ad blocker, if I linked to an article on Wired or Forbes, I'd be sending them a lot more traffic, and even if some of those users were using ad blockers, many would not be. Thus, they're actually losing out on significant ad impressions by making it more difficult for me to read their stuff and link others to it. And, obviously, that's one reason to not link to such sites (not that they'd understand this -- they'd likely chalk up the decline in inbound traffic to some other factor, potentially blaming readers even more).

My general thought -- as of right now -- is that whenever possible, I will try to avoid linking to such sites, and will look around for alternative sources that are actually more welcoming. However, in some cases, I may still link to such sites, if the particular content really is unique and worthwhile to discuss here. But I did want to share my thinking with everyone here, and get your take on this as well. What do you think we should do when coming across potential stories to write about from those sites?

Filed Under: ad blocker blockers, ad blocking, community, linking

French Politicians Pushing To Ban Linking To Any Website Without Permission

from the you-fail-at-the-internet dept

Apparently two French Parliament Members are on a mission to ban linking to websites, unless you first have permission. In short, they're looking to undermine one of the key features of the internet itself.

The idea was proposed but rejected by the Legislative Commission, but it is brought back again. Socialist Karine Berger and Valérie Rabault once again tabled their Amendment #843 to Axelle Lemaire’s Bill for a Digital Republic, which would actually prohibit by default a large quantity of hyperlinks in France.

This device aims at amending the Law for Confidence in the Digital Economy and hold ISP and hosts criminally responsible as soon as they “allow public access to works or objects protected by the copyright code, including through automated means.”

The amendment states “users are required to obtain authorization from concerned rights holders”. The two MPs demand that “such authorization covers actions by users of such services when transmitting to the said users the protected works or objects, in order to allow use as stated in the fist paragraph inasmuch as such users are not acting on professional purposes”.

Now, it's fairly obvious that you're dealing with two politicians who think they're somehow proposing a solution to "piracy" on the internet. But it's really yet another attempt at punishing Google. Similar to efforts in Germany, Spain and even the European Parliament, very, very shortsighted Google haters think that a way to "punish" Google is to make it pay money to sites that it links to (mainly when it comes to news aggregation). The two French politicians admit flat out that they're trying to help copyright maximalists:

The amendment is intended to “protect the creation of authors and define the scope of their rights on hyperlinks”, according to the two MPS’ rationale. “The amendment aims at reinstating protection on these hyperlinks, in favour of the authors and rights holders of the links’ target content.”

But linking isn't and should never be infringement. It's a reference and it takes you to the original content, which is beneficial. And yet, of course, it all comes back to politicians thinking that just because Google is successful while linking to others' content, Google must be somehow bad.

“Just look at Google’s referencing procedures: they are based on hyperlinks, and links that lead to copyright-protected works on their publishing site are precisely what allows Google to create any added value whatsoever”, said MP Karine Berger in her plea for the amendment.

“In other words, some commercial Internet operators benefit from the value of some copyright-protected cultural goods and services without ever paying for using them. The amendment, by raising the question as to whom is responsible for collecting value through hyperlinks, aims at overturning jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It is a paramount legal and economic issue.”

Yes, Google creates value for itself in linking to websites. It also creates value for users. And for the websites it links to. That's why there's a massive search engine optimization business in which sites purposely try to get ranked better on Google, because sites that are linked from Google get tremendous benefit out of it.

I have a hard time understanding any kind of logic wherein you have a setup in which everyone basically benefits... and a politician still wants to come in and complain because one of the parties in the setup is doing well.

Filed Under: copyright, france, internet, karine berger, licenses, linking, open internet, valerie rabault

Twitter Suspends Accounts For 'Infringement' Despite Not Linking To Any Infringing Works

from the getting-further-and-further-away dept

It's already troubling enough to many people that merely linking to some content can make you subject to a DMCA takedown notice. Merely linking to content that others may have uploaded or hosted doesn't seem to fall into any of the exclusive rights covered by copyright law. But now it appears things are going even further, and Twitter is helping, for reasons that make no sense. After a Spanish film distributor sent copyright takedown notices to Twitter about the accounts of Elite Torrents and Bajui, both accounts were shut down.

Now, EliteTorrents is a torrent tracker site and Bajui is a linking site. And it's quite reasonable to argue that both sites enable a fair amount of copyright infringement. No one is arguing that point (though some would reasonably point out that neither site hosts or copies any infringing content themselves, leading back to that question of what rights are being violated by linking). However, even leaving that aside, the real concern here is that the tweets in question, which resulted in the takedown notices, didn't even link to any content. They did post film title names and a screenshot of the movie poster: The clear implication here, of course, is that you could access a copy of that movie from the site. And it's quite likely that downloading the film via those sites would be infringing. But are the tweets alone infringement themselves? That seems like a much bigger stretch. How far would it go? Would it be infringing if I told you that you might be able to find a certain film if you went to a certain site? At some point, that's just outlawing speech.

Now, I'm sure some will argue that it doesn't matter. What these two sites are doing involves infringement, and thus any and all punishment, including losing their Twitter accounts is fine. But we do have limits for a reason. Even if you think that EliteTorrernts and Bajui are breaking the law, does that automatically justify any and all punishment? If someone jaywalks, is it okay for them to be thrown in prison for ten years "because they broke the law." That's not how this works. Here, it's not at all clear how these tweets violated copyright law in any way, and yet Twitter took the accounts down for copyright infringement. Does that mean that Twitter will now make judgments about your off Twitter activity to determine if you deserve a Twitter account? Doesn't that ring a lot of alarm bells?

Filed Under: copyright, infringement, linking, talking about
Companies: bajui, elitetorrents, twitter

Canadian Court Orders Blogger Who Reposted Another Writer's Defamatory Statements To Pay $10,000 To Defamed Party

from the hooray-for-secondary-liability! dept

Here's a not-so-gentle reminder that Canada's defamation laws are significantly different than those in the United States. A former Senate staffer is on the hook for $10,000 in damages for "publishing" a defamatory article on his website back in 2009. The thing is: it wasn't his article.

In 2008… Jonathan Kay, then a National Post columnist, published an article that repeated allegations that [human rights advocate Richard] Warman was the author of an article posted to a right-wing website that contained “misogynist” and “racist” comments about Anne Cools, the first black Canadian appointed to the Senate.

Warman served a libel notice on Kay and the National Post, which was later settled after Kay and the Post retracted the article.

But Kay’s article was republished by others, including [Michael] Veck, who posted it to a website knows as WAIS (the World Association for International Studies) as part of a longer article that characterized Warman as a “radical anti-racist” who had tried to manufacture “phoney-racism,” Corbett writes.

Veck testified that he didn't know the article had been retracted when he posted it to his site. After being served with a libel notice by Warman, Veck apologized for posting the false article and took it down, noting that Warman claimed it contained "false allegations."

That should have been the end of it, but Warman pressed on with his lawsuit. And the presiding judge apparently felt Veck's apology just wasn't obsequious enough.

“The substance of Mr. Veck’s retraction is that, because Mr. Warman disagrees with the article, Mr. Veck is withdrawing it,” the judge wrote. “This substance falls short of acknowledging that the article was without foundation.”

So, Veck gets a bill for $10,000 while others who did the same thing were able to escape with nothing more than the loss of a little dignity.

Warman said several others who republished the allegations in Kay’s column, including conservative writer Ezra Levant, have recently retracted them and apologized.

Veck didn't make these defamatory allegations himself and yet he is being held responsible for the words of others. That's because Canadian law doesn't consider the originator of the false claims to be the sole responsible party. The law considers "publication" to be an essential ingredient in libel suits and Veck's re-posting of the National Post article opened him up to liability, even if all he did was quote someone else's statements, word-for-word.

Now, as Mike noted back when Warman began filing these lawsuits, the implications of the law were troubling, especially as it could be construed to read that simply linking to defamatory material was itself defamation. A Canadian court determined later that linking was not defamatory but did point out that if the link text itself contained any defamatory material, the linking party could be held liable.

In this case, Veck basically republished an entire article, which as the courts have read the law, make him just as liable for the defamation as the person who actually wrote the article. Veck is a "publisher" in the eyes of the law, even if he truly didn't "publish" anything in the more traditional sense of the word. (As in not being the originating party.) And with that prong of the law satisfied, Veck is as culpable as if he'd written the statements himself.

Filed Under: anne cools, canada, defamation, jonathan kay, liability, linking, michael veck, patrick warman, reposting

European Court To Explore If Linking To Infringing Material Is Infringing

from the again dept

A couple of years ago in the Svensson case, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) made it clear (finally) that merely linking to content is not infringement. That was a case involving a news aggregator linking to official sources. However, in a new case that has been referred to the CJEU, the court will examine if links to unauthorized versions of content is infringing as well. The excellent IPKat has the details of the case which involves a blog that linked to some pre-publication Playboy photos in the Netherlands. A lower court had said that it wasn't copyright infringement, but still broke the law, by facilitating access. On appeal, the court found that the free speech concerns outweighed the copyright concerns. From the description by the lawyer representing the blogger ("Geen Stijl news"):

We lodged an appeal on behalf of Geen Stijl on a few grounds which was successful: the Court of Appeal had misapplied the 'quotation' exception in copyright law and did not sufficiently balance the freedom of speech versus copyright protection, as it indicated that 'only in exceptional circumstances' would the freedom of speech outweigh copyright protection, as freedom of speech concerns are taken into account in the law, in particular in the exceptions. The Supreme Court followed our reasoning that copyright is a fundamental right, but that the same goes for the freedom of speech, and that they thus should be considered on equal footing. The Court of Appeal should therefore have considered all relevant circumstances (among which is whether this is commercial speech or a news item) and not only exceptional circumstances. Never before has the freedom of speech been given so much weight in The Netherlands.

That's the good news. On the flip side, Sanoma, the Dutch publisher of Playboy, has appealed on its own, and that's the question that is going to the CJEU. It basically asks how to apply that earlier ruling saying linking is not infringing to a case in which the content being linked to is not authorized -- and whether it matters if the linker knew or should have known the content was infringing.

Given the scenario, this could become a rather important copyright case in Europe, considering how frequently people may end up linking to content that may be infringing.

Filed Under: cjeu, copyright, deep linking, eucj, europe, european court of justice, geen stijl, infringement, linking, playboy, svensson
Companies: geen stijl, playboy, sanoma

Barrett Brown Sentenced To 63 Months In Jail For Daring To Do Journalism On Hacked Info

from the bad-and-dangerous-precedent dept

We've written a few times about the ridiculous case against Barrett Brown, a journalist who took a deep interest in Anonymous and various hacking efforts. As we noted, a key part of the initial charges included the fact that Brown had organized an effort to comb through the documents that had been obtained from Stratfor via a hack. The key bit was that Brown had reposted a URL pointing to the documents to share via his "Project PM" -- a setup to crowdsource the analysis of the leaked documents. Some of those documents included credit card info, so he was charged with "trafficking" in that information. Brown didn't help his own cause early on with some immensely foolish actions, like threatening federal agents in a video posted to YouTube, but there were serious concerns about how the government had twisted what Brown had actually done in a way that could be used against all kinds of journalists.

While the feds eventually dismissed the key "linking" claim (equating linking to trafficking), they still got Brown to agree to a plea deal on other charges. After many months, he was finally sentenced today to 63 months in prison, more than double the 30 months that his lawyers asked for (30 months being the time he's already served in prison). He also has to pay $890,000 in restitution. For linking to some files he didn't have anything to do with leaking.

Before the sentencing, Brown made a statement to the judge that is well worth reading. He admits that the threatening videos were "idiotic" and apologizes for it, but delves more deeply into what's really at stake in his case. Here's just a tiny bit:

Every journalist in the United States is put at risk by the novel, and sometimes even radical, claims that the government has introduced in the course of the sentencing process. The government asserts that I am not a journalist and thus unable to claim the First Amendment protections guaranteed to those engaged in information-gathering activities. Your Honor, I’ve been employed as a journalist for much of my adult life, I’ve written for dozens of magazines and newspapers, and I’m the author of two published and critically-acclaimed books of expository non-fiction. Your Honor has received letters from editors who have published my journalistic work, as well as from award-winning journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, who note that they have used that work in their own articles. If I am not a journalist, then there are many, many people out there who are also not journalists, without being aware of it, and who are thus as much at risk as I am.

Your Honor, it would be one thing if the government were putting forth some sort of standard by which journalists could be defined. They have not put forth such a standard. Their assertion rests on the fact that despite having referred to myself as a journalist hundreds of times, I at one point rejected that term, much in the same way that someone running for office might reject the term “politician”. Now, if the government is introducing a new standard whereby anyone who once denies being a particular thing is no longer that thing in any legal sense, then that would be at least a firm and knowable criteria. But that’s not what the government is doing in this case. Consider, for instance, that I have denied being a spokesperson for Anonymous hundreds of times, both in public and private, ever since the press began calling me that in the beginning of 2011. So on a couple of occasions when I contacted executives of contracting firms like Booz Allen Hamilton in the wake of revelations that they’d been spying on my associates and me for reasons that we were naturally rather anxious to determine, I did indeed pretend to be such an actual official spokesman for Anonymous, because I wanted to encourage these people to talk to me. Which they did.

Of course, I have explained this many, many times, and the government itself knows this, even if they’ve since claimed otherwise. In the September 13th criminal complaint filed against me, the FBI itself acknowledges that I do not claim any official role within Anonymous. Likewise, in last month’s hearing, the prosecutor accidentally slipped and referred to me as a journalist, even after having previously found it necessary to deny me that title. But, there you have it. Deny being a spokesperson for Anonymous hundreds of times, and you’re still a spokesperson for Anonymous. Deny being a journalist once or twice, and you’re not a journalist. What conclusion can one draw from this sort of reasoning other than that you are whatever the FBI finds it convenient for you to be at any given moment. This is not the “rule of law”, Your Honor, it is the “rule of law enforcement”, and it is very dangerous.

The judge didn't seem to care, however. Judge Sam Lindsay claimed that Brown was "more involved than he wants the court to believe" despite no such evidence being presented. Furthermore, it appears that even though the charges related to the link sharing were dropped and the plea was over other charges, sharing that link is part of why his sentence was so high.

This is a very dangerous ruling for those who believe in freedom of the press. Rulings like this put anyone reporting on any hacked or leaked info at risk. While some don't like it, reporters need to be free to report on things, from the Stratfor documents to the Sony Hack documents to the Snowden revelations. A sentence like this puts a massive chill over journalism and the First Amendment in general.

Filed Under: anonymous, barrett brown, free speech, hacks, journalism, linking, sam lindsay

Google Pulls Out The Nuclear Option: Shuts Down Google News In Spain Over Ridiculous Copyright Law

from the bad-copyright-policy dept

Back in October, we noted that Spain had passed a ridiculously bad Google News tax, in which it required any news aggregator to pay for snippets and actually went so far as to make it an "inalienable right" to be paid for snippets -- meaning that no one could choose to let any aggregator post snippets for free. Publishers have to charge any aggregator. This is ridiculous and dangerous on many levels. As we noted, it would be deathly for digital commons projects or any sort of open access project, which thrive on making content reusable and encouraging the widespread sharing of such content.

Apparently, it's also deathly for Google News in Spain. A few hours ago, Google announced that due to this law, it was shutting down Google News in Spain, and further that it would be removing all Spanish publications from the rest of Google News. In short, Google went for the nuclear option in the face of a ridiculously bad law:

But sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.

Every time there have been attempts to get Google to cough up some money to publishers in this or that country, people (often in our comments) suggest that Google should just "turn off" Google News in those countries. Google has always resisted such calls. Even in the most extreme circumstances, it's just done things like removing complaining publications from Google News, or posting the articles without snippets. In both cases, publishers quickly realized how useful Google News was in driving traffic and capitulated. In this case, though, it's not up to the publishers. It's entirely up to the law.

The reason the law made it an "inalienable right" was to prevent Google from just removing those publishers. Instead, the end result is it got Google to shut down the whole thing, and deprive every Spanish publication not of money, but of traffic -- which may be much more important.

For centuries publishers were limited in how widely they could distribute the printed page. The Internet changed all that -- creating tremendous opportunities but also real challenges for publishers as competition both for readers’ attention and for advertising Euros increased. We’re committed to helping the news industry meet that challenge and look forward to continuing to work with our thousands of partners globally, as well as in Spain, to help them increase their online readership and revenues.

And the really stupid thing in all this is that, as Google notes, it wasn't even placing ads on Google News in Spain. So it's not even that publishers could claim that Google was "profiting" from driving such traffic to their sites.

So, nice going Spanish politicians. Your new copyright law not only makes you a laughingstock for pushing a ridiculous industry-driven legislation, but you've made life worse off for everyone. Citizens lose an important way to find relevant news. Publishers lose a big traffic driver. Open access and digital commons are now effectively dead in Spain as well. Who has won here?

Even if you're a Google hater who is happy to see a country pass a clearly anti-Google law, there are much bigger issues here, as pointed out by the EFF, which highlights how this law is an attack on the basic right to link:

What concerns EFF more is that these ancillary copyright laws form part of a broader trend of derogation from the right to link. This can be seen when you examine the other parts of the Spanish copyright amendments that take effect in January (here in PDF)—notably placing criminal liability on website operators who refuse to remove mere links to copyright-infringing material.

This year's European Court of Justice ruling against Google Spain on the so-called Right to be Forgotten, is part of the same larger trend, in requiring search engines to remove links to content judged to be “irrelevant”, even if the content is true. We are also disturbed by comments made by new European Digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger who has foreshadowed [German] a broader roll-out of ancillary copyright rules throughout the EU.

Online intermediaries may be a convenient scapegoat for the fading fortunes of European newspaper publishers, but banning the use of text snippets alongside website links is a misguided and—now self-evidently—counter-productive approach. Once it becomes illegal for aggregators to freely link news summaries to publicly-available websites, it becomes that much easier for those who want to prohibit other sorts of links, such as links to political YouTube videos, to make their case.

Hopefully politicians in the rest of Europe take notice, before pushing forward with similarly short-sighted attacks on linking and aggregating.

Filed Under: aggregation, ancillary copyright, copyright, google news, linking, open access, spain
Companies: google