There may be cases where linking violates copyright (Total News seems reasonable, although that's really probably more of a trademark issue), but I think the main problem is that most judiciaries and legislatures are a bit unclear on how the internet works.
However, I'm also in a better position than judiciaries and legislatures, since I'm talking about right and wrong, not legal and illegal.
There is no way that existing copyright law can even remotely be stretched to say that incidental linking to a site on the web constitutes copyright infringement.
This would be akin to saying that a library's use of the Dewey decimal system to help you locate a book infringes the copyright held by the book's owner because it directs you where to find it.
The judge's proposal is purely a political one and that is why it appears in a blog.
Unless Congress acts to do a radical extension of current copyright law, linking of any normal type will not come under legal scrutiny of any sort, even from Judge Posner (who, whatever else he is, is nobody's fool). The danger here will lie with politicians who might succumb to lobbying pressure. It will not come from judges.
Linking to a site that infringes copyrights may make the linker liable on the grounds that they are committing contributory copyright infringement. It's cheaper for search engines to delist sites than fight that battle--particularly if their corporate masters also rely on licensing media for distribution themselves.
I think it has been confirmed by the courts that linking is not a form of copyright infringement and therefore legal. Asking people not to do so is at best going to those create a lot of anger from who don't want the Internet to devolve into proprietary walled gardens of content, and at worst is basically asking to be Steisanded.
There have been some funny attempts at trying to stop others from linking to one's site, e.g. by jwz. Then again, this person does use Twitter...
I've never understood how links can fall victim to copyright. A link is just a signpost instructing your browser where to go next. There is no copying involved, anywhere. Subjugating links with copyright law is morphing reality into fantasy.
The proposal is bad enough, but I don't believe the part about URLs being considered snippets. URLs are technically necessary for linking and any publisher can decide what goes into their URLs.
Rather than lawyers not understanding technology I think this interpretation is just the reverse.
It's technically not illegal to link to a site that links to copyrighted material, but there's still the potential for legal challenges to come up - especially if whatever you build is successful.
The RIAA/MPAA etc can ruin your life with an expensive, years-long lawsuit whether you are found guilty in the end or not.
If you really want to make it, make it for fun and release it anonymously.
I think that's more where this legislation is coming from. Some people have built a business on aggregating links or embeddings of copyrighted material and those sites always use the legal defense of "we don't host any of the content so it's not our problem." I imagine this is very frustrating to copyright holders, so it's reasonable that they would seek redress of some kind.
Of course, making any copyright-infringing link illegal would be far too heavy-handed, but I don't think that's a likely decision here.
I don’t think that necessarily makes it legal - they might be liable for "contributory copyright infringement”, which occurs if you deliberately and knowingly link to copyrighted materials and encourage/enable others to infringe.
> Being able to view the site by making a temporary copy in your computer's cache is not clearly non-infringing. Someone aiding the creation of an infringing work can be acting tortuously in "contributory infringement" and hence linking to a website could, strictly, be tortuous.
Hmm, I hadn't thought about it from that point of view, but I think you're right. It seems like clear evidence that your copyright law (I assume you're in the US) has gone mad and needs to be put to sleep.
"One court found framing to be a copyright infringement because the process resulted in an unauthorized modification of the linked site. (Futuredontics Inc. v. Applied Anagramic Inc., 45 U.S.P.Q. 2d 2005 (C.D. Cal. 1998).) In another case, The Washington Post, CNN, and several other news companies sued a website, TotalNews, which framed their news content. Under the terms of a settlement agreement, TotalNews agreed to stop framing and agreed to use text-only links.
While case law hasn’t developed definitive rules on the issue, a framer is more likely to be found liable for copyright (or trademark) infringement if copyrighted material is modified without authorization or if customers are confused about the association between the two sites or the source of a product or service."
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. My question was whether or not, just as linking to a libelous post is not itself libel, linking to an infringing download would be similarly considered to not be infringement.
If the courts were consistent on this matter, then providing a magnet link to a torernt could arguably be seen as no different than providing a hyperlink to a libelous post. It is the poster/hoster, not the linker, who would be liable.
My sense is if you put it on the public internet, by default you are giving people the ability to link to it. It’s just a matter of how hard or easy you choose to make it.
(Armchair copyrighting ahead.) This case, which is apparently about "embedding", raises some questions about the line between linking to infringing content and hosting it.
I feel it is clear (apparently unlike the judges) that linking cannot possibly violate copyright while hosting content without permission does.
I'm not clear technically what this article means by "embedding". I think the interesting blurry lines are when page A contains code from page B (say as a frame), and the code loads infringing content.
I wonder if this situation should be subject to DMCA "safe harbor" provisions, which are what protect Twitter, YouTube, etc. from liability for user-uploaded infringements as long as they take them down upon request.
But in general, I tend to think the responsibility should fall on page A for content that it serves to users, even if indirectly by loading third-party code....
However, I'm also in a better position than judiciaries and legislatures, since I'm talking about right and wrong, not legal and illegal.
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