6 ms·

> Europe's highest court is considering whether every hyperlink in a Web page should be checked for potentially linking to material that infringes copyright, be

> Europe's highest court is considering whether every hyperlink in a Web page should be checked for potentially linking to material that infringes copyright, before it can be used. A hyperlink is just an address of some kind that client software interprets in a certain way allowing users to easily send network packets to it. Whatever response comes back to a request directed at that address is entirely determined by whoever controls the address, and outside the control of the publisher of the hyperlink. So if one published, say, a phone book, with all of the addresses and phone numbers of consenting residents in a city, when a reader dials one of those numbers, or sends a letter to one of those addresses, it's entirely possible that a reply could come back containing copyrighted material. Should the publisher be required to check every address and phone number for such copyright-violating replies before publishing the phone book? The response that the controller of an address sends (if any) to requests sent to it may change from request to request, for any reason at all. Would it be illegal to publish a hyperlink to an HTTP URL that has a 50% probability of responding with copyrighted material? 10% probability? 1%?

trav4225 11y ago
Are you assuming that policymaking has anything to do with logic and reason? ;-)
njharman 11y ago
Sure, but we've allowed "The Content Oligarchy" to expand Copyright so ridiculously that there is a thing called "Contributory Infringement". If you enable or even don't actively inhibit someone's ability to infringe copyright then you are breaking the law. The issue described in this article isn't the problem. It is a symptom. The problem, the disease infecting us all, is Copyright Law.
- 5ilv3r 11y ago
  Damn the consequences of distributed creation! It will never last! Content creators need to get paid! Why else would anyone make art?
FussyZeus 11y ago
You're assuming the judges in this case have an understanding of the basics of the structure of the Internet. Based on my experience with governing bodies, most still think the Internet is stored inside the blue E.
duncanawoods 11y ago
For a different spin on that example, say you sold a directory of crack dealer's phone-numbers called 1800-dragon-chasers. It seems clear its aiding in a criminal enterprise and not a totally innocent knowledge product. I wonder if you could be charged for that.
- icebraining 11y ago
  It seems clear its aiding in a criminal enterprise and not a totally innocent knowledge product. What if I'm selling it to the police or to NGOs looking to help drug addicts?
  - euyyn 11y ago
    Then no. The point being laws and court decisions can be as specific as needed.
- mr_luc 11y ago
  Right. But the point is that laws exist that do apply to your scenario; the law would have to demonstrate that it's aiding in criminal enterprise and use legal methods (maybe even an injunction). However, newspapers let people place personal ads: "Pottery enthusiast seeks friends. 555-1212, or write to 1010 Binary Lane." Should the newspaper have to call that number, and write to that address, and determine (how?) that nothing shady's going on there? The answer seems pretty clear. In the absence of outright governmental/dinosaur malice, no reasonable person who understands technology would ever propose shifting the burden to content creators/publishers in the default case. If there's a criminal investigation, they're already required by law to be helpful.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    > However, newspapers let people place personal ads: "Pottery enthusiast seeks friends. 555-1212, or write to 1010 Binary Lane." I recall reading a story from a guy living in England during the Amiga years. At one point he learned that he could place a personal ad in the back one of the many magazines sold, offering to exchange copies if he was mailed floppies. At the height of this activity he got so much mail he had to buy extra drives, and spend whole weekends swapping floppies. And this is sending floppies via physical mail. If you want a contemporary equivalent i hear there are people operating a "sneakernet" based on external HDDs over in Cuba. Heck, i have personally seen people bring duffel bags of CD-Rs to LAN parties. And this was back when most used modems to get online.
hammock 11y ago
The interesting thing is there is no such thing as "infringing material." Harry Potter is Harry Potter, no matter what color paper it is printed on. The infringement comes on the actions of a violator. On the use of Harry Potter. In other words, unauthorized reproduction, distribution or display.
ryanlol 11y ago
Intent is the key here.
- moskie 11y ago
  An interesting point. And in the case of using Google as a search engine, the search query essentially indicates intent. If I search Google for "pirated movies" and some links to web sites to help me get those are returned... then is Google complicit in my attempt to pirate movies? My intent is clearly to pirate movies, I am explicitly telling Google that that is my intent, and they're responding with helpful information... (not to imply I think what these judges are considering to be good, just some food for thought.)
  - 6502nerdface 11y ago
    > in the case of using Google as a search engine, the search query essentially indicates intent. If I search Google for "pirated movies" [...] My intent is clearly to pirate movies, I dunno, I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons to search Google for "pirated movies" other than pirating them. Maybe you want to find out whether your movie is being pirated; maybe you want to find out which movies are most pirated right now (you're doing research, or you're a journalist, or you're a sociologist, or an investor, or a police officer, or whatever); maybe you want to learn more about the law of "pirated movies"; maybe you're looking for an old blog post or newspaper article that you know contained the term, or was about, "pirated movies"; etc, etc. In general, I think it's extremely difficult to demonstrate anything about intent or state of mind from search queries alone... you would have to provide more contextual evidence.
lisper 11y ago
> Whatever response comes back to a request directed at that address is entirely determined by whoever controls the address, and outside the control of the publisher of the hyperlink. It's actually even worse than that. The content can change depending on who is making the request, and can also change from one request to the next. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you check the content of a URL at one time and find that it doesn't infringe any copyrights (and how would you know anyway?) that the next time you check, or the next time someone else checks, that the content won't be different. That the court would even consider this is an indication of deep and profound ignorance on their part.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  Just like someone's phone number could be replaced by someone else, now you're calling a drug dealer instead of your grandmother, who is to blame then? Same thing can happen to URLs. Every time I let a domain of mine expire (well not EVERY time, but sometimes) some company buys it out and stuffs it up with advertisements.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  On the other hand, and not that I'd like to be sued for placing links, if the link in my page is something like <a href="ftp://thepiratebay.com/avatar.mp4">Avatar Movie Download</a>, the argument that the page had the text of the Holy Bible in it last time I checked might not be very convincing. So I can see how someone might mull.
  - titanomachy 11y ago
    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.
dclowd9901 11y ago
The rickroll defense. I like it.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wobbleblob 11y ago
We can't keep reasoning about digital age by way of pre-digital-age analogies. The first internet pioneers have died of old age now. It's time to stop assuming courts and lawmakers are incapable of understanding technology without brick & mortar analogies. Hyperlinks are like hyperlinks, not like phone book entries, and courts will have to rule about lawsuits like these.

trav4225 11y ago

Are you assuming that policymaking has anything to do with logic and reason? ;-)

njharman 11y ago

Sure, but we've allowed "The Content Oligarchy" to expand Copyright so ridiculously that there is a thing called "Contributory Infringement". If you enable or even don't actively inhibit someone's ability to infringe copyright then you are breaking the law. The issue described in this article isn't the problem. It is a symptom. The problem, the disease infecting us all, is Copyright Law.

5ilv3r 11y ago
Damn the consequences of distributed creation! It will never last! Content creators need to get paid! Why else would anyone make art?

FussyZeus 11y ago

You're assuming the judges in this case have an understanding of the basics of the structure of the Internet. Based on my experience with governing bodies, most still think the Internet is stored inside the blue E.

duncanawoods 11y ago

For a different spin on that example, say you sold a directory of crack dealer's phone-numbers called 1800-dragon-chasers. It seems clear its aiding in a criminal enterprise and not a totally innocent knowledge product. I wonder if you could be charged for that.

icebraining 11y ago
It seems clear its aiding in a criminal enterprise and not a totally innocent knowledge product. What if I'm selling it to the police or to NGOs looking to help drug addicts?
- euyyn 11y ago
  Then no. The point being laws and court decisions can be as specific as needed.
mr_luc 11y ago
Right. But the point is that laws exist that do apply to your scenario; the law would have to demonstrate that it's aiding in criminal enterprise and use legal methods (maybe even an injunction). However, newspapers let people place personal ads: "Pottery enthusiast seeks friends. 555-1212, or write to 1010 Binary Lane." Should the newspaper have to call that number, and write to that address, and determine (how?) that nothing shady's going on there? The answer seems pretty clear. In the absence of outright governmental/dinosaur malice, no reasonable person who understands technology would ever propose shifting the burden to content creators/publishers in the default case. If there's a criminal investigation, they're already required by law to be helpful.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  > However, newspapers let people place personal ads: "Pottery enthusiast seeks friends. 555-1212, or write to 1010 Binary Lane." I recall reading a story from a guy living in England during the Amiga years. At one point he learned that he could place a personal ad in the back one of the many magazines sold, offering to exchange copies if he was mailed floppies. At the height of this activity he got so much mail he had to buy extra drives, and spend whole weekends swapping floppies. And this is sending floppies via physical mail. If you want a contemporary equivalent i hear there are people operating a "sneakernet" based on external HDDs over in Cuba. Heck, i have personally seen people bring duffel bags of CD-Rs to LAN parties. And this was back when most used modems to get online.

hammock 11y ago

The interesting thing is there is no such thing as "infringing material." Harry Potter is Harry Potter, no matter what color paper it is printed on. The infringement comes on the actions of a violator. On the use of Harry Potter. In other words, unauthorized reproduction, distribution or display.

ryanlol 11y ago

Intent is the key here.

moskie 11y ago
An interesting point. And in the case of using Google as a search engine, the search query essentially indicates intent. If I search Google for "pirated movies" and some links to web sites to help me get those are returned... then is Google complicit in my attempt to pirate movies? My intent is clearly to pirate movies, I am explicitly telling Google that that is my intent, and they're responding with helpful information... (not to imply I think what these judges are considering to be good, just some food for thought.)
- 6502nerdface 11y ago
  > in the case of using Google as a search engine, the search query essentially indicates intent. If I search Google for "pirated movies" [...] My intent is clearly to pirate movies, I dunno, I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons to search Google for "pirated movies" other than pirating them. Maybe you want to find out whether your movie is being pirated; maybe you want to find out which movies are most pirated right now (you're doing research, or you're a journalist, or you're a sociologist, or an investor, or a police officer, or whatever); maybe you want to learn more about the law of "pirated movies"; maybe you're looking for an old blog post or newspaper article that you know contained the term, or was about, "pirated movies"; etc, etc. In general, I think it's extremely difficult to demonstrate anything about intent or state of mind from search queries alone... you would have to provide more contextual evidence.

lisper 11y ago

> Whatever response comes back to a request directed at that address is entirely determined by whoever controls the address, and outside the control of the publisher of the hyperlink. It's actually even worse than that. The content can change depending on who is making the request, and can also change from one request to the next. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you check the content of a URL at one time and find that it doesn't infringe any copyrights (and how would you know anyway?) that the next time you check, or the next time someone else checks, that the content won't be different. That the court would even consider this is an indication of deep and profound ignorance on their part.

giancarlostoro 11y ago
Just like someone's phone number could be replaced by someone else, now you're calling a drug dealer instead of your grandmother, who is to blame then? Same thing can happen to URLs. Every time I let a domain of mine expire (well not EVERY time, but sometimes) some company buys it out and stuffs it up with advertisements.
_yosefk 11y ago
On the other hand, and not that I'd like to be sued for placing links, if the link in my page is something like <a href="ftp://thepiratebay.com/avatar.mp4">Avatar Movie Download</a>, the argument that the page had the text of the Holy Bible in it last time I checked might not be very convincing. So I can see how someone might mull.
- titanomachy 11y ago
  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.

dclowd9901 11y ago

The rickroll defense. I like it.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

wobbleblob 11y ago

We can't keep reasoning about digital age by way of pre-digital-age analogies. The first internet pioneers have died of old age now. It's time to stop assuming courts and lawmakers are incapable of understanding technology without brick & mortar analogies. Hyperlinks are like hyperlinks, not like phone book entries, and courts will have to rule about lawsuits like these.