3 ms·

What if the link had consisted of a prominent section "How to find it" consisting of the words (I'm making this up) "Search Google for leaked playboy pictures

What if the link had consisted of a prominent section "How to find it" consisting of the words (I'm making this up) "Search Google for leaked playboy pictures from 2011, and click on the first link, which should be a site named after a fish." Now it is a passing reference to how to find it -- but your criteria that 1) they made money from it, and 2) they could know and should know that this content is illegal. Well, all right. So let's say that is contributing to copyright infringement. Let's make it illegal. Now what if we change the passing reference to be "the pictures are pretty easy to find via Google." What if we imagine that this is how the reference now reads. What now? What if it's illegal and what if the site makes money off of it? How about Hacker News. It is a statistical certainty that at least one reader decided to find the pictures based on our report here. It's certain. With absolute certainty you can say that someone searched and found the pictures. Does YCombinator get value from the fact that this report contributes to interesting information being available here? Absolutely. So, should Hacker News be allowed to report on this court case as explicitly as it has done? Remember: it is absolutely certain that some people have found the pictures as a result, and it is also absolutely certain that they would know this would happen. They directly benefit from it. So where does it end? A good place to draw the line might be: reproducing content. Since, you know, that's what copyright ... wait for it ... actually limits...

icebraining 10y ago
I don't think reproduction is a good line at all; HN could still be guilty if someone posted an unlicensed copyrighted work (say, a news article). Intention and knowledge is the best dividing line, in my opinion, and courts certainly take it into account. HN blindly reproduces what people post, whereas the link in question was posted by the site editors themselves - that's a clear distinction, and in fact many lawsuits (in the US) were based on it. I do disagree with the court's decision to presume that any publication for financial gain is done with knowledge of the copyright status, though.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > I don't think reproduction is a good line at all; HN could still be guilty if someone posted an unlicensed copyrighted work (say, a news article). There are 100's of these on HN already. Just a few samples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10862279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10862279
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Yes. If HN had no Safe Harbour protection, it could be sued to oblivion for those infringements.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  When they said copying was what should be seen as the line I assumed that was within the framework of current Western laws, so things like intent (mens rea) are a given.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 10y ago
    IANAL, but it seems they are saying that the financial gain shows mens rea.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      are you and your parent referring to me by "they" (as a gender-neutral term)? What I meant with my comment is that a pretty clear example of copyright would be, for example, hosting and including the copyrighted content. (If the content is literally on the hosting server - posting full text is obviously an example of this. Hosting full images is another example.) A less clear example would be hotlinking. (So that the pictures are loaded and shown by the browser, and it appears to be part of the article, but is in fact an offsite image anchor.) An even less clear example would be a URL link. That is what we're reading about. But What if it's not clickable? (hxxp:// whatever(dot) whatever - replace hxxp with http and (dot) with . -- what then?) An even less clear example is telling you explicitly what Google search to search for, and how you can know that you've found it. (e.g. words like "Search Google for leaked playboy pictures from 2011, and click on the first link, which should be a site named after a fish." - I'm making this up.) But a less clear example still would be "It's easy to find. Just search for [vague reference but one that is clear enough]" So you want to use the standard of "mens rea." How can we REALLY judge what someone's reason might be? For example, it could be that the real reason to report on something is so that interested readers might find it. Example: "The Pirate Bay is now hosting the entire (name something)". It could be that the primary reason to say that is that it provides people information that they can immediately use to start infringing the copyright of (something). But what if it's couched in any other report? "What the fact that the pirate bay is hosting (something) says about democracy and our copyright laws"? Should that be an illegal post to make? You understand what I'm saying. It's an extremely slippery slope. But one very, very clear line is: "are you ACTUALLY yourself hosting the content"? Because if not, then there's an actual target to shut down. I guess it's like the difference between selling drugs, and saying "you know you can just ask the kids hanging out on the corner of 6th and 8th streets, they'll hook you up." Whether that latter shows criminal conspiracy or whatever, it doesn't really matter - you can actually just shut down the kids, you don't have to shut down the free speech around it or judge mens rea.. . .

icebraining 10y ago

I don't think reproduction is a good line at all; HN could still be guilty if someone posted an unlicensed copyrighted work (say, a news article). Intention and knowledge is the best dividing line, in my opinion, and courts certainly take it into account. HN blindly reproduces what people post, whereas the link in question was posted by the site editors themselves - that's a clear distinction, and in fact many lawsuits (in the US) were based on it. I do disagree with the court's decision to presume that any publication for financial gain is done with knowledge of the copyright status, though.

jacquesm 10y ago
> I don't think reproduction is a good line at all; HN could still be guilty if someone posted an unlicensed copyrighted work (say, a news article). There are 100's of these on HN already. Just a few samples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10862279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10862279
- icebraining 10y ago
  Yes. If HN had no Safe Harbour protection, it could be sued to oblivion for those infringements.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
When they said copying was what should be seen as the line I assumed that was within the framework of current Western laws, so things like intent (mens rea) are a given.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 10y ago
  IANAL, but it seems they are saying that the financial gain shows mens rea.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    are you and your parent referring to me by "they" (as a gender-neutral term)? What I meant with my comment is that a pretty clear example of copyright would be, for example, hosting and including the copyrighted content. (If the content is literally on the hosting server - posting full text is obviously an example of this. Hosting full images is another example.) A less clear example would be hotlinking. (So that the pictures are loaded and shown by the browser, and it appears to be part of the article, but is in fact an offsite image anchor.) An even less clear example would be a URL link. That is what we're reading about. But What if it's not clickable? (hxxp:// whatever(dot) whatever - replace hxxp with http and (dot) with . -- what then?) An even less clear example is telling you explicitly what Google search to search for, and how you can know that you've found it. (e.g. words like "Search Google for leaked playboy pictures from 2011, and click on the first link, which should be a site named after a fish." - I'm making this up.) But a less clear example still would be "It's easy to find. Just search for [vague reference but one that is clear enough]" So you want to use the standard of "mens rea." How can we REALLY judge what someone's reason might be? For example, it could be that the real reason to report on something is so that interested readers might find it. Example: "The Pirate Bay is now hosting the entire (name something)". It could be that the primary reason to say that is that it provides people information that they can immediately use to start infringing the copyright of (something). But what if it's couched in any other report? "What the fact that the pirate bay is hosting (something) says about democracy and our copyright laws"? Should that be an illegal post to make? You understand what I'm saying. It's an extremely slippery slope. But one very, very clear line is: "are you ACTUALLY yourself hosting the content"? Because if not, then there's an actual target to shut down. I guess it's like the difference between selling drugs, and saying "you know you can just ask the kids hanging out on the corner of 6th and 8th streets, they'll hook you up." Whether that latter shows criminal conspiracy or whatever, it doesn't really matter - you can actually just shut down the kids, you don't have to shut down the free speech around it or judge mens rea.. . .