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> _Your_ efficiency tools should not make _my_ actions more illegal. Why would you expect that to be an invariant in the legal system? Your actions take place

> _Your_ efficiency tools should not make _my_ actions more illegal. Why would you expect that to be an invariant in the legal system? Your actions take place in the context of the world; the context should affect how someone judges your actions. The key point is whether you personally know (and if the prosecution can show it) that providing a link is tantamount to allowing someone to easily download it.

Dylan16807 10y ago
Context matters, but we should only take links so far. Otherwise we ban all ISPs for facilitating piracy. They even encourage people going to youtube and watching illegally uploaded videos!
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  That's why there is explicit safe harbor protection for ISPs. The safe harbor doesn't come for free, it requires affirmative action on the ISP or Youtube's part to take down content that they know is illegal. Any hypothetical torrent-sharing site could take advantage of that protection as well, as long as it followed those take-down provisions.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    ISPs don't generally have to take down anything, at least not in the US. Power companies and roads facilitate a whole lot. Zero legal responsibility there. You could make a pretty good argument that a road is responsible for quite a large proportional facilitation when drugs are bought.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      Yes, but power companies and roads by and large facilitate legal activity, whereas sharing links to copyrighted content don't. If you hypothetically ask me to make you a cup of coffee and it helps you stay awake so you can go commit a murder, I shouldn't be going to jail for that, unless my intent was to help you commit murder; and even then, I probably didn't help you very much. On the other hand, if you come to me and ask me for the number of a local hitman, I should have a pretty good idea that I'm aiding and abetting in something illegal.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        I think the problem there is more that you talked to me about finding hitmen, even if I didn't help. If I merely let you access my directory of all the people in town sorted by job, there probably wouldn't be an issue. A search engine is not a human. It can't be expected to preemptively filter out suspicious results. Google certainly doesn't. In the end I just don't think it's right to shut down a site because of its userbase. We don't shut down roads when most of their traffic is criminals. And there's nothing inherently illegal about torrent search engines.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        > We don't shut down roads when most of their traffic is criminals Do you have an example of a road mostly used by criminals which the relevant authorities aren't trying to shut down? One where the criminals aren't actively bribing the authorities, obviously.

Dylan16807 10y ago

Context matters, but we should only take links so far. Otherwise we ban all ISPs for facilitating piracy. They even encourage people going to youtube and watching illegally uploaded videos!

smallnamespace 10y ago
That's why there is explicit safe harbor protection for ISPs. The safe harbor doesn't come for free, it requires affirmative action on the ISP or Youtube's part to take down content that they know is illegal. Any hypothetical torrent-sharing site could take advantage of that protection as well, as long as it followed those take-down provisions.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  ISPs don't generally have to take down anything, at least not in the US. Power companies and roads facilitate a whole lot. Zero legal responsibility there. You could make a pretty good argument that a road is responsible for quite a large proportional facilitation when drugs are bought.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Yes, but power companies and roads by and large facilitate legal activity, whereas sharing links to copyrighted content don't. If you hypothetically ask me to make you a cup of coffee and it helps you stay awake so you can go commit a murder, I shouldn't be going to jail for that, unless my intent was to help you commit murder; and even then, I probably didn't help you very much. On the other hand, if you come to me and ask me for the number of a local hitman, I should have a pretty good idea that I'm aiding and abetting in something illegal.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      I think the problem there is more that you talked to me about finding hitmen, even if I didn't help. If I merely let you access my directory of all the people in town sorted by job, there probably wouldn't be an issue. A search engine is not a human. It can't be expected to preemptively filter out suspicious results. Google certainly doesn't. In the end I just don't think it's right to shut down a site because of its userbase. We don't shut down roads when most of their traffic is criminals. And there's nothing inherently illegal about torrent search engines.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        > We don't shut down roads when most of their traffic is criminals Do you have an example of a road mostly used by criminals which the relevant authorities aren't trying to shut down? One where the criminals aren't actively bribing the authorities, obviously.