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> for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that If it's a peer-to-peer str
by panarky 6y ago
> for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that
If it's a peer-to-peer streaming service where media consumers also serve media to other users, then the argument could be made that users themselves are providing the "digital transmission service".
There may not even be an identifiable, centralized "platform".
- toyg 6y ago> has no commercially significant purpose or use other than to publicly perform works protected This seems tailored to kill PopcornTime.
- grishka 6y agoIsn't PopcornTime free software, which means it has no commercially significant anything? Or is it meant to be read has no (commercially significant purpose) or (use)?
- toyg 6y agoPopcornTime definitely has a commercially significant purpose, even if it’s free: it provides unrestricted access to large amounts of copyrighted material that has undisputed commercial value.
- tinus_hn 6y agoYou could use PopcornTime for showing copyright-free videos, they exist
- toyg 6y agoThe fact that one has to point out that they exist at all, is indicative of how popular or significant they are on that platform.
- dylan604 6y agoOr how popular they are NOT depending on your viewpoint
- pseudalopex 6y agoThat's why it says commercially significant.
- lemonspat 6y agoBut is that "digital transmission service" run "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain"? I agree with your theory, but not sure why you removed the qualifier from your theory. This seems more targeted to PopcornTime than bittorrent
- panarky 6y agoGetting media for free is "private financial gain".
- rkachowski 6y agohow so? you don't gain financially by receiving free media in any form, at best you avoid a monetary cost.
- onion2k 6y agoYou're getting something that you'd otherwise have to pay for. That is legally considered a financial gain, even if it doesn't hold up to pedantic linguistic scrutiny. Legal definitions are often different to everyday language.
- knowhy 6y agoIn Germany that is already the case. Streaming is "ok" here for the consumer whereas torrenting is illegal and practically dead by now. The legal argument is that you are distributor when using peer to peer. Under German law it doesn't matter if that is done for profit or not.
- Asooka 6y agoCould this be used to make torrenting a felony then? In the case that you're sharing a commercial work, obviously. You sharing a torrent is essentially you providing a service (being in the swarm, sending chunks), which exists entirely and only to infringe one or several copyrighted works (the files in the torrent).
- panarky 6y agoThe prosecution might need to demonstrate that you knew you were serving copyrighted works to others. Your defense might be that you thought you were only a user, not a dealer with intent to distribute. And then the prosecution will enter this HN comment into evidence, proving that you knew exactly what you were doing.