What is so "high" about not believing in linking to illegal downloads? Just the opposite...thinking you have a right to do so is pretty arrogant to make that decision with someone else's work, yet be offended when someone scrapes your content, or copies your own work. We all do business in different ways, that is just my opinion, and apparently quite a few courts agree..doesn't mean I'm on a high horse for respecting an artists right to actually sell their work. If you had a software product and I wanted it, I would buy it, not download it from a warez site, and I would think that you would appreciate that so that you can pay your bills and feed your family, and reap the rewards of the hard work to develop it, but I could be wrong, maybe you'll just give it away....some people like to work for free, but I am not going to make that decision for you or the people that you work with that are depending on that product to sell...I have no right to do so. If not stealing, or showing people how to steal, or beat the system, is a high horse, then I guess I am on one. I assume the projects in your sig are open source and creative commons and when you finish them, you will allow other webmasters to copy and use your work for their own financial benefit.
It's not so much that, it's how you "gave" your opinion about others who do. You do what you want to do and leave others to do what they want to do. You came across as extremely arrogant. No one wants to hear that. We're all well aware of how unethical certain practices may be. This thread is about the legality.
No, apparently we are not all aware, and how do you know what "others" want to hear ? Forgive me for thinking it was a discussion that I was welcome to participate in. All these posts do is go around in circles. No one wants to hear the truth, they want to hear about a loop hole. Look around, there are 10 or so posts just like this, and it's the same answer every time. It's illegal, yet it still goes around and around, so forgive me for changing up the conversation a little. Next time I'll run my opinion (in a public forum) by you, to make sure that I am not offending anyone. So you'll have to forgive me for getting upset when I watch people ask the same question over and over again, and in some strange world continue to try and justify it. If you do it, then do it...you know the risk. I don't understand looking for others to justify it when the question has been answered at least 50 times on this forum in the last 2 weeks...and still someone will start a new thread asking all over again. If you have ever had anything stolen, or made public that you didn't intend, because someone decided that the web should be "share and share alike" , you will understand my anger over the issue. Maybe sometimes it's good to hear the other side of the coin, instead of a bunch of guesses about the issue.
And what kind of world would that leave us with?? People know what they are doing is illegal when they try to figure out how to do things without getting arrested.. Wouldn't it make more sense to either a) find something legal and productive to do? or b) go all the way and start selling crack on street corners..
A much better one. I'm not going to argue, but let's not stray from the actual subject of this thread. Crack-cocaine has very, very little to do with grey-areas such as the afore mentioned business.
Live in holland, you cant get done for anything there . But really, as mentioned above, if you don't live in the USA, UK, Australia or Germany then you should be okay as laws are looser on most countries. If you do live in one of those, just stream them or embed them into your site and your fine as long as you don't host the movie yourself.
In theory you should be ok even if you live here (England), but I know they'd still hassle you by sending cease and desist orders, and the like.
U.S server don't even allow illegal or copyrighted linking. Even linking copyrighted material is illegal.
I have seen people who are so called "ethical" watch downloaded movies. Everyone in this world sells something to make money and most of the people oversell themselves or the product they are offering. My point is if it is legal it is also ethical, so if it is legal to host links of movies (not actually hosting them) then i don't see any problem with that. Why doesn't google ban all so called illegal websites from their search ranking... Just my opinion though I may be wrong!
Unfortunately when it comes to business, and money, things don't operate by what you see others do, or what you "feel". It's not a grey area, linking to illegal downloads is also illegal. The myth that if you don't host the material you are not violating any rules has been propagated on the web for a long time and every year hundreds of (U.S.) webmasters find themselves in deep shit for trying to apply personal their beliefs to the law. It's real simple. Everything that can be found on the web is not there for you to take and monetize. If you don't own it, or it is not offered to you by the owner to use...you can't just make up rules and take other peoples stuff, and you are just as guilty of the crime for enabling others to do it. The same rules on the real world apply to the web. It's not any less illegal because you can do it from your living room on a laptop