Copyright Infringement Question

Hi,

Copyright Infringement because of links from bookmarking site?
Is this even possible?
I read this http://www.wikihow.com/Sue-for-Copyright-Infringement
and don't see information about linking on Internet.

 

I think what you are trying to ask is, "Is linking to someone illegal?" IMO, "it depends". If the material linked to is illegal in some way, then it might be considered illegal by courts (helping to facilitate copyright infringement, for example). Otherwise, if the links are to legitimate material then it shouldn't be a problem.

If you live within the EU, see:
http://www.keanelegal.com/2014/latest-news/ecj-hyperlink-website-does-not-infringe-eu-copyright/

(The ruling should be valid EU-wide.)

Anyway, best to see a lawyer/solicitor if you are very worried about it.

 

Two years ago someone posted some links
examples:

http://arrisweb.com/besoplex/basoplex_lip_plumper
http://arrisweb.com/does_lumatonework/lumatone_reviews

Code (markup):

I think linking site is legal.

It seems that I am not only one
http://www.dailydot.com/business/seo-spammers-shameless-lawyer-threats/

 

Ignore such morons. It is yet another idiotic trend in SEO, to use legal threats. Why they do not ask politely in the first place. You can leave the links without a problem. Personally, if anyone threatened me, I would not remove links.

 

I have an old "hobby" website that has been up and running since 1999, though I have not edited it in ten years or more. It gets some traffic and I have a free newsletter associated with it. Anyway, when I first launched it, it was "cool" to link to other sites and I exchanged links with a number of related, somewhat related, and even really unrelated (but cool) sites. It actually has pretty good search engine results in the niche probably due to age (certainly not due to freshness of content.) However, I occasionally get frantic emails from a site that I linked to years ago indicating that they bought some new SEO software and it is telling them that my linking to their website is hurting their rankings. No one has threatened me legally over this as of yet but I immediately remove their link from the page when I get such a request. Despite this, I still get inquiries from webmasters/SEO types asking me to link to their websites which I have ignored for years and years. Not sure where the whole linking thing is going, anyway, but one of these days, I will just take down the whole page.

 

It's understandable, if you take in too much from the forums and blogs, it's all nuts. But it's just some people behaving nuts. If you look at Google's position over the years the linking situation is the same as ever: as long as you're not trying to manipulate rankings/PR, then you are fine. The problem is that these people who spammed like mad are now often the ones creating all this FUD, hysteria, etc, about links. Also, some companies just see an opportunity and capitalise on it. Just like war is good for the arms business, so is FUD in SEO. If there was more objectively than emotional reaction due to hurt feelings (when sites rankings are lost, some people take it far too personally), there would be less problems. But some people got too used to this period of spam-the-hell-out-of-a-site-and-rank and now feel it's a God-given-right that Google has taken away.

Some people running a website just aren't really capable of running a business (after all, that is exactly what it is - a business, irrespective of the fact it is not a physical one); it requires a calm, analytical and objective head to be able to get through the bad times (or avoid them in the first place).

 

Generally speaking, linking to a site is not copyright infringement. But if they copy the content of the page then it is infringement.

Wikipedia has a good overview of court cases regarding the legality of links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyri...ming#History_of_copyright_litigation_in_field

 

Linking to a site infringing on copyrights can be considered "contributory infringement" in the USA and possibly other countries. The United States is a lawsuit happy nation because filing lawsuits costs lawyers very little money and due to the costs of fighting a lawsuit, usually results in an out-of-court settlement in which the lawyer makes money for doing little work other than filing some court papers.

If you had a website that linked to infringed videos such as on Youtube, for example, you could potentially be held liable for contributory infringement.

What is particularly disturbing to me is that lawsuits are now being filed against people who unknowingly view copyrighted material. German viewers of videos on an adult tube site got letters demanding payment for watching videos that were allegedly uploaded without the copyright holder's permission. Some of the adult tube sites purchase content and in other cases copyright holders will upload teaser clips in an attempt to drive sales. It is impossible for any viewer to know which videos are infringed and which ones are not.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ermans-legal-warning-letters-copyrighted-porn

 

I find it interesting these doodle sites want their links removed...how about authority sites?
Even they had to get their links from some place, are they sending out millions of emails
in desperate attempt to get their low quality links removed? I think not, but if you are a doodle
site, its like remove my link, remove my link, you are hurting my seo, bla, bla, bla...
besides, it is only coursety to remove a link on request, unless the link contributes to
something illegal, otherwise, you are under no obligation to remove legal links, at least
not that I am aware of. Google says jump, you say how high....Is google willing to
remove the low quality trash that link to them, hell no, but if they link to you, its a problem....