Hello, If I had some posts on a forum which linked to a few warez downloads. Would that be enough to get in trouble with the law and get my hosting shut down? (Hosted in USA).
Yes you could get a DMCA notice and your host would be forced to take down your site. It is unlikely, but still possible that you could be held criminally or civilly liable for anything beyond that but it is still possible. Just remove the offending links/posts and you should be fine.
i wouldnt think the site get shut down cause they cant be responsible for the actions of others..but i dont know
It doesn't matter who posts the offending material. If you are hosted in the US and allow links to download copyrighted material to be posted on your forum then you are liable. The most likely recourse that will be taken against you a DMCA shutdown notice or having the copyright owners email you and ask you to take down the offending links.
Smaller private sites can generally fly under the radar without anyone noticing. Bigger sites are generally hosted offshore which gives the owners some legal protection. Unfortunately even then it is risky business. If the porn is copyrighted the same rule applies, although it is much less likely someone is going to go after you over it.
For example projectw.org is hosted in USA, contains tons of copyrighted materials and it's pretty big. How came it has not been closed by the studios and copyright owners yet?
well if its only linking then its not hosted on you ! so you should be good however if it is uploaded onto your server (only admin can do that) then there may be bad stuff
Well, the Morons in the US still consider it illegal. But, as long as you are careful, you probably wont get caught. -Ryu
There are a ton of sites out their that have warez, it's likely the copyright lawyers just haven't got to them yet. From the perspective of the copyright owner it needs to be worth their time and money to file a lawsuit and carry it out over several years which is a very expensive process.
If I understand your question—you are linking in a forum to illegal files that you are hosting on a US-based server—then yes, your hosting could be shut down. In my experience you might get a warning first, but not always, and depending on what you are sharing the copyright holder can certainly go after you for "piracy". Good luck, and be careful out there!
No, even linking is illegal in USA. A lot of sites are shut down with the excuse of spreading illegal activities. Why do you think even the biggest torrent tracker The Pirate Bay was closed for a while and had to move to Sweden, even tough it doesn't host the files, but just "link" to the computer they are hosted using the torrent protocol.
Warez-linking is logically moral. I mean, come on you are not hosting something on your own server. But even then you might be liable for Piracy. Better host your forum on an offshore site and dont post anything with the member status of Owner or prolly Admin..
99.9% of the time warez sites link to file sharing sites like rapidshare or uploaded.to which are based in countries that don't have strict laws like in the US. In these cases, trying to file a DMCA is not going to be effective - they are under no obligation to take action. However, most of them offer an abuse service and a quick email to them and they remove the offending content. Since the files are not hosted on the warez sites, the host is not obliged to take down the site, even if you file a DMCA because the offending files are not even on their server. I know all this because we hire someone full time to contact the file sharing sites and file DMCA notices :/