Hello. There is a whole business revolving around creating sites to watch TV shows online - both general and niche (revolving around a single TV show). Just see the TV show discussion thread. There are debates about the legality of this business (considering the owner of the site does not host the files themselves, but merely links or embeds them from other video sharing sites like Megavideo.com, zShare.net and others), and there have been numerous lawsuits where the copyright owner (big media companies like ABC, FOX, Universal) have won and the owner of the infringing site going to jail. We may assume that it's kind of "gray area" business. But there are still literally thousands of sites to watch TV shows and movies online (just check Sidereel.com's links) that go under the radar, because they are considered as "small fish". What if I myself am running such a site and want to advertise it with AdWords with ads like "Watch [TV Show] Online", "Missed [TV Show] Last Night? Watch it Here!", etc? Will this add as evidence against me in a potential lawsuit? Will AdWords allow such ads at all or do they not care? Regards!
Would a commercial ad be used as evidence against you in a contributory copyright infringement action? Absolutely.
The only reason other sites get away with it is because they are able to claim ignorance, basically. If you are advertising the fact that you know you are hosting their copyrighted material on their site, they can take you down and then some.
Just owning and operating the site alone is a legal nightmare. I wouldn't even consider it. I personally wouldn't fuck with those big networks, they're the first to pursue trademark/copyright infringement.
just make sure you put private registration on the domain name and dont host any of the actual videos on your own servers
Did you know that the network can submit a request to the registrar and get your information, even if it is private? From what I see, the OP wants to create a website that would breach copyright and thus could result in a law suit. So yes, creating such a website is illegal. Unless you have millions of dollars to pay in damages to the networks, I wouldn't do it
A private registration is useless in a legal dispute. The true owner will be disclosed to the other party. Not hosting the videos won't get you out of legal trouble - just linking, not even embedding, is contributory infringement.
Thank you all guys for the input. I know this business is not to be messed with. Just out of curiosity: what if a person puts in fake Whois details? They can still get the real owner's IP and eventually his ISP will reveal who stands behind that IP, but will that be enough to put the person in jail and pay the money? For example, the owner can claim that he did not upload, nor operated the website, but his computer was hacked or hijacked by malicious software (for silent remote controlling).
That's not somewhere you want to go. First, they will get the details of who paid for the domain and the IP of that person. They can get payee information of any advertising programs you are using on the site (and that alone is going to be enough to find you guilty). That will eventually lead right to the individual. As far as claiming they did not operate or upload the information, that is a common defense of people caught with child porn. The cost of trying to prove that it wasn't you who did it is a massive undertaking and can cost over $50K - and that's if you didn't do it. It's not going to work if you really did it - especially in a civil trial vs. a criminal one where the burden of proof is much less. Even if were somehow able to win at trial, you are going to be out massive legal fees (which you do not get to recover).
My company goes after squatters all the time. Private reg is meaningless - if someone is violating your trademark, your corporate counsel can simply file a complaint with the registrar and the person is forced to reveal the information. Fake WHOIS = the worst thing you can do. You'll be forced to provide the proper info or else [ICANN comes down on you]. We've reported scammers with fake WHOIS info many times.