Greetings all,I got some concerns I would like to get some feedbacks on as I was curious to, I am planning to start a small porn website where I can just simply provide full length videos of porn videos. There are two ways of doing this: 1) downloading the actual content from another provider and converting it into video then reposting it on the website 2) posting an image of the video, where it links directly to a pornhostprovider (xivdeos,youporn etc), where i can manually upload it there myself. Or another option is posting links to my website of other uploader's videos where it re-directs users to their porn chanel. Any thoughts on these 2 procedures? In terms of legal issues I should be watching out? Thanks in advance
Uploading a video that you do not own is illegal, regardless of whether it is stored on your own website or a 3rd party host. It is up to you whether you want to take that risk. You may be a bit "safer" uploading to a 3rd party because most video hosting sites have procedures for removing infringing content, and the copyright owner is usually content just to get the video taken offline and won't go after the uploader, but that doesn't mean they can't. It's still illegal either way. Linking to videos that you know are uploaded illegally is also illegal, even if you were not the one uploading it. Quite a few people have tried to use the defense that they were only linking to content and not hosting it (such as The Pirate Bay and TV Links), but so far I don't believe this has help up in court. It depends on how a court views the website. Google does not get in trouble for linking to pirated content because their sole purpose is not aiding in piracy (this immunity is only true as long as they comply with all requests to remove links). But if your site exists only to help people find illegal content then you are asking for trouble. You are much better off linking to the original content on the site where it is hosted by the copyright owner. You might even find that some of these companies have affiliate programs and will pay you money if users coming through your links sign up for their site.