I want to start running a website that will allow the visitors to watch movies and tv shows online for free, the only concern here is that I've seen dozen of this sites closed by FBI and also charged with huge fees and as they say some prison time. Before I start this I want to know everything about it, is it only in the US? Do I get the same restrictions if my servers are outside the US? I'm not living in US and I'm not a US citizen. Please do share some information. Thanks in advance.
Contributory infringers provide the materials 2nd parties need to infringe upon a 3rd party and they are just as guilty as the infringing party. I had a case a few years ago where the motion picture industry sued my clients for setting up a site that provided links to movie downloads located on random sites. My clients were in the wrong -- they were contributory infringers.
legally talking you would be at fault but right now people are moving their domains to ".in", ".ch", ".eu" to protect their name and getting servers from EU or Asia (mainly china or russia) and this way US will not be able to interfere with you or your website easily however its NOT recommended to do this, because of what happened to MegaUpload.
She was US citizen, I am from Europe. In my country there isn't a law for that kind of crime. Also I was planing not to use .com domain or server from US.
Yeah, this is why I hate forums these days, you could actually write some facts about the topic being bad idea instead of making useless comments like the one above...
Tbh people don't really care, it's only once your site gets massive that something would happen. Start a site and if it starts getting big sell it before anything happens to you.
Well there is copyright infringement/trademark infringement although your only linking to the content so it's a gray area, I've seen a few cases to do with linking, and almost all of them failed or were dropped due to lack of, but it doesn't mean it's not possible for them to sue you for each violation EVEN if you don't host any of the content, you are providing a way for the company to "lose" revenue even if they get to make up any random number and say we lost XX million due to that link, yet they have not a single way to prove or not prove that it really cost them a single dime in revenue loss but HEY it's a company, why would they lie?(*wink* *wink*)
I think the safest way to build a movie site is get a licence and only show film/TV trailers. So there are ways of creating legit sites without worrying about your site being closed. Follow the rules and it's very simple to make money with affiliate sales from movies sites
It is illegal, but it's not ilegal to provide LINKS to sites where the movies and tv shows are hosted, as long as you don't host the videos yourself.
This is a bummer. I'm halfway done coding a free movies site that links to video hosts. I'm not from the US(Canada), but is still possible for the US to seize my TLD domain even if the servers aren't hosted in the US?
If you are asking if it is possible, then I would say yes. I have no idea if it would happen or not. Personally, I would not spend the time or money on a venture of that type. To much uncertainty about whether or not my time and effort could just be wiped out
Whether your country has specific laws against such contributory infringement or not, the US is currently on a bit of a warpath and extraditing those from other countries to the US for prosecution - current case in point, the owner of TVShack has recently been extradited from the UK to the US for just such a TV streaming site and we do not have a contributory infringement law over here. Even if you claim you have no control over what your users upload, the US will still try to extradite you such as with the ongoing MegaUpload case in New Zealand. Without all these precedents though, it is still not morally ok to make a for-profit site ripping off the work of others. Sharing is one thing, but making money off someone else's hard work is another entirely to be honest.
International Copyright agreements will typically mean that running such a site would be illegal in your country. Many file hosting websites were and are still run in Russia due to the fact that Russia has only recently become a member of WTO (World Trade Organisation) meaning the Russian government now has a larger duty to protect copyrights of WTO members. The kind of site you want to run would be considered illegal and could see you being extradited etc. There remains a few copyright havens (many of which you wouldn't desire to do business in) and I believe for example that Afghanistan currently has no copyright agreement with the USA. I would strongly suggest against running such a website.
This is dangerous territory and I would avoid it all costs. Read a bit about Richard O'Dwyer. He is a UK citizen and any potential crimes were committed in the UK, so the US really should have no jurisdiction over this at all...but that hasn't protected him. The US DOJ is trying to extradite him to the US for trial. http://www.change.org/petitions/ukh...ion-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O'Dwyer
well yeah it isnt legal in any manner since you are providing a way to the visitors to watch the copyrighted content but tbh nobody cares. Thr are thousands of such sites and forums where this linking is done but the problem will arise only when you get too big that you are being noticed too much by feds like in case of megaupload and tvshack. tv shack was the biggest online streaming site for tv shows and movies and megauplaod was most popular file hosting and streaming also(megavideo) If you are planning for that level with millions of visitors daily traffic then you could run into trouble otherwise all you will get is DMCA notices to which you'll have to respond to keep your site up. thats all