A court in Dallas, Texas has found a website operator liable for copyright infringement because his site linked to an 'audio webcast' without permission. Observers have criticised the judge for failing to understand the internet. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/23/texas_court_bans_deep_linking/ Interesting judgement. The judge ruled that the guy was breaking copyright because he linked directly to a media file. This makes me laugh, the guy obviously does not understand how these things work. will it get overturned?
Was he displaying the content as his? If so, maybe the judge made the correct decision? Wouldn't that be the equivelent of hotlinking or scraping?
Of course it will. I'll wager a cold beer on this next time you're in the Copenhagen area City courts are always good for stupid actions! Quote me on this /miko67
This is all nice hear say. Anyone got an actual court ruling or case file? Hell, even a news article is due here if we're gonna actually discuss this with some degree of fact. Never mind, I totally missed it.
OK, IMO, Davis was dealt with correctly. His use of the term "link" is purposfully confusing. The Judge got it right. IMO this is also good for all of us. Not bad. But there are plenty of content thieves that will try and make this out to be bad. That has already started.
It was slightly dodgy sounds like hotlinking using someone else's media to benefit his visitors, using someone elses material and bandwidth = not good. He should have linked to the pages.
Read the article, he's guilty - the guy who sued was a moron - but the guy who posted it is guilty Here's why. Yes, he only linked to the material. so one could make the argument that he was just pointing traffic to the other guy's site. But when the link was clicked it opened a windows media window and played the file. To me, that is about the same as "linking" to one of my images using: <img src="http://www.yourdoman/pciture.jpg"> Now, the guy who sued was an idiot because he missed a great opportunity to sell advertising for his or anyone else's products DURING the video. AND he didn't do a good job of protecting his video source. BUT! The judge is still right in my opinion.
Bingo! The days of throwing around internet terms like "link" and "deep link" as if no one gets it and you can make a fool of them are over. The statements made by the industry professionals in the article are appalling to me. This was not a "deep link", this was a hot link and data theft.