Does anyone know what happened to tv-link.com owner? What was the court verdict? Does anyone know the exact section of the law he broke? And finally... If i post a rapidshare link containing a pirated file on my forum/blog am i also in danger of getting done for this? What the current situation on linking to pages/websites containing pirated material? Thanks a lot guys!
As far as I know, there has been no verdict or settlement yet. It's only been a few months. A case like this could takes years. As far as what laws he broke, what they really got him on was the movie links that were poosted that lead to movies that were video taped in the theater and ripped from pre-release versions. The law broken would be contributory infringement. The problem with this site is that it was not broad enough. Okay, the owner did not host files. The owner's did not generally submit the links. However, given the name of the site and the directory structure of the site (broken out by genre and series) there is no way that the owner could not know that the primary purpose that the site would be used for would be illegal files. I have also read that reported links were not removed as requested, but I have also read that they were. I have not read either from a reputable source though. The site was specifically geared towards tv shows and movies. Had the site had a more general purpose and responded quickly to removing content, he probably wouldn't have had issues. YouTube gets away with it because they host any file without focusing any topic. In theory, tv-links would have linked to any torrent, but the focus was on copyrighted material. That was the mistake. When your site says, submit links for files of your favorite show it doesn't matter if you say in your ToS not to link to infringing files. Linking to files that are infringing is illegal. Linking to the main page of a site (say like piratebay) is not.
I have been following this case somewhat, since the demise of TV-Links, hurt my site. I was the recipient of lots of googleers who were looking for TV-Links and fell into my site. Anyway, the site was located in England. I am not sure how English law differs from U.S. law. There are certainly lots of other sites similar to TV-Links, and so far they are still up and running. It is an iffy business proposition, but it does draw crowds of visitors. Rich
Drugs draw crowds of visitors. That doesn't mean it is a sound business plan. English law is very similar to US law except that it is a little less strict than the US. Copyright lasts for a shorter period of time. The period also varies a little for different types of works. Also, the UK does not have an official registration system, and unlike the US, they suggest mailing a sealed copy to yourself as one method to provide evidence in court.
Thanks guys! Some good information. Also, what if i buy a server in Russia for example? Am i still going to be at risk because i live in UK?
I couldn't say for sure about the UK, but in the US it does not matter where your servers are. It matters where you are. In fact, some courts will take the off-shore hosting as evidence that you knew the activity was illegal and tried to circumvent the law.
It was a site in the UK that linked to torrent files of movies and tv shows. The site did not host the files or the torrents. Near the end of 2007 the police arrested the owner and several moderators of the system.
how about YouTube videos.. a lot of them a copyright infringing.. but the links are readily available.. YouTube almost encrourages people to get links.. so what all those sites that show YouTube videos are in danger too?
There are several differences between the two (YouTube and tv-links). One, YouTube responds quickly by removing copyrighted material when notified (even helps to find the offenders). From what I have read, tv-links did not. Two, YouTube actually has agreements with some of the copyright holders. TV-links did not. Three, YouTube is all user generated content and the site does not actively encourage copyright infringement. Some of the links on tv-links were posted by the team operating the site, and the whole premise (link to your favorite show/movie) screams copyright infringement. If you use videos from YouTube that are infringing, then it is possible that you could get in trouble. Much more likely though is either you would be contacted by the copyright holder and asked to remove it or they would contact YouTube and your link would go dead. Just be smart and don't embed obviously infringing material.
thanks, I figured it was one of those sites. I would never even attempt to create one of those sites - way too risky
how about all those site that show favorite shows - this one for example: www.allsp.com does this site can get in trouble too?
I invite you to look at Sidereel.com and Tioti.com. These two are legit, funded companies, that are doing the same thing that TV links was doing.
Grokster and Napster were legitimate funded companies and they were shut down by the courts. Sidereel is owned in the US, so it is definately subject to US law. That site may try to get protection as a search engine, but it won't hold up once it goes to court because they actively encourage you to use the system to find new movies and tv shows. I didn't find anything about them having any deals with the studios, and unless they do it is just a matter of time before they get taken down too, and all those investors lose the money they put into it. Tioti is owned out of London. Tv-links is the first case. I fully expect that if tioti becomes as well known as tv-links that it will share the same fate.
If you call having your house raided, spending some days in jail, having your site shut down, and your servers rifled through getting away with it, then I guess nothing happened to him. What really happened is that FACT tried to overreach and charged the owner with unsustainable charges. Had they simply charged him with copyright infringement he would still be in hot water. At best, all this will do is spurn Parliment to make changes to existing law to make this a clear violation. All these types of sites do is cause governments that are comprised of older individuals that don't understand the internet to want to place more and more restrictions on it. These sites that claim they are fighting for "freedom" through the act of theft are only going to cause more and more restriction. The plus side here in the US, in a couple decades the copyright infringers in jail may out number the people in there for buying small quantities of drugs.
Making these sites illegal would make Google illegal and most of the internet illegal. The onus for who is responsible has to lay in who hosts the video itself. Because the whole internet links to each other. Look at OVGuide. They use a Google custom search to search for video links. So is Google illegal too?
No, because while you can use Google to find infringing material there are five main things that are different between Google and a site like tv-links. One, the majority of what is indexed in Google is not copyrighted. Two, they take steps above and beyond simply removing links at the request of copyright holders (such as not indexing duplicate content) whereas tv-links, from what I have read, barely managed to respond to takedown requests. Three, Google is a general search engine to find anything on the web. Yes, there are methods to find things like videos or mp3s, but those are just a part of the whole, whereas sites like tv-links are exclusively for torrent files of videos/music. Four, Google does point to a lot of copyrighted material, but it tries to link to the actual copyright source, whereas sites like tv-links are intentionally pointing to infringing material not from the source. Five, and this is the big one, intent. Google's intent is to make it easy to find sites like a phone book. tv-links intent was to point people to infringing material. Sure, their disclaimer may have said don't upload links to copyrighted material but it was obviously meant winkingly as on the main page they openly talked about finding and downloading the latest episodes of your favorite tv shows. In your mind you may not see these as different things, but legally speaking there is a world of difference.