|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> Some random person is browsing the internet, and clicks on a link. The link
> happens to point to, let's say, a youtube video which contains an entire
> copyrighted song. This person does not realize that he is now illegally
> downloading a copyrighted song.
I've never heard of anyone getting sued for downloading a file. I've heard
of people getting sued for *sharing* a file. I think this article is
confusing "downloading" with "sharing", and they keep switching back and
forth between the two. "They send notices to file sharers" followed by "for
every illegal download...."
Technically, the person who requests the copy be made (i.e., the person
clicking the link) is the person who is responsible for copying. In
practice, if you sued someone for downloading from youtube, you'd be pulling
youtube into the lawsuit also, as they were engaged in making the content
available (the "contributory infringement" bit).
I think this is where copyright law needs to get fixed up, tho. Once you add
automation into the process, how responsible can you hold the person who
automated things? If the source for Windows7 winds up propagating through
Net News, who is responsible for a copy winding up on every machine? If the
thief only posted it to his ISP's news server once, how many copies did he make?
The way these places work is they look at a tracker, figure out who is
seeding, pull the entire song down from that one seed, then some human
checks that it really is the entire song, *then* they send out the lawyers.
At least that's what I've read of it.
> If these companies would have their way, it would soon be impossible to
> use a web browser for anything because you could have a lawsuit in your
> hands just by going to some website.
That's why we don't have laws quite *that* f'ed up.
> could even get jailed because they browsed the wrong blogs and they don't
> have money to pay for the extortion.
We aren't supposed to be sending people to jail for inability to pay civil
fines. (I think I read a whole bunch of outrage about it happening to one
person, but it's certainly not normal.)
> At the same time the real criminals, the ones who do it intentionally and
> for profit, will be undeterred. They know how to use anonymizers, they know
> how to mask their IP addresses, they know how to get around the vigilantes.
Well, other than the Pirate Bay. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |