Judge Rules Against Deep-Linking of Content 418
An anonymous reader writes "A Texas judge has ruled that, if a copyright owner objects to the linking of content from another web site, that link must be taken down. This case, which may have some far-reaching implications, centered around a motorcross website. The site, run by a Robert Davis, provided links directly to live feeds of 'Supercross' events streaming from the SFX Motor Sports site. The company filed suit, claiming that the direct links were denying it advertising revenue. The article cites previous cases, where sites were prohibited by judges from linking to files which violated copyright law (such as DVD decryption software). From the article: 'But in those lawsuits, the file that was the target of the hyperlink actually violated copyright law. What's unusual in the SFX case is that a copyright holder is trying to prohibit a direct link to its own Web site. (There is no evidence that SFX tried technical countermeasures, such as referrer logging and blocking anyone coming from Davis' site.)'"
cites != sites! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Something Awful is screwed (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm not worried. You should be, though. Leonard J. Crabs is always watching, watching and waiting....
The Internet is fine (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you are over-reacting and ignoring numerous prior precedents. The practice is known as Deep Linking and claiming the technical tricks to block such practices mean its OK to do so is liek claiming Spamming through open relays is ok because there are RBL's that might be able to block it.
This decision in no way forbids linking to deep links, it merely affirms the owner of said targets the right to say "stop".
Analogies are great; everyone should have one (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's say the painter has constructed a maze, that anyone can enter for free. To get to the place to view the painting, one must follow a number of signs that provide directions through the maze. Those signs also have advertising placed on them, such that people viewing those signs might see the ads. Now one person takes the time to walk through the maze and writes down the sequence of turns to make it to the picture; left, straight, right, right, straight. This person then makes copies of those instructions and stands outside the entrance to the maze and offers those instructions to others, effectively allowing them to not look at the maze's directions or ads.
That's a deep link; it gets you to a specific point without having to navigate the intermediate links yourself. If those intermediate points contain ads, then you might not see them. The final links on the plantiff's website seem to be direct links to the audio files, much as the defendant has been accussed of publishing. In the end, the act of listening is the same; if this was a matter of embedded audio with ads on the page, I agree the photograph analogy would be a better fit, since it would be changing the context of presentation of the copyrighted work.
Re:Sit down kids and let me tell you a bed time st (Score:3, Interesting)
Waaa! My business model is flawed. Please Mr. Judge, make him stop!
If they really want to be serious about selling ad space and making money off it - the ads go IN the movie. Yeah it's more work, but I can promise you can charge more and avoid this problem. Oh - you just wanted little links for people to click on eh? Don't really care if the people want the product or not, so long as the odd one clicks and gets you some revenue? And you expected to finance your bandwidth this way? Flawed business model... come back when you grow up a bit.
It's like the guy who complains that no one bought his tickets to the baseball game - the one that was held in the public park, with no fence around it or anything. Sure, arrest all those "thieves" who are watching the game for free - how dare they?
Re:Torn here (Score:3, Interesting)
An analogy is a tool to present an idea in a more understandable and universal light. It is, IMHO, unfortunate when an analogy presents something incorrectly, as it gives people the wrong idea about the issue.
Now that I think about it, TFA actually never mentioned anything about how these links were presented. If it is more like my example, where the neighbor tells someone to look at the Christmas decoration, then, the plaintiff has no case, IMO. If it is more like your example, then at least they have an argument.
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
A link isn't a copy of the information it links to. A link is instructions for where to find someone else's server that is willing to give you the information. Outlawing links is like outlawing giving directions.
No, it's not quite that simple. Things like frames make it easy to be deceptive with links. Let's toss out everything we know about physics for a second and consider this scenario:
Suppose I have a brick and mortar store. Because I am an alien who has total control over spacetime, I am able to embed the spacetime of a local Walmart inside my own store. When a customer walks into my store, they see Walmart and cheerfully do their shopping there. But in order to get in/out of Walmart, they have to go through MY STORE. This gives me the opportunity to sell things to them. And my store will have WAY more customers coming through (because of the Walmart) than it would have had otherwise. Basically, I am capitalizing on the success of Walmart because I am able to "embed" a Walmart into my own store.
Linking external content deceptively into a frame on your own website is pretty much the same thing. People are lead to that site by the content (which isn't mine), and even though their primary interest is in the other person's content, they are still AT MY SITE and I can still benefit financially from that.
Having said all this, I do not like this judge's ruling.
The logical next step. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What is unusual in this case is... (Score:1, Interesting)
Call it whatever you want; content posted on the web is addressed by URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) which are basically address cards. When you make a piece of content publicly available, assigning it a URL and letting the public download it, you have no right demanding legal restitution or restraint when someone actually hands out that address.
"If I take him to court instead, then he has legal costs for defense, legal costs for any damages awarded, a court order preventing him from further leeching (and jail time if I catch him violating it), and I don't have to deal with the cost issues of 100 false positives a day."
Yes, good for you -- you've saved your business money, and simultaneously exploited a technically ignorant legal system to subvert the fundamental basis of the Internet.
The "legal route" is not an alternative to be casually chosen whenever you desire something. And in this case, it's not even slightly legitimate.