Swedish Man Fined For Posting Links To Online Video Feeds 252
hcs_$reboot writes with a snippet from TechDirt (citing TorrentFreak): "Over in Sweden, it appears that a guy has been fined for linking to an online broadcast of a hockey game. We've heard stories of people getting in trouble merely for linking to unauthorized content, but this story is even more ridiculous. The guy wasn't linking to unauthorized content. He was linking to an online video feed from the official broadcaster, Canal Plus. The issue was that Canal Plus was apparently technically incompetent in how they set up the feeds, and never intended to make the feeds public."
Similar thing in Germany (Score:5, Informative)
A map provider sold subscriptions. However their system was a joke. After logging in you would get a URL to the map you wanted. You could pass this URL to non-subscribers and it would work. The map company then sued some real estate company that gave those links to its clients for copyright infringement ... and won.
Security-by-law-suit is the new security-by-obscurity.
Arrggh! (Score:4, Informative)
It's things like this which will make it so much more likely that I would bother to post such a link in the future --- after firing up Tor, of course!
Without the constant whining of Big Content getting on my nerves (and ruining the legal system), I probably wouldn't bother.
Re:What constitutes unauthorized access? (Score:1, Informative)
> This begs a second question
No, it doesn't.
Re:Damn it Sweden! (Score:1, Informative)
Right on. And now it turns out USA has been spying on Swedish (Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, ...) soil without permission and against the law.
Cause of concern? No, "it's a friendly superpower so it's OK" says the Swedish government and nods with pupils as big as golfballs.
Swedish independence is a fucking joke. The Swedish government are satraps, doing whatever their masters over Atlantic tell them to do. See for example the how the Assange "case" has been and is handled.
USA is playing dirty when it comes to for example competing in the selling of fighter jets. JAS fighter, the pride of Sweden, gets denied markets because of bribery and foul play. And what does Sweden do about it? Do they return the favor? Nope. They say "It's OK! Tell us which part of our nation can we hurt next."
It's pathetic. What's the point of being a sovereign nation if all you ever do is execute commands of others, at the expense of your own well-being.
Re:What is the link? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA, FFS.
It was a sports broadcast, three years ago.
Re:Damn it Sweden! (Score:5, Informative)
the United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of eugenics.
In general, most sterilizations were performed under eugenic statutes, in state-run psychiatric hospitals and homes for the mentally disabled.
over 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states under state compulsory sterilization programs in the United States
though a significant number of sterilizations continued in a few states until the early 1960s
The Oregon Board of Eugenics, later renamed the Board of Social Protection, existed until 1983, with the last forcible sterilization occurring in 1981.
And on a related note the US as late as 1972 poor black men were used in a completely crazy experiment to see how bad their symptoms would get if they weren't told they had syphilis and weren't treated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment [wikipedia.org]
As late as the 1950's the UK still chemically castrated gay people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing [wikipedia.org]
Re:What constitutes unauthorized access? (Score:3, Informative)
Any reference for that? Googling the term primarily brings back references to here...
Re:What constitutes unauthorized access? (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, exactly what kind of a fucking question is that, really?
Rhetorical. It's a super-sarcastic, tognue-in-cheek rhetorical question with a dash of hyperbole to fill out the redonkulous nature of the entire subject matter.
Way to make the opposite point than you intended (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely. One of those costs is rent for a bookstore, and the cost of security measures. If they didn't want people accessing it for free, then they should not have made it publicly available. They could have used SSL, and enforced proper authorization and authentication, but they didn't do that. If I leave my stuff out on the street unprotected, how is someone supposed to know that I will consider it stealing if someone picks it up and takes it home? Do you really think that the police will actually take me seriously when I try to file a theft claim?
Re:What constitutes unauthorized access? (Score:2, Informative)
You analogy is flawed. Websites by default grant access, and is largely unrestricted at least in terms of visiting. I mean, you don't second guess coming onto Slashdot or click on any link, and thinking "omg, this is a for pay site that I'm getting free!" I certainly don't.
The correct analogy is:
You invited the guest in and said, "Hey, feel free to take a look around." Then the guy goes into your master bedroom and rummages through your box of vibrators and other sex toys.
Then you sue him for invading your privacy.
Re:What constitutes unauthorized access? (Score:3, Informative)
If they had a password on the stream and people cracked it or multiple people were sharing an account authorized for only one stream, then yes that would be against the rules.
So in your interpretation "the rules" are whatever a non-governmental organization says they are? We need legal vs. illegal to be clearly defined by government, not ad-hoc rules by each server operator.
The technology makes a few rules simple, clear and universal:
* Anyone can request any URL.
* It's the server's responsibility to secure content.
* Any content served is public, unless it has restrictions in-force.
I think people want to say something like "if you break a lock or do anything tricky, then that's illegal". The US DMCA has enshrined the "breaking the lock" part of that sentiment, but the "do anything tricky" is still at issue. We, meaning Slashdot, can agree that granting bad security measures legal protection is foolish (it's impractical, encourages apathy, threatens free speech and impedes the development of real security) but I think non-technical people are caught by a simple logical error: they're told the intention of the server operator to secure the content after the fact, so guilt seems obvious, even though defining a servers intention has clear rules on the Internet; i.e. the server must enforce restrictions.
Re:What about a concert? (Score:3, Informative)
You're misinformed about how the internet works. The requesting browser _asks_ for content based on a URL. The server provides that content based on the permissions set in the server.
Imagine if you hired a security firm to work the gate at your private party, and told them that you had a bunch of people coming the party, but to only let those people in who came to the gate and asked to come in.
People you didn't know came to the gate, asked to get in, and YOUR security firm let them in based on your instructions. Who's fault is is that people you don't know got in the gate?
There was no hacking, no downed or cut fence. Everybody came in through the door, though they may have not taken the same road to get there as others. Even more importantly, they were let in by the security guard at the front. If you can't hand out tickets, or have the guard check IDs of of a guest list, it's YOUR problem for being an idiot.