15 April 2012

And Now They Are Claiming that Hyperlinking is Infringement

This is not about making money, This is about seizing control of how we discuss any form of media:
The Motion Picture Association of America is squaring off against a coalition of Internet giants and public interest groups over the key question of whether it's possible to directly infringe copyright by embedding an image or video hosted by a third party.

A federal judge took that position last July, prompting a chorus of criticism. Two briefs—one by Google and Facebook, the other by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge—attacked the decision as contrary to past precedents and potentially disruptive to the Internet economy. They asked the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn it.

Last week, the MPAA joined the fray with a brief in support of Illinois federal judge John F. Grady's ruling. It urged the Seventh Circuit not to draw a legal distinction between hosting content and embedding it. In the MPAA's view, both actions should carry the risk of liability for direct copyright infringement.

The case arose from a dispute over Internet pornography. MyVidster is a video bookmarking site that allows users to save links to their favorite videos and share them with others. The site supports embedding, so bookmarked videos can be viewed on a myVidster page surrounded by myVidster ads.
This is technical, but there is primary and secondary infringement, and the burden of proof is lower, and the penalties are higher, for the former.

If you extend primary infringement to embedding, which is practically indistinguishable from hyperlinks, then expect a full assault on hyperlinks, and if they win on this, the internet becomes another corporate walled garden.

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