Thread: Video Sites and The Law

I recently bought a video-related domain name that is scarily similar to one used by a UK guy facing extradition to the US to face trial for providing links to pirated video content such as movies and TV shows. Check out: Sheffield student faces extradition over ‘pirate’ TV Shack website - Main Section - Yorkshire Post

So if you are running a video site, be careful about what you link to or host on the site.

I am surprised that they can go after the guy when he was not actually hosting any pirated or copyrighted videos. It looks like all that he was doing was providing links to the sites.

Yeah, not just him either. Not the best article on these arrests, but:
New Zealand arrests in US led global copyright infringement investigation of Megaupload.com and related sites. | New Zealand Police

Happened the other day across a number of countries....makes you wonder why SOPA is needed if these can all be accomplished without it...

The UK guy was apparently able to exercise a large amount of control over the links and even provoked the authorities with a F*Police kind of message on his home page. And in the photo you can see that he is obscuring a cartoon character as if to suggest censorship as if he is a kind of activist. So I don't think that he is the innocent, introverted person that his parents were suggesting. At the same time, I don't think that the heavy-handed cross-border thing is justified. Just a close down move and warning should be enough IMO.

The Megaupload story is big news already on the web so I didn't link to that. In that case the leader is a serial criminal it seems.

I agree that this is a case of overreach. We have an administration in the US that is desperate for large amounts of campaign funding from the Hollywood goons. That would explain the heavy-handed approach.

On the other hand, he also needs support from the hordes of tech-savvy crowd, so that is why he is against SOPA and supports the Occupy gang. He is trying to play both sides at the same time.

Hi,

I must say I liked this line.

Asked if websites that link to other sites should be open to prosecution, he replied: “I think you should ask Google the same question.”

Sami

The suits can be pretty clueless when it comes to the Internet. I was reading today how an affiliate marketer asked a congressman that was advocating some affiliate marketing tax "can you tell us what is affiliate marketing" and the guy didn't have a clue.

Yeah! sure thanks for your information.

Yes, That's true one has to follow all the rules to run safe website.