Aequitas

I'm obviously not going to be taking any legal advice from you all here but while I wait for the networks to get back to me on a business deal I figured I'd get some opinions on what you think of this.

Lets say you set up a site about a TV show, lets say Heroes or some shit, then on that site you display (Not Host) Full length episodes of that show, the trick here is that you host those videos on a site which doesn't care about copyrights, something like Warez, ect...

So technically all your doing is displaying the show on your site and nothing else, do you think this is illegal, legal, or just shady tactics?.

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Trademark

I have no idea regarding the legality.

I've never much cared whether something was illegal or immoral. Personally, the only thing that's ever mattered is what is to be gained (as a small online business owner, that's typically money, but can extend to brand, rep, etc.) and what is the potential risk (jail, fine, physical ass-beating, etc.).

I've made good money breaking laws for short periods of time. I assume many here have.

Now, if we're talking whether or not to do something because "it just ain't right," I have nothing to add.

Aequitas

Actually I just may have found something that I didn't realize before which would make displaying full length tv shows on my webstites 100% legal. I'll come back to this soon.

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hwy24

It doesnt really matter if its legal or not, the content owner can send a DMCA takedown notice to your host and get it removed. If you read up on the law of these DMCA notices, they strongly favor the copyright owner even if you didnt completely break a law.

Aequitas

Hmm I'll have to look more into that aspect then, I do know that I can easily display such videos on my site without hosting them, basically just like you were displaying a YouTube Video on your site, no difference from what I'm going to be doing, I'm only doing it with a major twist.

Anyone see some of the Free TV Sites poping up all over the place these days, watch free tv online, these sites display full version shows all the time which makes me wonder how they get the rights to do so or how they are not being shut down.

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cashflowrusty

Replace Heroes with kiddie porn.

Is it illegal to display it if you do not host it?

That, yes, I'd say was illegal. Duh!

BUT, find the same Heroes episodes on YouTube and make a site out of those embedded videos, and YOU (currently) would be safe, but YouTube would be responsible...

So, who knows... Frame the ABC/NBC/CBS site or something :-)

turbolapp

I don't know, you do have to wonder if it will eventually go the route of Napster and get shut down and/or modified? I think the legal system just has not had enough time for precedence.

But for now, party on.

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illkity

There is a gray area here for sure.

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Submerge

It's illegal.

Aequitas

Fucking exactly, you see I know of a similar video site like YouTube, exact same shit, they provide me with all the embed codes and shit which means I can display them on my site and the great thing is they are all full versions.

I'm going this route with some sites just for the fact that if I get busted I'll have a much better fighting chance then having the videos hosted on my own site or stealing the bandwidth from an unsespecting site like NBC.com

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illkity

For the most part you are probably safe just linking but there is precedence for being sued just for linking. Do read about Eric Corley aka Emmanuel Goldstein and Universal v. Reimerdes.

hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_v._Reimerdes

EFF: MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) DVD Cases Archive

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Trademark

One thing to keep in mind about the law (at least in the U.S.)...

Nothing is black and white. Nothing. It seems like it should be, but it ain't.

That's why dumbass grannies can sue fast food joints after spilling coffee on themselves, burglars can sue homeowners after tripping over coffee tables in the homes they've broken into and ex-wives can still clean you out despite having a tight prenup.

Unless there's clear precedent, you can get fucked regardless what you think the law implies.

So, you may think you won't be liable if you don't host or you may think only YouTube would be responsible, but you never know how it'll come down.

That's why I only consider the potential costs and benefits of the action, not simply the legality or morality. Frankly, if I knew it'd never come back to me or my family, I'd run guns to the Saudis.

hwy24

we could probably go back and forth on this for years and as others have said, its grey.

Some say its not illegal since you aren't hosting the illegal content yourself. But that is exactly what torrent trackers were doing (just "linking" to it, not actually hosting it) and we have seen those things get shut down one after another.

If you want to try it out on a small scale, you could theoretically try it out. With a prepaid credit card, proxies, etc it would not be easily traceable to you. It would probably not attract much attention, or if anything you and your hosting company would get requested to remove it.

Aequitas

This is a very grey area and thats what pisses me off about this type of things, the lack of laws which cover these things are so far behind its not even funny, lets look at some examples shall we, but be warned this is based upon my experince in this industry.

First the MPAA can be assholes, yes its true they try to twist whats really there I've seen it done by them more times then anything else, they want people to believe that torrents are illegal but they are actually 100% legal.

They are 100% legal because the technology was created for file sharing but it has been twisted and used now mainly for illegal file sharing, now downloading an illegal file like a movie is NOT and i repeat NOT illegal. This is where they scew things for most people.

You are NOT involved in any illegal downloading of a file like a movie until you download a certain amount of that file then it becomes illegal, torrent files are split up into a few thousand very little bits that you download from various people, now these bits can be a 1x1 pixel so basically nothing, this is not copyrighted and it cannot be copyrighted if it were every letter I'm typing now would be considered copyright infringment, now once you download ohh say 10 seconds of a film which shows actuall information then and only then does it become an illegal activity.

Now with that said lets me get back on topic with TV shows online, First the MPAA nor does the television networks care if you are displaying a fraction of a show, this is still illegal and copyright infringing but they don't care because it makes there shows more popular much more quickly, in return they get more viewers when the full show goes mainstream the return for them outweighs attacking people for it but when there entire show is displayed somewhere then they loose capital and then they get pissed.

You see I'm actually drawing a lot of attention to myself in the TV industry right now and this is what makes me a little worried to jump the gun on some of my websites, now I see so many sites out there that are starting to display the full length shows on there sites, this really only started to happen more and more since sites like NBC.com started to allow you to watch there shows on there sites for free even if you don't have cable, in return I think more people think that because they are doing it thats its ok for them to do it, which isn't right because they are the copyright owners. They no longer care if you have a cable connection because they still earn there cash holding you on there site, its a win win situation for them they can reach much more of an audience for there shows.

Now there are websites out there (Legal Ones) which show these shows on there sites for free just like NBC.com and Fox does. What I'm trying to do is break into that legal factor some more but it seems not to many people like to share how they are getting away with it and for good reason, it saves the market from being flooded.

How I'm drawing attention to myself on this is because I'm actually been trying to gain a business relationship with NBC, FOX, and the CW, my goals are to simply legally display full version shows on my websites, but and here is the real trick, I don't want to display them after they aired, I want to display them the second they air on TV and that is a real challenge because me being a smaller guy trying to influence the bigger guys to give you a deal just doesn't work out as well as you'd like sometimes but I think with perseverance I can pull it off, well hopefully.

Anyway another little example and some information I found out about how Google feels about illegal items, mainly torrents, you see the Adsense team tells me that its illegal to have adsense on your site if you link to a page in which hosts a torrent to download and in return that torrent points to an illegal file like a copyrighted movie.

Even though your not hosting the file on your site your linking to a page which in turn links to a download which in turn is linking to a very very little bit of a file which may be copyrighted material when its all combined together. The line here is so fucking small its unreal, because nothing is illegal until a certain point, that point in technology is extremely small.

Anyway I'll stop typing now since I doubt anyone will actually read this far.

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ImagesAndWords

Aequitas,
The trick here is to host your pages on a server in a country where the laws are different.

There are plenty of webhosts with servers in their own countries where U.S. law cannot touch your stuff. Look at ThePirateBay as one example.
Become untouchable: The Pirate Bay - The worlds largest BitTorrent tracker (check out all the failed attempts of US companies and corporations trying to get to them, lol)

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illkity

The way you are saying this is confusing. First and foremost there is no such thing as illegal downloading, it's an oxymoron. Just downloading is never illegal at least as far as copyrights is concerned. You can download copyrighted music and movies all day long, torrents or otherwise and nobody can touch you.

The problem is when you SHARE or HOST the files for others to download.

Linking is the gray area since you are not hosting or sharing, but you are facilitating access to something being done illegally. This is where you may or may not get into trouble as case law is not quite clear or well defined.

But as IANAL, you should not listen to a word I'm saying.

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Bofu2U

If you want more proof, look into how some torrent trackers are being taken down (such as Demonoid) due to "promoting" and "serving" illegal content. They're not hosting the content, but linking users to it. See the point?

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krazyjosh5

Can't comment on the legality but I'll throw my idea into the ring while we're on it:

Carefully iframing illegal content and using a javascript of some kind to automatically scroll the iframe so the content is perfectly aligned within the window. Maybe a good way to jack content without actually jacking it.

My 2cents would be be careful because thats technically what torrents are: they POINT to where the illegal shit is at without hosting it... and we know what the IP regime thinks about torrents.

Possibility