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  Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 6:16pm

  
  

  The precedent has already been set

  Remember Napster? That was shut down because it was providing a directory of links to infringing content. And the injunction on 2600 magazine preventing it from linking to sites hosting the DeCSS code?

  In other words, no surprise if this lawsuit succeeds as well.

   

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  Anonymous Coward, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 6:38pm

  
  

  Re: The precedent has already been set

  I am not aware of any final court ruling in the Napster case. I believe it was settled out of court. If you're point then is that they may be bullied by a lawsuit (and not whether what they are doing is legal or not) you may be right. Sadly lawsuits are a tactical business technique instead of a tool of justice.
  
  As for 2600, they were not indexing content (it wasn't a 'search' service).
  
  Re-iterating the OP, I can see no reason how they can be treated differently (in a legal sense) from Google's search engine.

   

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  memory hole, Jun 28th, 2007 @ 6:15am

  
  

  Re: The precedent has already been set

  Apparently, the Napster thing has gotten lost in the memory hole. Napster was shut down because it HOSTED infringing content, on it's own servers. That's exactly why they were unable to win a case, because they were DIRECTLY infringing. Napster was NOT a directory of links to infringing content.

   

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  Shay, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 6:31pm

  
  

  Not the whole story

  The part that is not mentioned in this article is that these sites are making large amounts of money through advertising on their sites. This is how they are being held liable for infringement/inducement. It's not a good business plan to base your income on linking to known infringing content. Google searches the net, these sites profit by making illegal content easier to find (like napster and grokster).

   

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  Mike (profile), Jun 27th, 2007 @ 7:56pm

  
  

  Re: Not the whole story

  The part that is not mentioned in this article is that these sites are making large amounts of money through advertising on their sites. This is how they are being held liable for infringement/inducement. It's not a good business plan to base your income on linking to known infringing content. Google searches the net, these sites profit by making illegal content easier to find (like napster and grokster).
  
  I don't see how that's relevant. They're still not the ones breaking the law. If I'm an ISP and you're hosting illegal content on one of my servers I'm not liable. It's that simple. You're the one who is liable... EVEN IF I'm making tons of money through you paying for the service.
  
  It has nothing to do with profitability.
  
  It has everything to do with who is actually liable.

   

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  ChurchHatesTucker, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 9:11pm

  
  

  Re: Not the whole story

  It's not a good business plan to base your income on linking to known infringing content.

  If you link to content these days, it's ALL under copyright. Suprisingly, many of these 'protected' works actually want to be linked to. So, how do you tell them apart?

  That, to my mind, is the faustian deal that the content squatters got into when they pushed for opt-out copyright. Everything they create (or, more often, obtain) becomes sacrosanct. Fine, but the burden then falls to them to police it. Suprisingly, that became a drain. Unsuprisingly, they then try to outsource that as well.

   

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  Anonymous Coward, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 7:32pm

  
  

  making large amounts of money

  Dear poster #2
  First of all, I don't believe you, personally, have any idea how much money they are making or losing. If you do know, how about letting us in on how you got the knowledge.
  
  According to your argument, would it be legal if they were losing huge amounts of money?
  
  Like Mike said, it's like Google, dude.

   

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  Anonymous Coward, Jun 27th, 2007 @ 8:37pm

  
  

  Down with the MPAA !!!!

   

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  me, Jun 28th, 2007 @ 8:20am

  
  

  Napster

  I don't believe that Napster is a good comparison, it provided a METHOD to retrieve the "infringing content", this is simply a listing of where you can find what you are searching for.
  
  RIAA doesn't sue google cause they have enough money and press to shut them up and show YET AGAIN that RIAA is simply on a wild chase, picking off the easiest targets.

   

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  SM, Jun 28th, 2007 @ 10:48am

  
  

  Google

  I'm fairly certain that as we speak, these guys are dreaming up a way to sue Google for the same thing.

   

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