

Ask HN: Legal ramifications of linking to illegal content? - weekender

A friend of mine asked for my help in building a really quick and dirty app that embeds movies and TV shows found on sites like MegaVideo.  It's a simple weekend project and he is confident he can build an audience for it, however I am hesitant as this seems to fall in a legally questionable area.<p>Does anyone have any experience with linking or embedding illegal content (movies and TV shows specifically)?  The better part of me says to steer clear of this but I've found a few big sites (like blinkx.com) that do this exact thing.
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dctoedt
1\. Depends on what "embedding" means exactly. Are you talking about the same
general way that YouTube videos can be embedded, i.e., providing a link and a
thumbnail?

2\. You might read a July 2007 piece, "Embedded Video and Copyright
Infringement," posted by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society - see
[http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2007/sam-bayard/embedded-
vid...](http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2007/sam-bayard/embedded-video-and-
copyright-infringement).

3\. If you're linking to pirated copies of videos as opposed to legitimate
sites, check out the LimeWire copyright infringement case. In that case, a
federal district judge in NYC held that LimeWire was liable for inducing
others to commit copyright infringement - see, e.g.,
<http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=10632737>.

Judge Kimba Wood's opinion (yes, that Kimba Wood) is at
[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/051110limew...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/051110limewireop.pdf).

4\. Usual disclaimer: I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer, don't rely on this as
a substitute for legal advice, etc.

------
patrickk
Google indexed all the sites on the web when they started out, even though
this was against 'the rules'. According to the book "The Google Story", this
can be compared to knocking on everyone's door - bound to piss off more than a
few people, but ultimately everyone benefited (well maybe not Yahoo and MSN
search).

Recently _Wired_ liked to a Pirate Bay torrent for a movie that got buried in
some studio vault because a legal dispute - "Hackers Wanted". I guess they
wanted people to experience that movie whether it's makers could agree or not.

To be an entrepreneur means breaking the rules, and stepping on toes. There's
a bigger chance that your friend's app won't get noticed than it is that he'll
get sued. When you get successful, that's when you get sued. Getting your
content to a receptive audience is a bigger problem IMO than jealously
hoarding up content.

All the same, you should probably consult a copyright lawyer.

~~~
weekender
That's true, chances are pretty slim that it will get very big. I may just end
up hashing it out over the weekend anyways, so I guess I have until then to
decide whether to make it public or not.

~~~
patrickk
If it gets big, it will become the status quo! Look at what Facebook are
trying to do with their attitude to privacy. Or what the internet and iTunes
has done to music industry.

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jacquesm
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime :)

But youtube wouldn't be here today if everybody froze out of fear for the
legal implications of what they're doing.

Sometimes it works out well, even if it is illegal.

