Earlier this week I wrote about the legality of various forms of linking on the interwebitubes. One theory was that if deep linking was illegal, search engines would be screwed. Well, they’re screwed in China. I hope Mike Harding is happy, because this is what I predicted would happen if he was right:
But it gets worse, because every single site that offers links to other sites, without prior permission, is also dead in the water. Goodbye Google.
It is being reported by the IPFI that Yahoo China’s music search feature violates the law when it deep links users to pirated music. Yahoo China’s music search has been confirmed illegal in a Beijing court ruling which states that under new copyright laws it facilitates mass copyright infringement.
After being hounded by the IFPI since April 2006, Yahoo! China – partly owned by one the world’s most prominent internet businesses, Yahoo! – today had its music search (via deep linking) deemed illegal by a Beijing Court, who said the service violates Chinese law by facilitating mass copyright infringement.
The Associated Press has an article about this too.
If this doesn’t invoke copyright law reform nothing will. So yahoo is in violation because of linking to something that isn’t on their site? Could it be construed as simply pointing to where it is rather then saying it is theirs? If I say something is on that shelf am I in violation of the copyright the shelf builder has on that shelf itself?
This would also make me a criminal by having links in my favorites….
DIDN’T TICKETMASTER SUE SOMEONE IN THE U.S. FOR DEEP LINKING TO THEIR SITE? DID THEY WIN?
China must have something against Yahoo to do this, otherwise they would be aiming for a bigger target like Goggle, or any number of Bit torrent sites.
Are these so-called “copyright violations” copyrights filed in China (assuming they even have a copyright office). So do they they even have any jurisdiction with this?
And who the hell is pirating Chinese music anyway?
Maybe the Chinese can tighten up that ” Great Firewall” of theirs so that nothing gets in or out. And if the dumbasses here can tighten up the trade barriers so that none of their crappy goods get in here, maybe we can just forget about them entirely. I’d sure as hell like to.
SN, let’s get the facts straight, I objected to hotlinking and appropriation of an image I created. I did not indicate that the practice of linking was a problem, in fact, I love linking. I do it all the time.
Viva la link!
Don’t forget we’re talking about China here, every time U.S. trade people pressure them to crack down on piracy in China they take a swipe at an American company.
Didn’t JCD or somebody suggest removing China from the internet? just find the cable and cut it.
China courts ruling on copyright infringement?
Pull the other one! LOL!
China simply is making it difficult for Yahoo and Google in favor of Chinese search engines. On top of that there is the 2008 Olympics…Yadda Yadda…China needs to look like it is doing something.
Pirated name brand goods, DVDs, software and CDs are still available everywhere in China – all out in the open.
Cheers
I still don’t understand how you’re confused about the difference between deep linking, and hotlinking an image. You can note that Wikipedia has two different articles describing both practices. They’re not the same. What’s going on in China is not the same as what you did.
So now you have to get express written permission to tell someone else about the jar of free candy.
#11
You are confusing the content with how your browser handles the content. The *only* difference between “hotlinking” and “deep linking” is how the *browser* deals with the link. The content is the same. Both are simply text tags that say there is something interesting at an address. It is your browser that then renders the content at that address as opposed to simply showing the link. It is akin to smart tags. If your browser supports them, it goes and finds out more information about the words you see on your current page and shows you a snippet from that page. The content of the source page is the same. You could easily make a browser that would show a snapshot of any hyperlink if you wanted.
For chrissake, cut this crap already, deep linking, hot linking, they are all the same: linking!
It’s just a pointer, as #13 put it, it’s how you deal with that pointer what’s different.
A hot-linked image should also serve as a click-through link to the website where it is hosted. I would suggest that this is probably the best way to repay the webmaster who has provided an image you consider valuable enough to show on your own website. It would help drive traffic to his site, rather than simply “borrowing” a bit of his content (regardless of whether he’s the copyright owner).
I get tired of hearing people (yes, DU editors) retort that technically, the law doesn’t absolutely force them to do this, so therefore they needn’t bother making a tiny bit of extra effort to do the ethical thing. The onus continually gets put upon the other site’s owner to take technical measures to prevent hotlinking.
#13 says “The *only* difference between ‘hotlinking’ and ‘deep linking’ is how the *browser* deals with the link.”
Wrong. You missed (or ignored) the critical difference that makes hot-linking so popular in the first place. When you hot-link an image, it adds much more value to your site than does a direct link. It allows your page to be graphically rich and visually interesting, rather than merely a text-based wasteland with links that visitors can click to see pictures. Imagine the DU homepage with none of the interesting photos that we’ve come to expect, and I think you can envision the sort of reduction in traffic that would result. To pay those other sites back by turning those hot-linked images into click-through links (the way Google does with thumbnail image search results) is an easy way to compensate them for the value those other webmasters are adding to your site, and it doesn’t degrade the visual impact of your own site.
On a related note, I love how the DU editors continuously thumb their nose at the laws, and ask people to use a little common sense and decency when dealing with situations.
“Oh my god! An 11 year old girl arrested for bringing a butter knife to school! I don’t care if the law says she should, can’t we just use some common sense here people?”
It’s a common theme that runs through many of the DU posts and comments. Now we have DU editors hiding behind the law when a web master asks them not to hotlink his images without attribution. A link back to the original site could solve the problem completely, but oh no.. the law says they don’t have to, so they won’t.
#17: You’re just tolling now. John has stated on numerous occasions that if someone complains, we will change it.
And for both you and Gary, be aware that in a vast number of cases, the images we hotlink were not created by the person who is hosting it. It is quite often an image they found elsewhere and copied to their website. Or are hotlinking themselves.
I can’t believe you expect us to provide ‘compensation’ with a link back to someone who, by your own definition, is doing something wrong. Right?
One other thing, in a great many cases, we are using the photo that is on the story we are posting, so there already is a link back to that site.
Uncle Dave says “I can’t believe you expect us to provide ‘compensation’ with a link back to someone who, by your own definition, is doing something wrong. Right?”
No, that’s not part of my definition, but if you want to take the time to determine that they’ve infringed someone else’s copyright, that’s another thing. However, no one I’ve seen is asking you to make that investigation. But whether or not they own a legally enforceable copyright on the image you’ve hotlinked, by merely hosting the image for you, they are providing value to you in several ways.
First off, they’ve saved you some time by shortening your search for an appropriate graphic to accompany your story. If you hadn’t found their image, you would have continued searching and spent more time. Secondly, none of your hosting resources are taken up storing and serving up the image, although I’ll readily agree that this is usually a fairly negligible concern. Thirdly, the hosting site is providing your image for the story while completely shielding you from any legal liability should that image be actually owned by another party. By hotlinking the image, you can’t be successfully sued for infringement, yet you’re receiving all the benefits as if you had made yourself legally vulnerable by copying the image.
Does that sound like enough value to warrant a simple click-through link to the hosting site as payback, simply as a way to return value for the value you’ve received? If more webmasters traded these courtesies as a matter of ethics, I bet fewer webmasters would be looking for ways to block hotlinks to their site’s resources.
sounds like censor ship…
I’m not trolling, it’s just an issue that I feel strongly about. And waiting for someone to complain is putting the cart before the horse.
How are they doing something wrong? You’re making an unfounded assumption that the people you’re hotlinking from, are hotlinking them self. That’s ridiculous, and you’re grasping at straws here.
I’m beginning to think you’re all a bunch of old funddy-duddies, and like my 85 year old next door neighbor that pats his cleaning lady’s ass, you know what you’re doing is wrong, but you simply don’t care.