TV-Links.co.uk Owner Got Arrested !

[Standup Media]

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Last week's arrest of a 26-year-old Cheltenham man, and the related closure of the TV-links website, has prompted a flurry of speculation that the very foundations of the internet (linking to stuff) might be under threat.

Although this might be a worry too far, legal eagles at Pinsent Masons say that it could be an important test case of UK law.

After an investigation by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and local trading standards office, police swooped on an address in Cheltenham on Thursday last week, cuffing a 26-year-old for "offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet" according to the FACT announcement. The man has been released pending further investigation.

TV-links, by all accounts, was (it is no more) a place where users could post links to content from TV shows, movies and so on, so that other web users could view them. The site didn't host the material directly, but did, according to reports, embed some video clips.

But if TV-links merely organised and indexed links to allegedly dodgy clips, surely we are all at risk of arrest. After all, when you post a URL on a blog, in a forum or send it to friends via email, do you check, everytime, that copyright law has been satisfied?

According to Struan Robertson, lawyer at Pinsent Masons: "Nobody should knowingly link to infringing material. But that has always been the case. Most sites don't knowingly link to infringing material. If they do so unwittingly, there's certainly no crime, and provided they remove the link quickly if and when they're told about its existence, they won't risk any civil damages either."

But what is interesting, Robertson says, is that it is not immediately clear how a case like this would be prosecuted.

"We don't have a simple offence of facilitating infringement in the UK," he told us. "Though we do have offences concerned with distributing or offering infringing copies or communicating works to the public... to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright. The maximum penalty is 10 years. However, I've never heard of links being characterised in this way in a British court."

In a statement, FACT said the site was:

...providing links to illegal film content that has been camcorded from within a cinema and then uploaded to the internet. The site additionally provided links to TV shows that were also being illegally distributed. Sites like TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement.
"There is a culture... we like to think that people are, or intend to be, honest," a FACT spokesman told us. "But there is a proportion of people who believe that content should be free just because it can be made available online. What we do is act on what is out there. People are quite willingly trying to circumvent the law."

However, because it is a "pending investigation", he couldn't tell us whether or not his organisation has been in contact with TV-Links' owner prior to calling for the long arm of the law. Nor was he prepared to elaborate on how the prosecution might be handled, or even the specific details of the arrest.

Gloucestershire police could not confirm exactly what the 26-year-old was arrested on suspiscion of, saying that the case had most likely now been handed over to trading standards officers.

Gloucestershire Trading Standards confirmed that it was involved in the investigation, but declined to elaborate on what the owner of the site had been arrested for, beyond saying it was "offences under the Copyright Act".

"All our information is being coordinated by FACT," a spokeswoman told us.

Source: Cops pull plugs on TV-links, claim 'facilitation of infringement' | The Register

[JayCee]

Fairly old news.

A few other UK sites were pulled, including Oink.

[Standup Media]

Yea, i mean i dont understand why they are doing this really, i mean there not hosting the videos on there site, all there doing is providing the links to where you can watch them. Which is 100% legal. So why are they taking down these sites and not taking action on the sites where the files are uploaded to like Stage6, Dailymotion, youtube, Google Videos etc..

Also if there going to do that then why not take down even BIGGER problem sites like Warez Sites where you can download basicly anything IE Warez-bb.org, which has over 400,000 members. Surly thats a bigger problem than providing links to watch tv episodes etc..

[DioBach]

Yea, i mean i dont understand why they are doing this really, i mean there not hosting the videos on there site, all there doing is providing the links to where you can watch them. Which is 100% legal. So why are they taking down these sites and not taking action on the sites where the files are uploaded to like Stage6, Dailymotion, youtube, Google Videos etc.

If just a link to the material is considered providing the means to infringe copyright, a lot of people are going to be in line for legal action. Top of the list will be Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Let's hope the courts show some common sense on this.

[Standup Media]

If just a link to the material is considered providing the means to infringe copyright, a lot of people are going to be in line for legal action. Top of the list will be Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Let's hope the courts show some common sense on this.

I agree, its just stupid.

[marky]

If just a link to the material is considered providing the means to infringe copyright, a lot of people are going to be in line for legal action. Top of the list will be Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Let's hope the courts show some common sense on this.

There is a slight difference between them though ... se's index sites and admitedly do help people find some very nasty and illegal stuff .. or this guy actually set a site up which *specifically* linked to illegal copyrighted content. The latter has intent to distribute, which is a slightly different thing all together .. well .. a test case indeed, lets hope the result is a sensible solution

[tbp]

Ive been thinking about this recently, and to be honest Im not sure where I stand!

On the one hand, the guy wasn't hosting illegal content, but on the other hand he was linking to content that was knowingly illegal, and the links were placed by hand, rather than automatically by a bot like the search engines do.

I do think its a bit unfair going after the small fry though, they should be going after the people at the top of the chain, who host the illegal content.

It is a bit of a dodgy situation though, as what if you linked to a site that was clean, but then they later hosted content that was illegal on the page you linked to. I`d imagine that they'd still come after you because you linked to the page and are so keen to prosecute they wouldn't listen to your valid reasoning. Even if you got let off in court, the legal bills could still really hurt.

[zaq]

i dont think you can call tv-links.co.uk small fry with a alexa traffic rank of: 206 and 36 for uk, but what i find funny is when they say "we wasn’t that stupid to host the main site in the UK, it was a co.uk domain but the servers were in the Netherlands."

Take a look what happened to bodog.com their domain name was registered with a US-based registrar and they lost the domain name etc

How to steal a domain name with a bogus patent

[Barry]

Again in this thread (must be the time of nite) I am with tbp (no offence!!!).

Totally undecided on the matter.

From my own experience all I can say is that the likes of tv-lonks and j o o ks and jost fm (you know what I mean) have actually increased the amount of dvds and cds I buy.

If I like a cd or dvd I watch/listen too - I will buy it and put it in my collection (at full bitrate and quality!).

Only the rich/better off who can afford to buy are committing fraud by downloading and sharing music and dvds, because they have the disposable income to buy it from the source in the first place.

I don't see how anybody else who cant afford to buy is denying any money from publishers as users wouldn't be able to afford buy it anyway.

You never see a mix artist complaining cos someone has nicked their 12 "record and is making mix tapes - infact the opposite, 'real artists' know where their market is and they sell to that market.

Ta

[zaq]

lol classic barry so i can goto audible.co.uk and say i cant afford to pay £7.99 a month can i listen free and dont worry about the audiobooks trademark owners royalties.

[tbp]

I think Barry has a valid point (mutual agreement society tonight lol).

I think it can actually help the industry, as it get their media out there to people who may not have seen it before.

A lot of the stuff on the net that pirated is low quality, recorded by amateurs. There have been a number of cases where I`ve downloaded something, decided I liked it, and then gone out and bought the CD or DVD, or even just the track from a legitimate source, so that I could get a high quality version. Its like try before you buy. With CD's and DVD's being quite expensive, you don't want to buy it and find you`ve wasted your money on something you don't like.

Its like the band recently who put their new album online, and the fans could pay what price they were happy to for it. I think it averaged at £7 - £8 if I remember right, when most people could of paid much less for it. In this sense I don't think people are as dishonest as the media companies think.

[Barry]

Hey zaq, only you will know if you can afford it or not - who I am to say.

I can only speak from my experience, and its much the same as tbp.

Now I can afford to buy albums and dvd's - I do. When I couldn't - I couldn't.

I am not saying that there are not people out there who make a living out of piracy as I know that would be naive. But in my honest opinion I don't think people who provide links to movies and tunes over the web are destroying the industry or in any way lowering the 'wages' of artists.

[zaq]

Yes it will help the "movie/tv" industry if they offer that service themselves "try before you buy" just a take look at napster history with the "music" industry.

So the "movie/tv" industry is way too late to offer this service and is now sues all who have taken advantage of their mistake

[Barry]

I agree zaq, the 'industry' is trying to protect something its not possible to do in this day and age.

Its their own fault for not making it more accessible.

[zaq]

Barry you talking about a site that links to stuff that he shouldnt be linking to.

Like i said if you say "we wasn’t that stupid to host the main site in the UK, it was a co.uk domain but the servers were in the Netherlands." you not thinking of helping visitors who cant afford to buy the dvds but your own bank account.

still people out their who think its the internet anything goes, do you think tv links uk will be getting the same traffic if they linked to same streams as wwitv.com