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Originally Posted by Jim Chapman
We at Turnipsoft just received a nasty letter from LitRes.ru, demanding that we modify our Freda ebook reader app, to remove links to a competitor site, flibusta. Scanning the forums (here and elsewhere) I see they have past form at this - having pulled a similar nasty trick on Moon+ a few weeks back.
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You received this notice or Google or your host did? Was it in the full and proper form of a DMCA notice?
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Their claim (whose merits I will be discussing with my legal advisors) is that flibusta provides illegal access to content that LitRes has rights over, and by making it possible for Freda users to use flibusta, Turnipsoft is somehow 'participating in illegal use of copyrighted content'.
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Linking usually has only been found to be an issue in some narrow instances. However, you are not an ISP or a host. You don't get DMCA protection's. So depending on just what you are linking to you could be found to be guilty of contributory infringement I would think.
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I'd be interested to hear the forum's views on all this. But I would make the point that the existing 'DMCA take-down notice' mechanism does create a very un-level playing field. Just by asserting that they have grounds for complaint, LitRes can cause Google (and quite possibly Microsoft) to remove apps from the app stores - and even if their claim is quite without merit, the damage is still done.
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Actually filing a counter notice is pretty simple. However if you do so, be sure to be very sure that you are not guilty of the infringement claimed, as you have to file it under penalty of perjury.
The other interesting thing is you have to agree to US jurisdiction, and so do they. What do you think they odds are of them actually following through and filing suit in the US?
What I would do, would probably be pull the link, and be ready to respond to any DMCA notice they may send to your host or Google etc with a counter notice.