Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
So how are google/etc not guilty?
What are we talking about when we say "linking" in this story? Just a web link?
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Web linking. However, he knew that the links he was posting (a lot were NOT user generated links, he actively posted the links himself) were to infringing material.
The difference is Google, Bing, etc aren't knowningly posting links to infringing content. If the gov't could show that the search engines were designing their web crawling engine to specifically look for infringing content and posting links to it, they would be very much guilty of copyright infringement.
However, they are not designed that way.
Intentionally linking to material you KNOW infringes copyright, or refusing to remove the link if you were previously unaware of the infringing status of the material, violates US copyright under established case law (as pointed out in the case cited above).