link to litigation 25 august, 2000 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

Welcome to the Internet world. A world where you can find anything you want within seconds. A world where information and products that used to cost thousands are now available to you absolutely free. Did anyone ever imagine a world where we can read newspapers and magazines for free? How about download the number one server operating system (Linux) and all related applications for free? Did they predict a giant maze of information and disinformation that gives anyone access to just about anything they desire? All absolutely free? But wait! There's more! The Internet has gone far beyond everyone's predictions. It has grown to be the biggest communication tool since humans discovered the vocal chords. The Internet has become the very definition of 'free speech'. But the one thing that has caught nearly everyone off guard is that, in two weeks, the United States court system is now toying with making it all history.

We have come to expect that every piece of information you could ever want is available on the Internet. Fortunately, the Internet is fulfilling that dream. If you want to find a 1928 Coke glass made in Lima, Ohio, you will probably find it on the Internet. If you want to find the schematic for building a 15 watt pirate radio transmitter, you will easily find it on the Internet. If you want to find a group of people to talk about fishing at Odell Lake, Oregon, I can point you the right direction. All of this provided by information found from links on top of links on top of links. A giant web of information that eventually gets you exactly where you want to be.

Gotta love them links. Where would the Internet be without them? Nothing more than an over-glorified telephone. You could call the URL's you know, and that would be the limit. Think about it. How many times do you use search engines on the Internet? If you are like me, a dozen times a day or more. Sometimes it feels like I could not find my shoes in the morning without them. But search engines are nothing more than bots that have followed links and mapped the great unknown. Without those links, the bots would be useless and search engines would never find what you are looking for.

Unfortunately, at least in America, those links may be a link to litigation. Anyone linking to another site could be in danger of visiting the law firm of 'Fend Off The Money-Grubbing Corporate Buttheads.' Search engines, which are nothing more than a place to visit for links, would be unable to remain in business due to the countless lawsuits pending due to the places their search bots automatically link every evening.

Am I exaggerating the situation? Maybe a little.. But, you be the judge:

There are two major court cases happening now that should concern anyone linking anything. The first, and perhaps least concerning but most notable, is Napster and it's clones. Napster is nothing more than a web site that allows Internet users to trade sound files. The clones of Napster do the same thing, except they perform the function through other people's Internet servers. Here we have a case where the users are the ones doing what could be considered illegal activity and all the web site is doing is linking their work. The web owners do not promote illegal activity, they promote sharing of sound files that could be copyrighted or not copyrighted. They have no way of monitoring nor controlling it. And they have no desire to. It is a communication issue, and all the web site does is link to the data. They are, essentially, nothing more than a telephone.

Should these companies be shut down for doing nothing more than providing a communication mechanism and linking their users? Well, it is looking like they will be. The preliminary rulings have been in favor of the music industry. Would you ever have imagined a day when you could be sued for placing a telephone number on a wall? Could you imagine someone suing Qwest (telephone company) because someone played a copyrighted song to someone else over the telephone? That is exactly what this court case says.

The more concerning precedent is in a different courtroom, however. Eric Corley runs a web site called 2600.com. On it, Eric does nothing more than link to various information throughout the web. Most of the information he links to could be considered questionable as far as its intended purpose. It is a hacker site. Nonetheless, Eric does nothing illegal himself. He just links to other web sites.

One of the sites he linked has an article on how to decode a DVD. The DVD copy protection format, when first invented, was supposedly unbreakable. Of course, someone reverse-engineered the format, and now a DVD can be decoded and copied. Eric and his web site 2600.com linked to this information so his readers could go look at how to break down a DVD. Never mind the fact that someone could have found this information by visiting a search engine. Never mind the fact that simply knowing how to do something is not in-itself a crime. Never mind the fact that Eric did nothing but link to a site in another country. The movie industry sued the hell out of Eric, and more importantly, he lost. That's right. He was found guilty because he had a link to information someone else invented and posted on someone else's web site.

Wait! There's more! He then linked to a web site that then linked to the bad material. So, 2600.com did not even directly link to the material - you had to go through another web site to get to it. The judge found him guilty for that as well. This is the equivalent of Eric giving someone a phone number to someone else, who then gives you a phone number to someone else, and when you call that final number there is a recording telling you something that was obtained illegally. Does this make sense to anyone??

What about the search engines that list the link to the illegal information? You can get to this information through HotBot, AltaVista, Yahoo, Northern Lights, Google, WebCrawler, Go, and just about every other search engine. Will they all be sued to remove their links and pay damages to the movie industry? Possibly.

The Internet used to be the definition of free speech, but suddenly it is in danger of becoming just another battleground for lawyers. If you are running a web site right now, I highly recommend you place a disclaimer on your web site eliminating yourself from any responsibility for the information on your web site, or the information you have linked to. Not that it will help keep away the attorneys, but it can not hurt. And if you happen to link to web sites with questionable material online, you might consider visiting the law firm of 'Fend Off The Money-Grubbing Corporate Buttheads.' Go early, though, because the line is quite long. I should know. I visited there last week.