Comments on: To Link Or Not To Link, That Is The Question

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:05:42 +0000

I agree completely. The problem is getting lawyers, judges and lawmakers to see that.

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:04:41 +0000

The problem with the laws is that most of those who are involved in making those laws have very little or no real understanding of what they’re talking about. They don’t understand the technology, hardware or software, at all. They’ve very little concept of how the thing works.

Instead, they simply treat it like they would voice telephone, radio or snail mail and other brick and mortar equivalents of the online world. It’s going to be years before there are enough people involved in lawmaking that have even an elementary level understanding of computers and internet technology and by that time things will have changed enough that those lawmakers will be comparatively just as clueless as the ones we have now.

By: tumbleweedius

tumbleweedius — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:32:20 +0000

I think a good analogy would be that a hyperlink is no more content than an address is a house.

By: tumbleweedius

tumbleweedius — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:29:33 +0000

Recently there have been several cases of litigation for people linking without consent.

I believe there was one recent case where someone published an article critical of a company on their blog and included a link to the company’s website. Obviously they weren’t very please about it, and decided to sue for copyright infringement for hyperlinking and using the company’s name in the hyperlink. Yeah.

Then there’s this: http://pblog.bna.com/techlaw/2008/05/unlawful-conten.html

Honestly, it seems to me as if the world of technology is getting more and more advanced, yet the criminal justice system is getting more and more oblivious. This leaves them open to be tricked by lobbyists into believing some fundamental aspect of the internet is actually illegal. (RIAA / MPAA on the subject of P2P)