I'd not heard of this before but it's just as well that linking has been ruled not to be an infringement as this forum and many others would be rather bare with no videos, pictures or links, jeez, just imagine nothing but us lot shouting at each other it would be like a yahoo group, but even worse, if that's possible
Does this mean that there is nothing illegal about the pirate bay, since its essentially linking to files which are hosted on peoples computers?
@theshadow2011: No. This is about content made publicly available for free by the owner of the content; in other words, this is pretty much about Google News types of service. If you have a content which is not behind a paywall, then you aren't breaking the copyright of the original owner if you take the title, exempt from the content and link to the original article. If Google News would link behind the paywall, bypassing it, it would be illegal. So no, this doesn't "make Pirate Bay legal", because the original content is not publicly available for free in first place.
This. Although, interestingly, Google *does* bypass certain paywalls - although not deliberately. Have a browse of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal websites. Click on stories til you hit the paywall. Copy the headline of the story you're trying to read and paste it into a Google search. Click on the relevant result. Ta-da: the whole story, complete and unredacted, with no need to subscribe. I say 'not deliberately,' 'cos the reason that works is that sites allow Google to see the whole content so that it can search based on the whole content; the fact that clicking a Google link allows you to see the whole content as well as Google's spider is a handy byproduct for anyone without the cash to spare on a subscription. Not that you heard that trick from me, of course.
That's the wall streets journal fault for not taking the necessary precautions to protect their material. Although something tells me they allow this back door on purpose. As they must have their head under a rock if they don't realise this is happening.
It may be being made legal..."as a court in The Hague ruled that Dutch ISPs need to stop blocking the site after the ban proved ineffective against piracy." And since the article is about posting links: http://rt.com/news/court-unblock-pirate-bay-308/ That link is where I first heard the news.
Just tried it on a couple of Lex articles from the FT, (just to satisfy my curiosity that this works of course). Have to say, not working for me...
Works fine for me. Went onto FT.com, clicked on the story "Italy's prime minister Letta resigns" at random, hit the paywall: Typed the headline into the search bar, clicked the Google link, got the full article and no paywall prompt: Not sure why it doesn't work for you, I'm afraid.
If you get the following prompt when accessing the article through google then just click any 2 answers to the questions it asks you then you can read the article for free: "To read the full article please do one of the following:" I don't think it works for the Lex articles though as google doesn't have direct link to the actual articles and just sends you here: http://www.ft.com/lex/indepth
Ah, you've got the answer there mrbens - I just happened to choose the section that they do actually protect! Nice tip Gareth, not that I ever intend to use it of myself course - like I said, purely an exercise in intellectual curiosity...
