Anyone know if this is legal?

[LouTheDesigner]

Hello everyone,

So a client wants to have a site where, there is pretty much a forum that the visitors can use to navigate to different types of music, and then go to a thread where people are posting not the music itself but links to where they can download it (rapidshare, for example). So, no music would be on the site itself.

The client also wants to charge a subscription fee of $10 per month for each user. It would be invite only, where only people with huge libraries are sharing.

Would vBulletin be my best bet for this?

-Lou

 

[smoovo]

By the DMCA law (The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998) section 512, you are not allowed to provide any kind of information location tools, such as links, directories, search engines, etc.

The law says that for any damage the fine is up to $150,000 for each song, and in some cases up to $250,000 fine.

It's your decision now...

 

[Catalin99]

The client is the owner of the business. You are just the designer. You can make the site if it pays you. For you it's legal. For the site owner, this is not legal.

 

[LouTheDesigner]

Thank you both.

-Lou

 

[bcee]

Ouch. 150K for each song!

 

[orangecopper]

Smoovo - Could you elaborate on this , is this only for songs or for any material that points to resources.

warm regards
Josh

 

[smoovo]

It is point to any kind of copyright material that can be shared and infringement. It's very complex, and there is the "Safe Harbor" law that they give if the service provider (the website) meets their guide lines, then, only the user will be claimed.

All the law title is here, and you can go and read it. The main part is in chapter 5 section 512 here, damages and profits in section 504 here.

 

[idemnow1]

What he is doing sounds pretty illegal. Anything that involves charging a person money that goes in your pocket in exchange for information that leads to a person obtaining something that would otherwise cost money if obtained legally would of course be illegal since the person receiving money is probably not paying royalty's on such material and is keeping all to himself. In this case in particular, he is condoning the piracy of copyrighted material and even worse making a profit from it.

 

[noahqw]

Of course that's legal! If it wasn't then Google, Bing/Yahoo would all be sued for millions for giving search query links to download illegal content!

 

[smoovo]

Of course that's legal! If it wasn't then Google, Bing/Yahoo would all be sued for millions for giving search query links to download illegal content!

Search engines providing links to websites not to downloads, and just to let you know, lately Google decided to take the first step and kick off copyright infringes and pirates from AdSense. Read more about it here.

Next time try to post facts not thoughts, people can get arrested and pay nice fair because you are a smarty.

 

[sitebuilder]

from the description it sounds like the client wants a site that links to other sites like rapidshare that link to files. not sure if this is legal cause you can actually use google to search for files themselves and not just webpages (like searching for .pdf files) not sure if google has any safeguards to prevent searching for torrent files but even if they do that wouldn't protect them from any other sort of online file that may be copy written. Either way you as the designer wont be liable so go ahead and take the job if your not morally conflicted.

 

[sitebuilder]

Not sure if this is illegal for the client, it sounds like they are just providing a search section to get links to Rapidshare or other sites that have actual links to copy written material (like an unnecessary middle man that taxes you , cause the internet needs more of those). Google does allow you to search for files rather than web pages like (searching for a .pdf file) not sure if Google has any safe guards to keep people from searching for torrent files but even if they do that can't stop people from finding other types of files of copy written material that would be an impossible task. Either way you as the designer wont be responsible so go for it.

 

[smoovo]

Search engines have more copyright issues than you think. It doesn't end with music and movies, it has complicated law zones involved with caching websites content, books, videos, images... they all copyrighted materials. But, search engines made to help us and to serve our needs online. The law has gray zones for search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Building a website just to provide better way to link users to copyrighted material it's not like building a search engine, and i don't think it's right to see this as equal.

Website owner or website builder are the same in the law in case of copyrighted material, and to be more specific, also the ISP has to be careful with this law. Not once they are sending letters regarding illegal downloading activity through their servers.

People still downloading and people still build a websites for that, but who knows who will be on the news tomorrow?

 

[EverplexMedia]

Traditionally, if it sounds illegal, it probably is. In this case, it is borderline for you, but definitely illegal for them. However, it is possible that you can get the same fines for helping with the illegal activity if (and when) they get caught. Especially with the new copyright infringement law that just went through.