The Legal side of Internet Television including Digital Rights Management (DRM), Intellectual Property and Piracy
The owner of Surfthechannel, a website which linked to content on the likes of Megavideo and Tudou, has been sentenced to four years in jail for a “conspiracy to defraud.” FACT is celebrating, but most other people are questioning the sense in such a verdict.
Surfthechannel Background
Surfthechannel was once a site linking out to other sites on the Web hosting video content. Some of this content was legit, some was not, but Surfthechannel only ever linked to the places where it was being hosted. Which many felt would protect it from any legal troubles.
Not so. Several years ago the police raided the owner’s house accompanied by anti-piracy group FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft). While the police dropped the case, FACT did not, embarking on a private prosecution for “conspiracy to defraud.”

There has long been a question mark over whether linking to or embedding copyright-infringing videos is as illegal as actually hosting the videos on your own servers. The appeals court judge in the case of Flava Works vs. myVidster has given his views on the subject.
The Pirate Bay has effectively been banned in the UK after the High Court issued a court order demanding ISPs block their customers from accessing the site. Not that doing so will make a scrap of difference, naturally.
Just when you thought it was safe to
Wait, what? There’s a music label executive who thinks the Internet is a force for good? Wonders will never cease. Unfortunately his viewpoint will not enable German music fans to watch music videos on YouTube anytime soon.
Hollywood will, and has been for many years now, tell us all that piracy is the
MegaUpload is no more, at least in its former capacity. We can now look forward to a long and expensive legal battle, and no difference whatsoever being made to how content is shared over the Internet.