Wow, so now we should all start linking through bit.ly to circumvent direct links? (sarcasm...yet timidly true)
What I find concerning is his lawyer's argument, "Brown did not 'transfer' the stolen information as he arguably would have done had he embedded the link on his web page" ... does this mean for us webmasters, linking to a webpage (even as Google or Bing may do) would mean incrimination. I understanding hosting....but linking!!! WTF!
I wonder, as the world moves to cloud computing, will there be much difference between "hosting" and "linking"? Documents are digital, but "digital" used to mean that the bits were on a device that you own, which is becoming less true with time. Does the location of bits on a harddrive determine guilt, or does the intent to distribute the protected information? If intent, then is linking intent?
That's not the lawyers argument, it's actually the Guardian writer's failed paraphrase of a point they were trying to make. The government is relying on copyright law which traditionally distinguishes "in-line" linking from "embedded" linking. Since this is neither, their reliance on that is flawed... the writer of this article just didn't fully grok it. I recommend you skim the motion.
What I find concerning is his lawyer's argument, "Brown did not 'transfer' the stolen information as he arguably would have done had he embedded the link on his web page" ... does this mean for us webmasters, linking to a webpage (even as Google or Bing may do) would mean incrimination. I understanding hosting....but linking!!! WTF!