Something Stinks... TV Links Busted

Tv-links.co.uk was a prime example of media distribution over the internet. The site was basically a giant, meticulously organized links page that pointed to hundreds of popular TV shows and movies.

Here's how it worked: Upon arriving at the TV Links homepage, you'd see a list of dozens of popular TV shows such as Friends, the Office, the X-Files, and even old classics like the Twilight Zone. When you clicked one of these links, you were presented with a list of the episodes available for viewing.

But at the top of the page, there were also other categories of media you could choose from. If you wanted to watch a popular film, you clicked on movies. If you wanted to revisit fond childhood memories, you clicked on cartoons and got everything from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the latest episodes of Southpark. Music videos and documentaries were also available.

TV Links was undoubtedly a cool and useful resource. But it sounds pretty risky for the site's moderator, right? I mean, he or she must have been hosting an enormous amount of copyrighted material.

Right?

Wrong. TV Links merely posted links to videos they encountered on other, less organized video-sharing mediums such as YouTube, Google Video, Daily Motion, and Veoh.

So then the moderator must be safe from any charges of copyright infringement, right? Because he or she wasn't actually responsible for posting the questionable material on the web.

Right?

Wrong again. Mere days before OiNK bit the dust, TV Links became another file-sharing casualty at the hands of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). And not only was the site removed from the internet, the site's moderator has been arrested.

So how does FACT justify pursuing someone who posted links to copyrighted material rather than busting the actual infringers themselves?

According to the Guardian article, a little change in rhetoric is all it takes: "'Sites such as TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organising, and indexing links to infringing content found on the internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites,' said a spokesman for FACT."

Ah, so apparently anti-piracy organizations are no longer interested in busting copyright infringers, but rather those who identify links posted by copyright infringers. So if I tell you that you can go find genuine X-Files clips on YouTube, I am "guilty by identification."

Something stinks. And it's not those torrent-site homeless OiNKers, either.

This TV Links incident only serves to prove that anti-piracy organizations are not actually interested in busting copyright infringers. They are intersted in preserving ancient business models because they are too lazy to do anything else. And if one of their own (such as YouTube or Google Video, both owned by Google), fouls up by becoming guilty of piracy, the corporations will just continue to cover their own behinds by prosecuting the lowly innocent while letting the true infringers run free.

What a shame.