Why hotlinking is perfectly legal for 2257
 

A few days ago I stumbled upon this at a mainstream board.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/10320.htm

The question was asked there of who is responsible for the publication of hotlinked images. Check out one of the responses there and you'll see why RealityCash is able to offer legal hotlinking of sexual images. Interesting read.

In before the lock :banana

:2 cents:

How about a cut and paste?
I doubt we're all going to buy a membership to that board just to read what you're talking about.

ORIGINAL QUESTION-----
[Note that this has nothing to do with illegal bandwidth theft.]

The basic question is this; Considering the inner workings of the internet, if Domain A hotlinks to images on Domain B, is Domain A considered the "publisher" of those images served and owned by Domain B once they load into the browser?

Real life analagy... A newspaper instead of printing a photo leaves a blank space that reads, "Go to 12 Main Street and get their photo of the bird and glue it here." Once that photo is glued on, the newspaper certainly isn't the publisher of it even if they instructed it to be placed there.

Can this translate into internet hotlinking terms?



RESPONSE 1------
Sounds like a legal question to me, but if I were to guess I'd say that the owner of the server space that serves up the file is the publisher.



RESPONSE 2-----
The entity responsible for sending the data to the browser is the publisher regardless of whose webpage it appears on.
Webpages are not marked by resemblance to PDF files or the like in that what appears on the screen is not contained and served in a single file. It is remarkably unremarkable that a single webpage have multiple publishers.

Illustrations of this include third party content services that webmasters may deploy such as stock tickers, ad agencies and RSS feeds. The approved direct linking (i.e., hotlinking) of images also falls into this "third party content services" category.

Since you asked for a technical explanation as to why this is, here it is in simplified terms.

1) Browser submits request for source code file from server.
2) Server grants request and sends source file to browser containing page layout and recommended content information.*

* Any content that a source file directly contains or links to is considered recommended since it's display is ultimately the decision of the user or browser.

3) Browser processes source code and renders initial layout (e.g., tables) including textual content within the source file.

The role of the main webpage ends herein even though direct links have yet to be requested, granted/denied or processed.

4) Browser requests image data from image server.
5) Image server grants request and sends image data to the browser.

To be considered the publisher of any data, you must be the entity receiving the request from the browser, making the decision to grant or deny the request and finally the one to send the data.

Throughout this process the main webpage did not take part in any of those three events. So we conclude that they can not be the publisher of the images.

However, this is dependent upon no contractual agreement being in place for the image server to distribute images owned by the main webpage. A webhost can not be considered a publisher. In that case, the main webpage would have control over the image server and they would be the publisher of any direct linked images on that server.

I guess Fusker doesn't need to worry if that is the case. lol

Until I see some lawyers confirming this, I wouldnt listen to what people post on boards.

That may be a problem for adult industry lawyers since their view of how the internet acutally works is probably that of a casual surfer. How many lawyers even know HTML? Much less complicated matters such as this.

You would really need an internet tech lawyer to consult with an adult lawyer to make sure the adult lawyer knows what's going on here.

BUMP for the daytime people. How many of you are going this route where possible?

If all these people are confused, I'am sure the DOJ will be even more confused.. Hotlinking is the last thing i want to do..

You willingly put the hotlinked content on your site correct? Then you are responsible..

i'll be hotlinking :thumbsup

Apparantly content is not technically "on" your site if it's hotlinked. If you are looking at the internet on the surface by just what appears on your screen, fine. Hotlinked stuff is on that page, but you can't do that.

Instead of putting up a "because I say so" type response, I'd like to see people shooting down why what I pasted above is false. It sure sounds good to me, and apparantly Reality Cash also.

Besides, if you are going to get into the "because you put it there" arguments then I guess we all need ID's for paysite tours we pop into exit consoles.... Because we put that console there.

I'd really like to see someone here refute what that guy posted above in my copy and paste.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.

So if I hotlink a photo of a fluffy cat and that webmaster gets upset and replaces the file with hardcore gay porn to get even, I am now responsable for that?

Give me a break people. Use your brains.

Give me some nice technical reasons why hotlinking will be illegal.

i wonder if using a program such as remote thumbs would be a way around 2257 considering its their system that selects images and uploads them to my server, simular to someone posting an attachment on a forum

yep. but you still shouldn't listen to us.... just what YOUR 1st ammendment lawyer is advising you to do.

As I said before, adult lawyers and 1st Ammendment lawyers are out on this one. This goes way above their heads.


Just to add a bit more to this. Consider the fact that when you hotlink an image, you do not actually have control over that image. You are just telling the browser, "something goes here." Exactly what is on the part of the hotlink source.

If I hotlink content of Jane Doe and keep her records, what if the hotlink source changes that photo to John Doe without me knowing? Am I suddenly liable for not having his ID?

This seems pretty cut and dry to me.

i can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to believe that you can deliberately hotlink an explicit pic into a page YOU publish/edit and think that 2257 doesn't apply to you.

you might as well go out and buy your orange jumpsuit now and get used to wearing it.

So if the hotlinked image is changed to CP you think the cops still aren't going to bust you if it appears on YOUR site?

"Oh no officers I was 'hotlinking' the image so I'm not responsible. Don't you know howthe internet works?"

If you cause something to appear on your site you are PUBLISHING it. Pretty damned simple.

Sounds like "mere distribution" to me, which is of course 2257 exempt.

When you hotlink do you publish for commercial gain? That's pretty much what's covered under 2257. Is hotlinking really publishing?

I'd love to hear what an internet communications lawyer has to say about this.

Tough call. They'd come a knocking at least. I'm sure the truth would come out.

If I have an RSS feed that integrates seamlessly into a site and something illegal gets published, who is responsible? I'm thinking the RSS feed owner.

Eh, yes and no. This is where conspiracy to publish or something may come in though.

Yeah exactly, if that was the case, I think you'd see all the thumb sites hosting the thumbs in sweden somewhere haha.

LinkHotten is wrong anyway

I don't think the US has any right to create/enforce laws for the internet when they know nothing about it. They try to apply offline, federal, and state laws to the world wide web. It's unfair and premature.

yeah AFTER you get arrested and thrown in jail and your life is ruined.

Why else would some hotlink porn images? Who heard of welfare porn?

If hotlinking is OK then why doens't everyone do that. I just go check out the the TGPS and MPGs out ther find sites/galleries that have some great content and hotlink them and I'll be ok then. That's what you are implying isn't it?

Here is why the newspaper anaolgy is stupid.

In the newspaper story, the surfer(viewer) is the one adding the the images to the publication.

In websites, you publish the image on your site, who cares where it is being hosted it at. It is published through your site and you have control over it.

Exactly. Ok WHO put the code on YOUR site to allow the hotlinked image to appear? YOU. Images are not going to appear on your site unless YOU allow them too. The internet is not magic.

I assume you mean authorized hotlinking. All I know is that you wouldn't be the actual publisher of it. Post 4 of this thread details why, it it is correct. Read it. It has nothing to do with 2257, but 2257 relies on it.

That's not to say they couldn't get you on "conspiracy to.... whatever." If you knew ahead of time exactly what you were hotlinking, thus causing the wheels to be set into motion for browsers to request it then it may apply to something involving adult content laws (conspiracy to put out obscenity?). I don't see how it's 2257 though, since you are not the actual publisher and you need to be a publisher under 2257.

I think a lot of you are looking at this from an HTML.... what you see on the screen... perspective, and that is very wrong.

I think in that analogy they were talking about taking the newspaper somewhere and having the photo owner put it on there themselves. So the surfer... reader... doesn't actually touch it.

We've got genius in this topic. :-\

No YOU have to look at it the way the government will sees it. And the government is very stupid. In the end you MAY be right but only AFTER you have been arrested spent time in jail, spent thousands of $ on lawyers and have your name in the papers as the local evil ponorgrapher. Even if you win you still lose.

Oh I totally agree with you there. I don't know as if they'll be right clicking and checking where the image is hosted.

I was just saying for the sake of argument that hotlinking is not publishing on the part of anyone except the person serving it. I'm not saying you should go and do it.

I'm even a little weary of hotlinking those cam sponsor "these models are live now" images and iFrame things. They LOOK like they are on MY site, but they are not. THEY are publishing them, but to the untrained eye it looks like I am.

You are publishing it. Idiot.

Learn how HTML and websites work.

Every image on your site is hotlinked from another directory anyways.

To publish an image on your site you have to img src it which is hotlinking.

Who cares where you host it.

Did you even read this thread?

It's not about YOU hosting it on another server. It's about SOMEONE ELSE owning the image and hosting it on THEIR SERVER. Thus, they are the publisher.

If you hotlink to a server you have control over, of course that is bound to 2257. It's your shit.