www.dpingram.com

A courti in the US has ruled that a website that links to another website’s copyright content is illegal. The decision was made because, as the judge says, people who reach the (legal owner’s) content from an link will bypass the owner’s sites advertising and marketing messages, thus the owner will miss out on revenue causing irrepairable harm to his business. The ruling is contrary to all previous cases of this nature.

Meanwhile, a debate continues about the liability of linking to copyright infringing content. If you do it are you yourself making an infringement???

WebTVWire has a post on the subject, citing Dr. Stephan Ott, who believes teh answer is YES, you are liable.

I quote…

In my opinion linking to infringing content is unlawful and that is also what most of the courts say. In the USA there have been several lawsuits about linking, but so far there has been no decision on the liability of a link provider for linking to copyright protected videos or music files (see this pending lawsuit). In Germany there have been lots of lawsuits on this matter and there is no doubt that you are liable if you link to illegal content, at least if you know that the content is illegal. I’m by far no expert in the legal system of the UK, but it is probably not so much different in this area.

So to answer your first question, I wouldn’t say the website is illegal but the links are. The same applies to a blog that occassionally links to infringing content.

In the USA there are Safe Harbour provisions for hyperlink providers. You receive a take down notice and you comply with it, than there is no liability. So far we have nothing that is comparible to that system in Europe. I think we need a similiar system and there are discussions on the European level. I took part in a discussion in September in Brussels. Maybe there will be new rules in 2007, but probably it will take more time.

OA is here

Wank name, neat idea:

SofaTube aims to take YouTube and Revver into the living room. While you can view Revver and YouTube directly on PCs and some game consules, SofaTube features an interface that’s optimized for viewing from far away, rather than two feet away on your desk.

That means massive fonts, huge menus and really simple navigation. SofaTube is being promoted for use on home theater PCs, the PlayStation 3 and (once the Opera browser is released for the Wii tomorrow) the Nintendo Wii, too.

OA is here on Mashable

How long before YouTube and Revver create their own TV-friendly UI?

Business social network LinkedIn is reportedly set to close a $13 million funding round at a $250 million valuation. LinkedIn expects to generate $45 million to $60 million in sales in 2007 and $100 million in 2008 - they’ve been profitable since March and employ 45 people.

With around 8 million registered members at last check, LinkedIn is the leading business social network in the US.

FiveAcross launched “Five Across Connect 1.8 Community Builder Platform”, which includes support for video, photos and audio. FiveAcross powers NHLConnect, one of the sporting social networks.

Pando, the application that lets you send large files by email, has announced it is partnering with Skype to facilitate large file transfers for Skype users.

Skype already has basic file transfer, but Pando Extra allows users to transfer files of up to 1GB, send files to offline contacts, send multiple files to multiple users at the same time, plus post files to MySpace and blogs.

I pasted an article from Mashable last week about the alliance of Fox, Viacom, NBC Universal and perhaps CBS working on a rival to YouTube. Now apparently the plan is in danger of failure before it even launched….

Mashable reports that…

…[the differing agendas of the parties] probably lead to conflict. Fox, for instance, wants to hit back at YouTube before they steal visitors and traffic from MySpace. But MySpace competes with Viacom’s MTV Networks - something that was bound to lead to problems.

… this group would surely lag behind YouTube in terms of agility and innovation. What’s more, CBS’ involvement has always been in question.

… users would see this as a corporate behemoth going up against a popular, innovative startup and its young founders. YouTube users got angry when Paris Hilton appeared on the site, complaining that YouTube had become too corporate - these core users are hardly likely to switch to a site which exists solely to extract a bigger cut of the ad revenue for the media companies.

OA is here on Mashable

Two months ago Second Life hit 1m registrations. Yesterday they hit 2m.

OA on Mashable is here

As an illustration of the change in attitudes of some traditional media towards the unstoppable tide of UGC and SN. WHereas a year ago they’d have sued, now they realise they need to work together…

On December 17th 2005, the SNL skit “Lazy Sunday” aired on NBC. The clip became a hit on YouTube, giving a massive boost to NBC’s Saturday Night Live and cast members Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg. NBC, you might remember, didn’t get the joke: they set the lawyers on YouTube and demanded that they take down every instance of the video. It was an unwise move that was widely criticized in the blogosphere - NBC were essentially killing off some of the best free promotion they’d enjoyed in years.

A year later, things are different: NBC and YouTube announced an agreement back in June, and a few days ago NBC posted another SNL short to YouTube. “D*ck in Box” (embedded below) stars Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake - it’s been a massive hit with YouTube users and bloggers. Not only have the SNL clips dominated YouTube’s Most Viewed and Top Rated clips this week, but they’ve also been the most linked-to videos on Technorati. It helps, of course, that the clip is extremely funny. Even more surprising: NBC posted the uncensored version to YouTube, while airing a bleeped-out version on TV. So far, the official version has received more than 1.2 million views.

This is a trick that some commentators didn’t expect YouTube to pull off: convincing media companies to partner with them, rather than sue. It’s amazing, in fact, how far the video sharing startup has come over the past year.

OA is here

Wengo, a subsidiary of 9 Telecom, France’s second largest telecom, has a well designed chat widget for bloggers. It’s called Wengo Visio and is like MeeboMe but with video chat. Visio runs in Flash through a bit of embedded JavaScript and CSS, with SIP as the communications protocol. Check here for some bloggers that have it implemented.

When you have your widget installed, you can make yourself available to chat by logging in through an admin menu. While online, readers can solicit you for chatting by typing a little message in text box that shows up on the owners side. The owner can then initiate the chat if they choose.

OA is here

I think I blogged before about The Venice Project (www.theveniceproject.com) and there are now some screenshots and a details report on the beta version on Om Malik’s blog (see reference at foot of this post).

There are several things I like about TVP, quite apart from the software itself, and they are that these guys have been hugely successful with both Kazaa and SKype, so they know a thing of two about getting a ground-breaking idea to market.

Take a look at the website, plain, simple, no bullshit, and speaks to us in a very natural language. There is a view that i subscribve to that says people/consumers/us are getting desensitized to clever marketing stuff, spin, and heavy branding. Todays cutting edge marketing is simple, clear, humble, plain english, and open. NOtice how they speak openly about the challenges they face and overcome (instead of thinking, “oh shit, we cant tell the people THAT”, they openly discuss the challenges).

They say there is no such thing as “The New Man”, that the New Man is just the Old Man who has learnt that he has to get a bit more in touch with his feminine side if he wants to bed the girls. Now that sounds a bit manipulative, but so be it, if it works, do it. Perhaps, similarly, there is no such thing as The New Marketing, its just the Old Marketing that has realised it has to ’show itself’ as being more low-tech and less ‘marketing’ to cut through.

I say if thats what TVP is doing then fair play to them. At the end of the day, if you want to be in business you have to be a mercenary bastard, and why not. Just that these days you have to also be a bit more open if you want to win the herats and minds of the cynical consumers, like us.

Anyway, review of TVP and screenshots are here