There's definitely infringers in this story -- I just don't think it's him.
>That didn't happen, the individual in question embedded copyrighted videos
What's the difference between an embed and a link? It's just a semantic difference in the HTML, right? Both point to external media not hosted by him.
As I recall from what I've seen of his site, he simply embedded the justin.tv player on his pages (where he also placed ads). He would configure the justin.tv player to show various channels that he knew would be showing a particular game. Somebody else (or perhaps the same person, although if that's what the government is alleging, I haven't heard it), using a TV capture card, would encode the live video of some NCAA/NBA/NFL/whatever game and stream it to a justin.tv channel. Anyone could log into this channel via the regular justin.tv site and watch the same live video.
Channelsurfing.net just provided a quick link to a justin.tv channels that had the sports content.
So in all this, who's infringing copyright? Definitely the guy with the capture card. What about justin.tv? Maybe they're liable, or maybe they're protected by the safe haven clause. But someone linking to that content on justin.tv? No. Or even embedding the justin.tv player, pre-configured to show that particular justin.tv channel? Again, I don't think so.
Justin.tv is protected by the DMCA Service Provider exception b/c it did not actively filter content hosted on/through its servers. Channelsurfing.net did filter content -- indeed, it selected specific content for retransmission. That is why Justin.tv is not liable but the channelsurfing guy is.
As to why he's being charged with a crime...we'll find out when they release the charges against him. It may be as innocuous as tax evasion for not reporting the income from the ads on his site.
That's still a bit of a stretch. If I created a subreddit on reddit.com with nothing but links to justin.tv copyrighted content, who's liable then? I'm filtering content but I'm not hosting the content or even the links.
piguy314 posted a [dead] reply that shouldn't have been killed:
> 1 point by piguy314 3 hours ago | link [dead]
> Would your sub-reddit be a commercial enterprise who's sole source of revenue was monetizing someone else's intellectual property illegally? Or would your sub-reddit be a user-curated (not reddit curated) site that engaged in substantial non-infringing uses subject to DMCA takedown rules... Here is reddit's DMCA agent filing if you are interested http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/a/advmp.pdf
>That didn't happen, the individual in question embedded copyrighted videos
What's the difference between an embed and a link? It's just a semantic difference in the HTML, right? Both point to external media not hosted by him.
As I recall from what I've seen of his site, he simply embedded the justin.tv player on his pages (where he also placed ads). He would configure the justin.tv player to show various channels that he knew would be showing a particular game. Somebody else (or perhaps the same person, although if that's what the government is alleging, I haven't heard it), using a TV capture card, would encode the live video of some NCAA/NBA/NFL/whatever game and stream it to a justin.tv channel. Anyone could log into this channel via the regular justin.tv site and watch the same live video.
Channelsurfing.net just provided a quick link to a justin.tv channels that had the sports content.
So in all this, who's infringing copyright? Definitely the guy with the capture card. What about justin.tv? Maybe they're liable, or maybe they're protected by the safe haven clause. But someone linking to that content on justin.tv? No. Or even embedding the justin.tv player, pre-configured to show that particular justin.tv channel? Again, I don't think so.