What is the best content spinner?

Is it legal to link to infringed copyright content in the United States?

• Google and various other search engines can link to pirated content or sites that link to pirated content. Yet, where does a search engine stand in the midst of copyright laws in the US? Where is the line drawn when it comes to "linking" to illegal use of copyrighted content? Does it boil down to: As long as Google doesn't host the content, they aren't held liable? This brings me to sites like http://beemp3.com. Clearly, this search engine links to a lot of copyrighted content, but is a simple "We aren't liable for the content we link to" all it take to avoid court in law system in the United States? Is this a grey area, or is it clear what you can and can't do as far as the copyright laws are defined in the United States? Another point, is it legal to "collect" (as in search engine crawlers) this illegal content, but illegal to "accept" (as in accept publications from users) links to illegal content? If the way search engines get around this legal issue is by giving the opportunity to report and take down copyrighted content, then to what measure must a service go to in order to handle this legally? Must the process be simple and quick, or can a site purposely make it difficult to report and take down copyright content?

• Answer:

  This is actually an area of unsettled law. It is not clear how judges would interpret the DMCA with regards to linking directly to a copyright item. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca#Linking_to_infringing_content) People have lost lawsuits where they were given an injunction against hosting a copyrighted file, but after removing it they place a link to the same content hosted by someone else. They have also lost cases where they were linking to software or devices designed to foil DRM. But for a more general case, such as you mention above, there have been no trials yet to determine how courts would react. So this is a gray area. Search engines just link to everything. Clearly some sort of focus on copyright infringing material would be needed to have cause to file a lawsuit. No one's going to sue Google for just indexing the entire internet. But a content search engine might be on much shakier ground. Ultimately, the content owner can always file a DMCA complaint with the actual host of the files, such as a person's ISP. But the MPAA and record industry are fans of playing whack-a-mole. So a lawsuit that clearly favors them is probably inevitable, with hopes that it sets precedent.