Mal4mac.
Did you know if you put a tinfoil hat on you're 30% less likely to receive a visit from the men in black? That way their gamma ray detectors can't penetrate your brain and reach the implant they put in you as a baby. Better put your ID card in tinfoil too they've chipped that also, it will lead them directly to you!
That's how farfetched this is getting.
I will repeat, for good measure - Since it seems it didn't sink in the first time:
Under the DMCA (which is the relevant piece of legislation here, given that the copyrighted materials are hosted on a US server by the Wat Florida website, and furthermore given that this website is also owned and operated in the US) the course of action is simply to request a take down of such a link. If that request has not been proven to be sent and recieved and deliberately ignored/refused,
no prosecution can take place.
I have detailed at length with a highly logical reasoning why the author of this book would not spend the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars trying to subpoena the Sangha into giving up the thousands of IP adresses that have accessed that page, and then summarily attempting to prosecute them. There is
no legal precedence for this. There would be no
hope of achieving any success and finally, the author would have absolutely no motivation to do so, considering A) he's Buddhist and it would unwholesome to do so, B) It would be a huge waste of time and money with no apparent incentive to do so. I very much doubt he has even a fifth of the necessary funds it would take to finance such an incredibly stupid idea as it would be to attempt to prosecute thousands of people like you in individual court cases.
Furthermore, have you actually read the article you linked me about Georgia State vs. Oxford Uni Press?
The plaintiffs claimed that Georgia State University engaged in "systematic, widespread and unauthorized copying and distribution of a vast amount of copyrighted works" through its e-reserves system.[2] Georgia State asserted that its system did not infringe copyright because its uses were fair use.[3]
The district court issued a 350-page findings of fact and conclusions of law on May 11, 2012, finding that in almost all cases the alleged infringements were fair use.[4] In a subsequent decision the court deemed that Georgia State University was the "prevailing party" and ordered the plaintiffs to pay GSU's attorney's fees.[5] Notwithstanding the "prevailing party" decision, the plaintiffs characterized the case as "flawed" but not a "loss",[6] but nonetheless filed an appeal.[7]
The bits I have highlighted are important:
1. The plaintiffs were taking GST to court over something much much more serious than simply hosting links to copyrighted material. They were arguing that GST's online library was essentially hosting and allowing for download hundreds of thousands of e books for which they did not have permission. The two things are worlds apart.
2. Georgia State was actually doing nothing illegal, my university here at Otago offers the same service to it's students - One of allowing them to borrow ebooks online for a period, as do many universities around the world. One is able to do so under 'fair use' - The same legal framework that allows public libraries to offer their books to lend to members.
3. The court rejected O.U.P case, and ordered them to pay GST's legal fees, they may have appealed, but in any case the situation does not look good for them, nor for anyone who would seek to bring a similar case against an organisation in future.
4. You know the maximum O.U.P could
legally seek from G.S.T was an injunction? Do you know that they were only seeking a court mandated cease and desist?
So in summary, the case you have cited is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about here, as there are a world of differences between the supossed 'infringement' of hosting a link on a discussion forum/clicking it, and hosting a system that allows people to download hundreds of thousands of ebooks and in any case, the plaintiffs
lost the case! But even if they had won, all they would have achieved was to make G.S.T cease and desist. In DW's case that would simply mean the removal of any link to copyrighted material.
So to suggest that 'because that court case happened, what's stopping
'them' from going after Dhamma Wheel?' is so thoroughly logically fallacious that it does not warrant any more mention.
I'm sorry Mal4Mac, but Buddhist authors and copyright lawyers have better things to do with their time than hunt you down for clicking a link. They have actual purposeful activities to occupy their day with. So abandon this fantasy - It's unskillful and purposeless. Nobody has ever been fined or sent to jail for clicking on a link that contains copyrighted material, and they're not about to start doing it, not even for someone as important as yourself
So please, relax - Give it up. No men in black will be knocking at your door for this. Nobody's putting Ben in jail, nor David (who is the actual owner btw) and neither will you be fined money you don't have. All's good and well in the world.
