The popular British Web site, tv-links.co.uk, a site that featured hundreds of links to illegal versions of movies and television programs, is no more. British police struck the first major blow against link sites in the continuing battle over worldwide television and film piracy on October 18th by charging a 26-year-old British man with facilitation of copyright infringement. British authorities have opened the flood gates for charges against the dozens of other sites featuring links to this illicit material.
But more than anything the authorities have once again shown their unwillingness to go after the people really reaping the benefits of piracy. Tv-links was certainly not a website on the up and up. It was one of the most popular and reliable links sites on the web, providing links to a variety of British and American films and television shows, both old and new. But this one man’s offences pale in comparison to those of YouTube. Tv-links certainly didn’t have the awesome power of Google, which owns YouTube, backing them up.
While Tv-links featured links to sites that hosted illegal material, YouTube regularly hosts pirated versions of old television shows and movies on their own servers. In fact, Tv-links often led users directly to YouTube or its sister site, Google video. Why does a single man providing links to episodes of “Boy Meets World” on YouTube go to jail when the site providing that illegal material gets off scot-free?
YouTube has claimed that they cannot fully police every part of their site and therefore cannot be responsible for the material posted. And yet administrators regularly take pornography off of YouTube as well as clips owned by Viacom, an equally large company that has complained and threatened Google with legal action.
Would the film industry not complain if Wal-Mart openly let customers steal movies off their shelves from noon to close on Sundays? Actually, what we’ve learned is that they probably wouldn’t. But police would arrest the guy in the parking lot talking about it.
In that vein here is a link to one of my favorite episodes of “Boy Meet World” entitled “Hair Today Goon Tomorrow” in which Cory gets a haircut and Eric, depressed after not getting into college, sits on the couch eating coco puffs and dreaming up his own television shows. It’s on YouTube. Please don’t shut us down.