On 5/4/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote:
That's fairly narrow. It only applies to
trafficking in cracking
tools, and not to all "infringing material". And it is applied to a
defendant who previously distributed the tools directly, and then
later linked directly to the tools with a message essentially saying
"download here".
It applies not to 'cracking tools' in general but anti-circumvention
devices as defined under the DMCA. The rulings are very interesting
although they take some time to read. This isn't a simple matter to
judge and a lot of time and thought went into these decisions.
I think you could make a reasonable argument that, for example,
linking to the forbiddenstuff as an encyclopedia citation is not at
all the same thing as what 2600 did. Specifically, the test outlined
in the judgement requires the linking to be created with the intention
of distributing the circumvention tool. The court was very concerned
with the possible chilling effect of linking restrictions and
attempted to avoid that.