On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@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.