Deep Linking to Webcasts

In Live Nation Motor Sports, Inc. v. Davis, a federal district judge in Texas ruled that deep-linking to streaming media is copyright infringement. The plaintiff streams webcasts of its racing events via its web site. The defendant was providing links to these streams from his web site.

The court finds that "the unauthorized 'link' to the live webcasts that Davis provides on his website would likely qualify as a copied display or performance of SFX's copyrightable material."

William Patry Gentlemen Stop Your Linking (includes full text of the opinion): "This is a deeply disturbing opinion."

Declan McCullagh, News.com:

Matthew Saunders, Legal Fixation: Hitting the Links “Live Nation/SFX claims Supercross is the second most popular motorsport in the U.S., surpassed only by Nascar.”

Colette Vogele: Supercross Opinion Leaves Many Open Questions: "Sometimes, when your case isn't particularly strong, it may be better to employ a vagueness strategy and hope the court won't notice (or won't want to get bogged down in the details). This might be especially effective when your opponent is representing him/herself. Not having seen the rest of the record, I don't know for sure if that's what happened here, but I suspect this is the case because the opinion, as Patry points out, leaves so many factual questions open."