Post 2: Channelsurfing.net Lawsuit May Go Beyond Brian McCarthy
Earlier this week, we covered a story on channelsurfing.net's founder Brian McCarthy being arrested for streaming sporting events including WWE, UFC, NFL, and NBA events. Originally, it was thought that McCarthy would be convicted of "copyright infringement" and "theft of intellectual property", but after reviewing the complaint, it appears that the main allegations are McCarthy's "linking" to websites containing copyrighted materials.
Demandprogress.org makes an interesting point that this would incriminate anyone who ever sent a link to a copyrighted YouTube video. An interesting point, that could change the way people go about their daily email habits. Is the government going to go ahead a prosecute each and every person who puts up a link to a copyrighted YouTube video? Let's hope not.
Law is something that is supposed to change with time and adapt to changes in society. Obviously, the Internet and new technologies are uncharted territories for certain laws, and the government needs to be sensitive to how it handles each of these instances. It is clear that profiting from the distribution and streaming of sporting events over the Internet should be strictly monitored and controlled, but could the broad allegations and repercussions of a lawsuit stemming from this matter affect more than just those trying to profit off of these sites?
My name is Christopher Fusco. I am the managing partner of Callahan & Fusco, LLC with offices in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.