Off Topic Expiring links don't protect you
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 12:45 am
I've seen a lot of misunderstanding of how DMCA and the copyright system works in practice, so I'll put this here. (If anyone is interested on an academic level, .) First of all, a DMCA takedown request goes to the hosting company, not the person who uploaded the content. Second, it's called a takedown request because that's literally what it is: a request to take down the material. There is no penalty if the host complies. And even if they don't, the liability is on them, because they're hosting it. This really doesn't affect you, the forum member. Obviously a host can terminate your account (e.g. Mega does this often), but it's not like anyone comes after random uploaders, particularly people like members of this forum, who basically don't exist as far as anyone who could/would make any trouble is concerned. There really is essentially no risk in sharing links on a forum like this, whether they expire or not. Even when people are sharing terabytes of infringing content on paid Mega accounts (which makes them more identifiable), the only thing that happens is the content gets removed and maybe their account is terminated. That being said, if anyone care enough to come after you, the fact that your link expired wouldn't do anything to protect you. Anything that would identify you from an evergreen link would be there from an expired link. Even if the file is deleted from the host servers at expiration, they still could easily keep hash records. But again, it isn't going to happen, because the necessary records generally aren't kept, and again, there would be no benefit to expend resources trying to identify and go after random members of a random forum. It's really about as likely as the copyright owners of "Happy Birthday" coming after you for singing their song at a child's party in a private home. The cost is too high, and the likelihood of any payoff is essentially nill. It's not as if anyone here has pockets deep enough to entice any law firm anyway. So there's really no benefit to using expiring links. No one is coming after you, and if they did, the fact that the link expired wouldn't make a difference to protect you or the forum. (See for more on how it pertains to the forum.) You're not foiling anyone's lawsuit plans, you're not outsmarting The Man...You're literally just creating linkrot and the inevitable "reup??" forum trash. , you can upload directly in a post. , will mirror your upload across different hosts, giving recipients multiple options, and minimizing link rot. , of course mega.nz is standard, but requires registration, and it's not uncommon for content to get removed.
Link:
http://c4sif.org/resources/
Link:
http://c4sif.org/resources/