A proposed copyright law could restrict media communication by protecting copyright property from being linked to in blog posts.
As noted by Adam Estes in Gizmodo, a recent proposed addition to copyright law would make it illegal to link to certain copyrighted property.
Link to a video without appropriate copyright permissions, violate the law
When on Twitter if someone links to a video that has illegally used copyright material, the person that Tweeted, or linked, to the video could be committing a crime, under the new proposal.
As an example, when Gawker linked to a previously unpublished Quentin Tarantino script, such a link would be illegal. But the law could even get broader. If a user were to link to a video post that had a song in the background, but the producer of the video did not obtain copyright permission, the person that linked to the video could have broken the law.
Impossible to check copyright of all linked items
The Digital Public Library of America wrote in a blog post, “…it would be nearly impossible to adequately assess the copyright status of all of the works in linked library collections. We hope you’ll agree that linking is an essential—perhaps the essential—element of the open web, and that we must work together to keep that option fully available to us all.”
The best case the Digital Public Library of America makes is that it would be virtually impossible for someone to determine the fair copyright of all items it links to.
