Contributory copyright infringement is the act of linking to or transmitting information on how to access copyrighted material illegally from another source. For example posting a link to an illegitimate download of a song would be contributory copyright infringement. You might not be hosting the song on your server, and you might not have been the one that ripped it and put it online but you are still responsible for giving access to it.
Another example is embedding copyrighted music videos from YouTube. Some may try to claim that because it is hosted YouTube they can embed the video on their site without an issue. This is entirely wrong. Thousands upon thousands of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube by users every day and it is impossible for them to screen it all for infringing content. It is your responsibility, not YouTube’s, to check if the content you are posted is copyrighted. YouTube is protected by safe harbor acts which means it is not liable for content uploaded by it’s users as long as it complies with any DMCA(Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notices sent to it by copyright owners. Another individual uploading the material or linking to it is not protected under safe harbor laws and thus can be liable for the contributory copyright infringement.
Most contributory infringement cases are a civil as opposed to a criminal matter, an important distinction. This means you cannot go to jail for contributory infringement but could be sued by the copyright owners and could face stiff penalties if you loose the case. There are some exceptions to these laws, under Fair Use and Safe Harbor laws mentioned earlier. Laws on contributory copyright infringement vary worldwide; in countries like Sweden simply linking to copyrighted material via a torrent download or other means is not illegal. This protects many warez websites like “The Pirate Bay”. In the United States however the law is clear, linking to copyrighted material is contributory copyright infringement and therefore illegal.
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