[unreal37]

I always hate when "kiddie porn" is brought up as a counter-argument to something. #weak

The whole crux of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision is that, when linking to something, you have no control over the content of the destination. So today it can be a nice picture of a kitten, and tomorrow someone can change it to something defamatory and illegal.

Or today its a link to a public domain song, and tomorrow someone replaces it with something copyrighted with the same URL. You can't control that.

[cpierson]

I'm curious as to why extreme examples are "weak" in the context of evaluating a framework to evaluate hyperlinks. Whatever policy the courts put in place, they have to handle both extreme and non-extreme situations.

Following your line of reasoning, we'd accept that building a website with the sole intention of linking to kiddie porn would be OK - because the author of those links has no control over what's on the other side.

As with most discussions like these, the trick is in how to draw the line, how to strike the balance.

[unreal37]

If we had this discussion about pirated movies and music, then you and I can have a reasonable discussion about the merits of one side or the other. And if you are strongly against copyright infringement, or feel that the music and movie companies have too much power in the law, there are reasonable merits to either side of the debate and a real discussion can take place.

The moment you bring child porn into it, then anyone who would "accept that building a website of the sole intention of linking to kiddie porn would be OK" is then labelled a sick, twisted individual for supporting such a thing. It's an argument designed to shut debate down before it even starts.

It's like Godwin's Law. Eventually someone mentions Hitler and that pretty much ends the discussion.