[tzs]

"In a manner that" modifies "offering goods or services". The structure of this is:

    The site is illegal if it is primarily designed for use in X

where X is "offering goods or services in a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates...".

[zmmmmm]

I agree you can read it that way, but it doesn't change much to me. Any site that accepts user content as its main function still has a primary purpose that enables / facilitates the infringement.

[sunir]

A theoretical parsing of the sentence does not matter. When tested in court, a reasonable reading of the law would not find YouTube in violation. The clear intention of the Act is to burn down sites whose primary purpose is theft of U.S. property, like The Pirate Bay.

The problem is that is YouTube today. A lot of people forget that YouTube built its initial audience by "primarily" being flooded with pirated anime clips. Even if YouTube did not want to be a haven of copyright infringement, it users did. It would be easily arguable that YouTube would violate the law when it first started.

[meric]

"a reasonable reading of the law". Anyone relying on this when thinking about new laws deserves to have their constitutional rights slowly eroded year by year. Take Hong Kong as an example. Originally the idea universal suffrage would be applied in 2007. However due to less than "reasonable" readings of the law, the government now claims universal suffrage will apply in 2017. As of 2012 the government has performed zero actions in preparation for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Hong_Kong#Universal...

The Hong Kong basic law stipulates the ultimate goal is universal suffrage, but every action until now by the government indicates it desires the delaying of this indefinitely.

Hong Kong was promised 50 years of autonomy, but after 10 years interference from the Chinese government has only increased. Why is the biggest and most funded political party in Hong Kong backed by the Chinese government?

See, you can only expect "a reasonable reading of the law" in reasonable times. When times are unreasonable the laws must be bullet-proof to be able to protect citizens.

When the average bill blows out to a thousand pages, it is in no way "bullet-proof".

[ajuc]

> "a reasonable reading of the law". Anyone relying on this when thinking about new laws deserves to have their constitutional rights slowly eroded year by year.

Let me add another historical example of reasonable reading of law going awry - in renaissance and later Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was noble democracy - all nobles had equal voting rights (that was +- 10% of country population). They elected kings, decided country matters during parlament sessions, etc.

There was instituion of "liberum veto" - it was thought to be consequence of all nobles being equal in voting rights - it meant that every nobleman could stop any decision made by parliament, just by saing "liberum veto".

For many centuries it was not as stupid, as it sounds, because it was common understanding, that this person could be then challanged to duel by anybody not agreeing with him (so people weren't overusing it), and that this veto only applies to one matter currently discussed, not everything that was decided during given session.

But starting in 1652 understanding of this law changed to "liberum veto means any nobleman can cancel all decisions made during parlament session". And people started escaping after screaming "liberum veto".

Of course it was abused by foreign countries - you just have to bribe one nobleman out of 10% of country population to block any decision (like decision to enlarge army). Slightly more than century later Commonwealth disappeared.