Slashdot Mirror
Another Publisher Challenges Legality of Links
NewtonsLaw writes: "It seems that the legality of hypertext linkiing has once a gain been called into question according to
this story running on Wired.com.
As the former online publisher of 7am.com, I was once threatened by the Nando Times in a similar manner when I was linking to their stories.
Local TV broadcaster TVNZ also made all sorts of noise about the illegality of linking to their content
back in 1966 but have since come to their senses.
Over the years I've had similar bitchy complaints from a number of online publishers who simply haven't worked out that links from other sites are something to be encouraged because the drive traffic and boost search-engine ratings.
A great resource for those interested in the history, opinions and law on the matter of the legality of linking is the
Link Controversy page created and maintained by Stefan Bechtold.
Most publishers eventually realize that trying to block linking through the courts is a really dumb thing to do -- but there's always someone who simply doesn't get it."
There are sites out there that block outside linking, they figure out that you're being redirected and send you to a nice outside linking not allowed page.
Why can't these fools just do that.
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I find this 'you're not allowed to link to me' mentallity hilarious. As we all know a link is no more than electronic 'word of mouth' or a sign post. The arrogance that goes along with "you're not allowed to tell people where our public content" is beyond me.. and let's face it, anything on the web IS for public viewing.
It may be copyrighted, but that's not the same as 'no public access'.
The article makes reference to "deep links". If sites are so worried about that, why don't they just do what the NYTimes does and require that people register to be able to read specific pages? Anyway, lots of sites, /. included, are encouraging people to link/import to headline pages by using the Netscape .rdf files. I could understand sites getting narked at people who, say, directly used <img src> to access images on their site, but hyperlinks... what's wrong with that?
It takes about 2 seconds for them to configure their webserver to check Referrer headers and deny deep link requests from another site. Either they are so stupid that they don't deserve to own a website at all, or they are so evil that they'd rather order everyone else in the world around instead of simply fixing their own problems. Either way, it would not be a pity if some outraged activist took a pair of wire cutters to their Internet connection.
What if I said "My political opponent said somthing alarming on page 56 of his new book." Does "the user ... experience something different from what [he] intended" and if so am I therefore not allowed to refer to pages of his book, only to say the book name and tell the audience to find the quote themselves?
Sound pretty rediculous when put in terms of a physical medium. Not to mention my 1st amendment right to say "such and shuch information can be found at this and that location."
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
If you host an http server on the internet, you are inviting people to look around. The nature of the web is that a web page is open unless proven otherwise. It is like a store with no locks on the door. If it is locked then I won't go in. If the door is wide open, I will go in.
If someone puts a big sign up to tell me that they don't want me to go in and I go in anyway, then I am doing something wrong, but not until.
Bye!
Some of the danish newspapers are against sites that leech off them, and claim that what they leech is their own and sell the content to other people.
Imagine Slashdot copying every story they link to, and claiming that it's their own story, and charging you 10 cents for their service.
The newspapers don't mind what Slashdot does (well, except slashdotting them of course), because they're still getting the exposure they want.
Well - some of the newspapers that is. Some of them want you to link like this:
"Open a new page and type in http://www.cnn.com
Click on the "U.S." link in the left hand menu.
Click on the "U.S.: Friendly fire pilot reported being fired upon" link in the top right hand corner, right under the picture of a jet fighter.
If it's not there, tough luck."
Others are quite cool with just linking like this:
CNN.com reports - U.S.: Friendly fire pilot reported being fired upon
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Even though the web is a very far cry from Xanadu, Ted Nelson outlined this entire issue in his seminal book, "Literary Machines".
Basically, it comes to this: either you're part of the web, or you're not. In Xanadu (no pun), if you were to participate and place your works in the Xanadu database, you are implicitly giving people the right to link and cite (and make marginal notes) about your work. If you don't like that, then don't publish. The same is true for the Web. If people don't want to be linked to, they should just get the hell off the Web, plain and simple.
One thing I'm curious about is what would the general consensus be on someone who inlines an image on their page that comes from your webspace?
I have a lot of pictures which I've taken myself, and lately I've discovered that they're showing up on other peoples pages, directly inlined from my own.
Myself, I dislike this, as I end up having to pay the bandwidth for someone elses webpage.
If your problem is people doing then disallow nonlocal referrs on .jpg files.
.html file, that should be a *good thing*.
If the problem is people coming to your website, downloading the images, and posting them on their website, make sure that the image comment (most image files have an editable comment field) contains "Copyright © 2002 Your Site, Inc." and sue them for copyright infringment.
In no case do you need to sue someone for linking to your site. If they're linking to an
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sorry, but the internet existed long before your company did.
Now, because you and your company came along -- and a bunch of others like you and your company -- and you've decided that you don't like the way things are done on the net -- the way they've always been done on the net, the way that was essential to the net's success -- you want to punish all of US and destroy the internet WE'VE worked so hard to create.
Corporations are ruining the internet with their corporatization, spam, pop-ups, pop-unders, banner ads (yes, that includes slashdot -- there's a reason I block these fucking ads), promotional materials, and high-glitter low content web-pages.
Even "respectable" sites like the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) are sickening in their lack of ethics. I pay money to get access to the Wall Street Journal online. And for paying that good money to them, what do I get? ADS. Fucking ads. I have to use an ad-blocking hosts file for wsj.com, a site which I PAY TO HAVE FULL ACCESS TO!!!!
People act like companies have brought the internet to life. No, companies are to the internet as street-trash whores are to city-dwellers: sure, they're fun for a while; but then you get sick.
Corporate websites are a plague to the internet, a plague that comes in a candy-coated package. Companies are like the white man that came over to America and pretended to be nice-nice to the Native Americans while offering them virus-loaded blankets and "firewater".
We need to resist this corporatization of the net.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Damn right! Corporations are a disease of the Internet. In e-mail, people get more spam and viruses than any other kind of message. On the web, the ads take longer to download than the content. Cookies and spyware are being secretly loaded onto thousands of machines. We made the Internet, and the corporations are trying to kill it for profit.
It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to live in the world they would like to create. All we need are the right skills and the determination to use them. Let's make it happen!
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."