Slashdot Mirror
"Deep Linking" Controversy Renewed in Texas
DaDigz writes "Wired News is reporting on a cease and desist letter sent to an independant news site by Belo, corporate parent of The Dallas Morning News, forbidding them from linking to individual stories within the site. They claim that the author can only link to the site's homepage, and attempting to link to stories within the site violates their copyright."
Next week Time Magazine will require you to read pages 1-36 before reading the article
you want on page 37. Don't complain, it's their copyright ;)
Since when does copyright law force you to read anything you don't want to? The example in the post of reading the first 36 pages before you can view page 37 is exactly right. When I go to read a magazine I'm not compelled to read the table of contents (complete with blinking flashy full size ads) before I go to read an article, why would the web be any different?
In other news, footnotes in term papers and publications are now illegal according to these idiots in Texas. hehe.
Click here or here.
Two (2) lines in the web server's config file would have solved the problem. Even if they pay they're sysadmin $1000/hour, and he has to read two hours worth of documentation to find that out, it would still be more cost effective - the lawyer fees are probably well above $100/hour, and it won't end in less than 10.
A cease and desist letter should be considered criminal harrassment in this case, and the lawyer behind it should fear being disbarred for sending out such a letter. But there's no chance of that happenning.
Oh well, at least I'm not a US citizen, so it isn't MY taxpayer money that will go down the drain. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my legal rights.
No need to sue...
Maybe instead they should fire their webmaster for being clueless...
then direct them to an error page which states that they're (referrals) required to view this site.
And what is a "Deep Link"? Aren't all the documents on a web server stored on a hard drive? Last time I checked, the surface of a hard drive has no depth that would differentiate the height from the bottom of one document from another. So I am lost of the Dallas News argument. As far as I am concerned about my web site, all pages on it are home pages. I don't care if you link to "index.html" or "/news/04-02-02/index.html". Just link. The Internet is about information and making a clear route to it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Yes, and the web is a hyperlinked medium. If they don't want their copy linked, they shouldn't use the web. A skywriter can't write a poem and sue anybody who looks up, and a mystery book author can't file charges because someone just skipped to the end to see who did it.
And it's copyright, not copy write.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
as far as the Court is concerned between:
e s/050102dnspomavsbrite.1b9f8.html ?
This
and
This: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/topstories/stori
As far as I can tell people only complain when you actually embed a hyperlink in the source, rather than just display it as plain text. A difference of 15 characters.
Perhaps we could simply argue that we are just writing down the address of the story, it's the damn user's browser that is turning it into a highly-illegal hyperlink!
Green-voting, republican-registered, socialist-libertarian.
You're right. Posting their copyrighted material online doesn't mean others can make use of it however they like. However, they're going to be fighting an uphill battle. They're posting their content in an environment in which it can be freely accessed, both by anyone and free of charge (generally). If they're going to try and say people can't link, they're going to have to go against years of Internet standards. If they don't like the fact that the entire PLANET uses hyperlinks as a means of communication, they can pull their content from the web, plain and simple.
One could argue that their beef with linking is analagous to me showing a friend an article from a paper I bought. I paid for it and got the article legally, but showing it to my friend precludes him buying the paper. They got screwed out of another sale, so should I be taken to court? The only difference is that they're not making any sale when I go to their site in the first place. Instead, they're getting ad revenue from me going to the site. When I refer my friend to the site, they're STILL making ad revenue, just maybe not quite as much. Overall, they've made more (relatively) by me sending the link to my friend than by me showing him an article.
It should also be noted that no one is REALLY going to wade through a news source's home page to find information. They have a plethora of articles and other publications. If I send an article to someone, it's probably because I think they'll find it of particular interest to them. They're not prone to say, "Gee, I wonder if Such-And-Such Times has an article on the population growth of Three-Toed Sloths." And yet again, they get more revenue simply because of a link, where someone wouldn't have otherwise gone and viewed an article.
-X
From the article: "When someone provides a link without my permission, which grants a user access to a part of my website without going first to my site's home page, the user may experience something different from what I intended when I established my website," Bruce Sunstein, an intellectual property law attorney, said.
If I read a book backwards, I will have an exerience other than what the author intended. Have I infringed his copyright? No.
If I play a LP at 45 rpm instead of 33 1/3 rpm, I will have a different experience than what the publisher and recording artist intended. Have I infringed their copyright? No.
If I set fire to a piece of sheet music instead of placing it on my music stand, I will have a different experience of the work than if I had used it as the publisher intended. But have I infringed anyone's copyright? No.
If I read a website with a text-to-speech converter (assuming there's plaintext to read in the first place), I will have a different experience of the site than the publisher intended. Have I infringed his copyright? No.
I don't know what is wrong with these "intellectual property" people, but they are creating a new oxymoron, it seems to me. There is very little intellectualism discernable in intellectal property theory.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I'd rather have a site require referrers than have yet another copyright
law passed, or precedent set. If they don't want people coming from
outside sources, they should block them, not go whining to the authorities.
Copyright should deal with *copying and distribution*, not access to freely
available information. Linking does not copy or distribute any of the
site's content, nor does it even circumvent an access control measure.
:wq
One ring to rule them all. The (_O_) in Goatse.cx
Amazingly, they do have that right. They choose not to use it. Linking has nothing to do with copyright - you don't alter or reinterpert content, so you aren't creating a derivative work. You certainly aren't duplicating it. Copyright does not, and cannot, apply. Thats just basic sense. If they want to enforce a certain style of presentation, let them do so - it's like printing a book, but claiming you can force people to read it backwards. You can't, if you want people to read it backwards, you print it backwards. If you don't want people linking to content, make it impossible to do. This can be done trivially by not posting it on the web.
This technique is to be considered as highly antisocial, as it not only forbids deep linking, but also forces the user to enable javascript. Many users have disabled javascript for security reasons (obnoxious popus, cross-site scripting, etc.), while others may use a browser that does not support javascript, either by choice, or by necessity (blind users surfing with a braille line must use a text-only browser). Moreover, if you push javascript too much, it may well only run correctly in one single browser (the one you developped/tested it in), ruining all portability of Html (and if you don't push it overly, then it will not be obfuscated enough to truely hide the URL). By using such techniques, you'll be perceived as a moron who does this in order to force users to use Internet Explorer, rather than as somebody who wants to protect your deep links.
with a layer of crypto thrown in just to make analysis of the interpreted bytecode more difficult. (The crypto decode key must be part of what is downloaded, so this doesn't defeat analysys, just complicates it.)
Actually, such techniques can be defeated even without analysis: just run a sniffer and log the URL's that your browser tries to access. You'd be inconveniencing the legitimate user without really impeding a determined attacker.
You're earlyer suggestions (session ids or timestamps embedded in URLs) are much more user friendly.
Say no to software patents.
...well, unfortunately I can't seem to find it, even via www.archive.org's "wayback machine," but I could have sworn that in the old days when the Web meant lynx and lynx by default took you to a CERN page with some introductory material--INCLUDING an EXPLICIT statement that the concept of a "home page" was a completely arbitrary convention, that there were no features distinguishing a "home page" from any other page.
Hyperlinking between pages at ANY level is the essence of the Web.
Aren't there any W3C standards that still say this?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As the creators of the content, they should have the right to control how and when that content is made available. And to whom.
They are using the wrong medium.
If you don't want an article to be "deep linked", don't put it in a web page! It's freakin' obvious.
Chicago Tribune
New Scientist
CNN
Tech Industry Forum
Slashdot
Keep looking, you'll eventually find it
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
I am linking to your post which contains an "illegal" link. Did I just brake the law too?
It always strikes me as insane that this argument keeps getting trotted out. They're attempting to misuse a law that's not suited to their purpose when there's one that was so kindly gifted to them...
If it's really such an issue, check the HTTP_REFERRER. If it's not your site, bounce them back to the front page. You can do it in a couple of lines and then you get to sue anyone who goes around it under the security circumvention clause of the DMCA. Great, now you can stop wasting everyone's time with nonsensical positions.
Actually, thinking about it, will someone go and patent that suggestion so the media conglomerates can't use it? I won't claim prior art if you use it sensibly.
Furthermore, a link doesn't "grant a user access to a part of [your] website." You grant access to your website. If you don't want people to access it, take it down.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
If I say to you "There's a neat picture in this book Y on page Z" and you go grab book Y and flip to page Z without reading the rest of it, are you somehow redistributing? Are you in violation of copyright? NOT.
Copyright does not enter here as no COPY is made. You are providing a signpost or link (driving directions, a page reference, nothing more) that tells someone where some content is. How you describe that content (if at all) is up to you, but you certainly are NOT redistributing it NOR are you COPYING it.
The visitor must actually visit the other site and the OWNER's web server distributes any information. Therefore how the heck could you be violating a COPYright? Can't can't can't!
I can see objections to mirroring. I _can't_ see this kind of BS attorney-drive goonery as it pertains to linking. There IS no COPY therfore no infringement of COPYright.
Think of another equivalent. I've built a house with murals on all the outside walls. You drive by... I've told you "Gee, the mural on the left wall is neat!" so you go look at it. You don't make a copy.... the only information is provided by the original source. But suddenly you're violating (or so is the bogus claim) copyright because you didn't look at the front wall first?
I think you need to understand what is actually occuring here and understand the actual nature of copyright law to understand why such tactics boil down to lawyer-aided thuggery.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
If the website owners want to keep users from accessing certain pages directly via links on other sites they need to protect these pages. To leave these pages out in the open and expect no one to link to them is ridiculous. That is how the www works!
The pages can easily be protected using cookies or URL rewriting (for those who refuse cookies). Just keep track of whether or not a user has visited the home page. If they have, allow them to go on to the protected page, if they have not, redirect the user's browser to the home page. You might even let the user know that they were redirected, and offer them a link to the page they requested.
This would be much better than sending a cease and desist order, because no one would be able to link the pages in the first place. Oh, but that's too much work, maybe it's easier to threaten.
Sig free since 2/6/2002
Are the courts braindead or what?
I mean:
I mean, damn, do the courts and lawyers need to get involved because you can't configure your HTTP server?