"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 ;)

Comments

email to a friend

[geekoid]

I can't deep link to an article, but I can email it to a friend?

copyright infringement???

[doug_wyatt]

I could understand if someone was taking content from their site and embedding it in their own site. But linking is effectively saying "there is something interested over there", similar to me posting "hey, read page 46 of random book".

I can't imagine how someone would claim it is copyright infrigement if the "infringer" never touches the content in the alleged infringing act.

As has been stated before, if you don't want someone to get your content unless they go through your site, don't serve it to them. But don't expect other people to implement this for you.

Quote from the article....

[Steveftoth]

-- begin belo's position
"ultimately that this is our content and we should have some control about where and in what way it is used. We'll see what happens in the law and in the courts to decide how to proceed."
--end
This is such crap. If you want to control your content then fine, do it. Placing a web page on a public web server is like placing a stack of flyers in a student union. Sure, it's your content, but you've given up direct control of who get's their hands on it. If you want to make sure that people only see content the way you want to then you'll have to try something else. Like making people login (aka NYT).

Seems to me like all these problems arise from the fact that people don't understand that a web server is by default public. Same with the internet in general, being the 'open' standard that it is.

Policies

[klorentzj]

Yes, maybe they could implement something that would prevent deep linking (like checking the referrer page), but they probably figure it's only a matter of time until someone finds away around that and deep links anyway.

This might lead to something reminiscent of the coding wars between AOL and MS over the Instant Messenger client.

The point is: they are trying to establish their right to assert a _policy_. This is why you would go through legal channels. Once you have established that as a right, then you could implement measures to prevent deep linking. This way, circumventing those measures would already be established as unlawful.

Belo and CueCat

[Restil]

Belo is the same company that partially funded the braindead CueCat concept back the the dot-com boom "flush money down the toilet, its the way of life" days. And likewise, therefore pushed the lawsuits to stop those evil hackers who are opening our precious free product that you don't really own just because we gave it to you.

-Restil

icopyright

[morcheeba]

It's always been amusing when I see an article where icopyright offers to allow linking to an article for $5. Example. Their other services, such as reprints ($250, hosted at icopyright for a guaranteed amount of time, not at the original source) seem reasonable, but this linking-to comes with no guarantees. Other than they won't try to sue you, I guess. Their description:

HTML Link permission allows you to link to a specified Web page. Clicking on the licensed HTML link, whether embedded in a logo, in text, or in some other object, results in the immediate display of the Web page. Note: linked-to content is not guaranteed to be hosted by the Web site owner for any specific length of time; refer to the publisher's License Agreement for specific terms of use.

I wonder how they would treat thier example. By clicking above, you get a page that has a link to the original article. So, linking to icopyright is just one step removed, and (so far) free. I wonder if icopyright takes this linking-to seriously. By allowing linking to their site, they can generate revenue for themselves, but at the same time, they diminish the "protection" they offer to their customers,

Other Famous sites prohibitate too.

[dsmouse]

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