Danish Court Rules Deep Linking Illegal

Jstein writes "In a court ruling today Friday, the court in Copenhagen, Denmark ruled in favor of the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association against the online news aggregator Newsbooster. Thereby deep linking has been ruled illegal for the first time." Currently the story is only in Danish (from Computerworld Denmark, Online). Update: 07/05 23:15 GMT by T : ttyp writes "Here is a link to an English language story about the Danish deep linking case."

Comments

I never really knew what deep linking meant...

[cca93014]

until now:

"Jeg er dybt chokeret. Vi taber på alle punkter, men det er sikkert, at vi kærer til Landsretten, siger han."

Re:I never really knew what deep linking meant...

[Anonymous Coward]

means "I'm deeply chocked. We are loosing on all fronts, but it it's certain that we take this to the National Court."

Re:I never really knew what deep linking meant...

[Anonymous Coward]

hva' fa' noget? hvad er betydning af "dybe links"?

Re:I never really knew what deep linking meant...

[Anonymous Coward]

For an awkward but semi-functional translation, try TransExp

Or... The text

Fogedforbud against deep linker
From: Germ Elmose

Nyhedstjenesten Newsbooster shall brake by that publish the news letter by deep linker to commodities at danish dagblades websider. A upset manager Duck-breeding Lautrup discloses, that Newsbooster lost at all points.

It is a upset managing director by Newsbooster, Duck-breeding Lautrup, there has received the award from Copenhagen Fogedret. The judge Michael Chest treats Danish Dagblades Brotherhood (DDF) medhold to, that there shall pack fogedforbud against nyhedstjenestens the news letter by deep linker. The award and its premises fills 38 pages.

- I am deep chokeret. Vi loses at all points, however it is certainly, that vi dear to Landsretten, says he.

Known retsmødet monday the 24. june beat Newsbooster themselves at, that deep linker is a integral part from internettets nature and that the service just gelejder readers to they danish dagblades commodities.

Other way round reason with DDF, that Newsbooster wheeler-dealer at jobs, that others has exported. DDF lead two vidner, partly director of studies from DDF, Holger Laudatory, and koncerndirektør by That Berlingske Official, Lasse Bolander.

if you link deeply to this post...

[Uthiroid]

would it still be first?

Re:if you link deeply to this post...

[Uthiroid]

guess not. worth a shot i always say...

No googling in Denmark?

[sthiyaga]

So no googling in Denmark now ?

Re:No googling in Denmark?

[Oculus Habent]

We'll start seeing signs on web pages:

Deep linking by permission only.

Deep linkers will be prosecuted.

Deep linking allowed.

But, like "No Trespassing" signs, the notices will have to be every so many web pages, and must be signed with 128-bit encryption. ;)

Re:No googling in Denmark?

[SirNonya]

Eternity Service.

breakin the law

[iosphere]

Aren't you in violation of Danish law by linking to the story?

Re:breakin the law

[Penguin]

Computerworld actually would like to intervene with Newsbooster, but wasn't allowed.

Furthermore, since the case is under private prosecution, Computerworld would have to run their own case against /. - and the case would be an entirely different. The arguments against Newsbooster wouldn't be relevant (if Computerworld would make a fuzz about it - but as mentioned, Computerworld supports Newsbooster in this case)

And let me emphasize: We don't have a final ruling yet.

Re:breakin the law

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not Danish law...

It's a preliminary injunction against one company.

Re:breakin the law

[Andrewkov]

Goodbye Slashdot...

Hmmm.

[ranulf]

This is all starting to become a dangerous precedent... I hope deep-linking is only considered illegal if you explain how to find something by following the links.

Does that mean that if I link to slashdot which has an article that links to 2600 which links to DeCSS source (or something that is illegal in whatever country), or even any other convulted route that I am breaking the law? Surely not. Or is it only if I say, "click here, follow link x, follow link y and then link z".

Sigh.

Re:Hmmm.

[Fastolfe]

I disagree. If you're sticking something up on a web site, that something has a URL. Every entity on a web site has its own unique URL that should be retrievable anywhere.

If you don't like this behavior, and you want "pages" on your site to only be accessible by people browsing through your site, you're going to need to stick a "document retrieval" application layer onto your site. Users start a session when they enter this application, and are only able to retrieve stories through this application front-end. This can be done through HTTP as simply as with a session ID, but the web was not meant to work like this.

Again, we have a rather useful technology being twisted and warped by corporate interests instead of those corporate interests funding a proper technological solution, just like the intellectual property crap associated with DNS nowadays.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confused as to what deep linking is. It's not linking to a site that's linked to another site, etc. It's when you link to a second, third, fourth, etc level of a website. Basically, linking to anything except the default index page.

Re:Hmmm.

[JamesOfTheDesert]

It's when you link to a second, third, fourth, etc level of a website.

What's a "level"? If there is a specific, direct URL to a item, then it is already at the "top" level. That there are other ways to arrive at that URL is a conceptual design decsion, not a feature of hyperlinking or the Web itself. There is no "top" of a web site, other than mental contructs people impose on it, unless the web server enforces a particular sequence of URLs.

What's (almost) funny is that this is trivially easy to do, and just has to be cheaper than suing people, unless you are collecting damges each time.

Re:Hmmm.

[ranulf]

I think you're confused as to what deep linking is

Doh! I think I'm a dumbass! I was still thinking about the Deutsche Bahn case... I'll excuse my self for not reading the article though :-)

If that's really what the deal is, then frankly they shouldn't be so stupid. There are easy technical solutions to stop people deep-linking in the way you suggest, such as checking the "Referrer" header and redirecting to an index page or some other page that encloses the page in a frame, etc, if you've come from outside the site. I don't see the need for courts to be involved, when there's a perfectly good technical solution.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah! they are the ones providing the page to you. If they dont want deep links, they should not do the work and answer your request to give information. They are the ones in control here, and they choose to sue rather than fucking fix it so their dumb-ass website doesnt answer deep links from other sites.

Why must the people who don't understand it decide technology's fate?

Re:Hmmm.

[Koos]

Does that mean that if I link to slashdot which has an article that links to 2600 which links to DeCSS source (or something that is illegal in whatever country), or even any other convulted route that I am breaking the law?

Well, according to a Dutch judge, you might be. In the Radikal case Dutch, a second site, Indymedia was sued for having an article with links to mirrors of the original Radikal site.

I really don't see why you need a judge to make yourself look stupid in national and international publications when someone links directly to items on your website. When someone was linking to images on my website (where I pay for excess traffic) I did not call a lawyer. I went to the Apache website where the documentation about mod_rewrite has the excellent Apache 1.3 URL Rewriting Guide which has a cookbook entry (cut, paste, edit names) for exactly this, which can be easily adopted to stop 'deep linking'. Set up a nice 403 errorpage stating that linking directly to articles on your site is not allowed by policy and go on.

Deep linking?

[User 956]

Too bad. Next week Time Magazine will require you to read pages 1-36 before reading the article you want on page 37.

Re:Deep linking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next week we'll also hear some dumb-ass remarks from a major print publication CEO on how not reading the ads is considered stealing, as will be discarding those stupid inserts they cram in just so you can't flip through the pages to find the article you want.

Re:Deep linking?

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be solved via cookies or some other dynamic solution, so I don't see what the problem is other than laziness on the part of content providers. That is, letting the law fix what they won't do via technology is utter BS.

Woops, that's the DMCA!

Re:Deep linking?

[Theologian]

Code your pages so that:
if anyone comes from a site other than the main "www.[domain].com" site (or a parent URL),
redirect them to your www.[domain].com page.
(but lazy programmers will most likely have the nasty-Nanny-cam ads pop up on every page....)

Re:Deep linking?

[Oculus Habent]

Companies could prevent deep linking in a heartbeat just by redirecting anything that wasn't referred by their domain. That way people couldn't even send "deep links" to friends in e-mail...

It's a great way to have huge amounts of unaccessible information on a web page... Like phone trees, only more pathetic.

Re:Deep linking?

[CaseyB]

Companies could prevent deep linking in a heartbeat just by redirecting anything that wasn't referred by their domain.

I haven't been a webmaster in a while, but I think the spread of smart browsers and privacy firewalls that supress "extraneous" information like Referrer: headers would make this unadvisable.

Re:Deep linking?

[why-is-it]

Too bad. Next week Time Magazine will require you to read pages 1-36 before reading the article you want on page 37.

Indeed. No doubt some marketdroid will come up with the very clever idea of filling pages 1-36 with ads too...

Re:Deep linking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then use a session key in a cookie or some other simple method to make sure that people visit the page you called the "front" of your web site first. Or tell the bozos who think they're too good for the RefeRrer piece of the header to fuck off-- if they can't trade that simple HTTP header for a look at your web page: screw 'em.

Re:Deep linking?

[CaseyB]

Or tell the bozos who think they're too good for the RefeRrer piece of the header to fuck off-- if they can't trade that simple HTTP header for a look at your web page: screw 'em.

You're forgetting which side of that relationship is hemorraging money and desperate for the traffic. Users are perfectly happy to go to elsewhere if a site doesn't work on the first try.

Re:Deep linking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I'm well aware of this. I think being opposed to "deep linking" in the first place is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. The only "deep links" that I think are unethical (and should be illegal) are those that allow users to access portions of a website that is supposedly "secure"-- which isn't much in the way of security, but you get the idea...

Re:Deep linking?

[Anonymous Coward]

aren't they already tho?

Re:Deep linking?

[ethereal]

...but they have money to fight endless court battles over this instead?

Re:Deep linking?

[purpledinoz]

And soon linking itself will be illegal. Everybody must type in the full URL of every page they wish to see.

I think It'll be fun to type URLs like this:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/05/202321 6=nested=126

Available Now at Denny's

[L. VeGas]

Danish Deep Links --

mmmm, breakfasty!

Deep linking implications

[SpatchMonkey]

Just because one instance of deep linking has been ruled illegal, doesn't mean all instances are illegal. There will have been specifics to the case that causing the ruling to made. Unfortunately, as the article is in Danish, I don't know what they are.

There are technological ways around deep linking, of course. Checking the Referer header in an HTTP request is one option, and dynamically creating unique URIs on the pages you allow people to visit from is another.

It would be nice if technology was used to prevent this rather than court rulings, but hey, what can you do?

Anyway it's only been ruled in Denmark, so the effect on the Internet as a whole is negligible.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Mad-Mage1]

Actually the effect will be rather pronounced. Denmark is part of the European Union, as a matter of fact they were recently confirmed to the office of the Presidency for the EU. Since the EU holds laws across national borders in certain cases, there is the potential here for deep-linking cases to be heard all over the EU and use the Danish Case as a precedent. Think on that and say it is only negligible.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Denmark is part of the European Union, as a matter of fact they were recently confirmed to the office of the Presidency for the EU. Since the EU holds laws across national borders in certain cases, there is the potential here for deep-linking cases to be heard all over the EU and use the Danish Case as a precedent>

Like he said, "the effect on the Internet as a whole is negligible." Eurotrash don't matter.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Danta]

It's not all over yet.

According to the article, NewsBooster is going to appeal the decision.

I can't imagine that the higher instances won't throw this decision over.

By the way, the Danish Publishers Association actually didn't really believe much in this lawsuit, they just wanted some time to develop their own common news deep-linking site. Apparently NewsBooster accounts for a large part of the traffic to the Danish newspapers' websites.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... it's a sad day to be Danish today :(

Without being completely sure about the legal details:

The court which ruled was "foged-retten" (in Danish). Which means that it is not a general decision, but an explicit prohibition that "Newsbooster" can no longer do what they have been doing.

The matter will most surely be appealed.

Re:Deep linking implications

[SpatchMonkey]

That is really interesting, I wasn't aware that such types of rulings existed - what other sorts of rulings does Danish law provide?

Re:Deep linking implications

[SiliconEntity]

Given that technology can prevent deep linking, it is most efficient if the law is in accordance with that technological reality. A law which is inconsistent with the real world is a recipe for expensive inefficiency. We may not like restrictions on deep linking, but given that this is how the technology works, it is best if the law works the same way.

An analogy might be land property rights. You can build a brick wall around your property to keep people out; this is the technological reality. But the law recognizes this and allows you to put up a No Trespassing sign with the same effect. Ultimately the reason we respect No Trespassing signs is because we know that the property owner could put up a wall if he really had to. But building a wall would be an inefficient waste of resources when he can achieve the same effect with just a sign.

This example demonstrates how keeping the law consistent with reality improves efficiency, and the same thing would be true for deep linking.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an excellent point you make there, sir.

Re:Deep linking implications

[jhoffoss]

Given that technology can prevent deep linking, it is most efficient if the law is in accordance with that technological reality.

And if you want to allow people to deep link to your site? Is it then illegal to do so? I know it's an unreal example, but technology (knives, guns, blunt objects, whatever) can be utilized to injur, maim, murder, etc. someone...does that mean the law should also be in accordance with this technological reality?

If the technology to prevent deep-linking is present, and a web-site that wishes to prevent deep-linking does not utilize (or attempt to utilize) this existing technology, they shouldn't be able to complain if someone deep-links to their site, IMNSHO.

Note that I am making two assumptions: implementing anti-deep-linking technology does not require the time or resources it would take to build a wall around 10 acres; the second is that you are just as able to give permission to deep-link as you are able to give permission for someone to murder you.

Re:Deep linking implications

[pbrammer]

Yes, but anti-deep-linking legislation is completely against the way the Internet works... The whole premise is that we can link to another page, thereby spinning a web of documents. If we couldn't "deep-link," then I presume that Google, et al., will have to shut down, considering the links they produce are "deep-linked." Wouldn't you say?

And I disagree with you as to why we abide "No Trespassing" signs. It's because I don't want to get my a$$ shot off by some looney character with a shotgun in his lap.

A better analogy might be the other way around... Take a look at research papers written MANY years ago. Take a look at their bibliography page. Is that not "deep-linking?" Thought so...

That's all we need is more frigg'n legislation to protect some ignorant people who are only comfortable if they're bitching about something. Face it, deep-linking has been around for years. It makes me so sick that these people (that are new to the Internet) think they own the damn thing. Christ, perhaps the elders of the 'net need to speak up. I know I've been on since it was commercialized mainstream around 1993/94 and frankly, I'm appauled as to where this is all heading.

Phil

Re:Deep linking implications

[plumby]

Just because one instance of deep linking has been ruled illegal, doesn't mean all instances are illegal.

Indeed it doesn't. But what it may well do is encourage other companies to bring similar cases.

Re:Deep linking implications

[telbij]

At first I missed the point of your analogy (because of the private nature of land versus the public nature of the web), but upon closer reflection it is gets right to the heart of the stupidity of this ruling.

In passing a law like this they are essentially trying to change the nature of the Web. The Web is supposed to be a means of linking information, and making it publicly available. Seems companies noticed how popular it is and now want to subvert it into a commercial engine where corporations make the rules.

The sickening part is how many different ways they could avoid this problem on the server side (even without referrers), but they see it as an opportunity to save money in development time while also potentially paving the way for profit through litigation.

What's scary is that technology is getting too complicated for the legal system to understand the implications of decisions like this. Without a deep understanding of technology, it becomes way too easy for judges to be convinced by the fast-talking techniques of companies crying foul.

Re:Deep linking implications

[BorgCopyeditor]

There are technological ways around deep linking, of course. Checking the Referer header in an HTTP request is one option

True, so long as you don't mind locking out all user agents that can't or won't send a REFERER.

--
BCe
"Your punctuation skills are insufficient!"

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

This is terribly wrong.

If I open my front door and welcome you into my house, that's my choice. No government has the right to say you can't come in. Now, if I take the technological step of locking my door and you come in, then you are breaking and entering.

Re:Deep linking implications

[DevNova]

Excellent point! There is no right to have a web page, yet these companies are acting as if there is. They cannot and should not be allowed to change what the Web is.

If they don't like the concept of deep linking, then they should remove all deep linkable content from their site, or remove their site entirely. They choose to populate the web space they inhabit now.

Re:Deep linking implications

[dwsauder]

I have to disagree. While it's true that it's technologically possible to prevent deep linking, that technology is arguably not really WWW technology. It's a different technology. Before the WWW there were AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy and other walled-off online spaces. The WWW was a radical change, in that the walls were taken down. So, to prevent deep linking, a technological solution (in fact, a new technology) is necessary, inefficiency be damned.

What's really disturbing about the ruling is that it sided with big business at the expense of individuals. It's a step toward allowing big business to hijack the WWW and take it away from the people.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Blue Stone]

Of course, they could just make their sites useing Flash. Then nobody could link to anything other than the front page.

Re:Deep linking implications

[dirk]

There are technological ways around deep linking, of course. Checking the Referer header in an HTTP request is one option, and dynamically creating unique URIs on the pages you allow people to visit from is another.

It would be nice if technology was used to prevent this rather than court rulings, but hey, what can you do?

I am all for deep linking in most cases, and feel it should be legal. But I hate the idea that "there's a way to prevent it, so it shouldn't be ruled illegal." To me, that is the same as saying "There are ways to make your house burglar proof, so we shouldn't have to make breaking and entering illegal." Just because someone can prevent something from happening doesn't means they should have to prevent it. If we refuse to rule on things because there are ways to prevent it, what happens when those ways to prevent it are circumvented? Can we rule then? Or do we just wait for more ways to prevent the circumvention? I think deep linking is legal in most cases, but I want to see it remain legal because it is the right thing to do, not because there's a way to prevent it.

Re:Deep linking implications

[roystgnr]

I am all for deep linking in most cases, and feel it should be legal. But I hate the idea that "there's a way to prevent it, so it shouldn't be ruled illegal." To me, that is the same as saying "There are ways to make your house burglar proof, so we shouldn't have to make breaking and entering illegal."

No, it's not quite the same. If you want to make the analogy a little more reasonable, imagine that you installed a little electronic box on your door that, when someone walks up and says, "I want to go inside", unlocks and opens the door for them. This same box could be configured to only let in family members, but you decided that it would just be easier to sue your curious visitors for breaking and entering, then sue anyone who told them your address for aiding the crime.

If you want to make the analogy even closer, imagine that you live in a world where people enter others' houses this way, welcomed, billions of times a day, that they are unable to do anything but look around once inside, and that your only real complaint is that you wanted all your visitors to go to your neighbor's house and watch commercials first!

Finally, no, an HTTP request is not "circumvention" any more than saying "I want to go inside" is. If someone discovered that making the HTTP request 5 kilobytes long broke into the web server, or that shouting "MACKEREL!" at the top of your lungs broke the door opener, that would be clearly circumvention even though in each case you're just sending data or making noises. One set of data constitutes an understandable request (in the HTTP case, conforming to internationally recognized protocols); the other set is an intentional attempt to get in without making that request or having it answered.

Re:Deep linking implications

[fferreres]

Well I don't agree. The analogy is correct. There are deep-linking abused. For example, i believe in FAIR deep-linking. That is, taking you to another homepage (not embeding a part and making it look like your own with IFRAME or whatever technology). Just plain linking with FULL screen, no compromise (pseudo "you didn't leave my site" top bars, etc). Another thing is content downloading. For example, i don't like bandwith stealing or notice avoidance, so if you want to link to a Video, please link to the page that has the link to downlaod the video, not the video directly (there are a lot of reason why I say this. Maybe some people can think this is an "antideeplinking trolling" but it's not.).

But i would like to have to resort to a full batch of lawers to start battling for cheap-linking (new term for bad deep linking). It would kill a lot of sites that can't hire a lawer for every link they place. And also, you have the problem that site policies may come without notice, so what do you do? Recheck every link in your page every fscking day to make sure you can still to those places? Nonsense.

So what we need a fair-use deep linking policy. I think a fine rule would be:

Link to html pages, not actual files (.jpg, .zip, whatever). Maybe sites could choose a role from a limited "fair use linking", for example:
- Content site: Deep link to html pages only
- Mirror site: Deep link whatever

You should be able to restrict linking to html pages. If you don't want them, don't be on the internet. Sites should be warranted the right to link to every html page without limitation. If you want to limit that, don't allow deep linking at a technical level.

Well...thanks for reading my point of view!

Re:Deep linking implications

[tommij]

unfortunately Danish politicians and law practice
seems to be so dusty, that it can't seem to handle any case that couldn't have been presented 50 years back, deep linking didn't occur back in the 1950's to my knowledge, and judges, generally need education about the whole sharing idea the internet is actually about.
good examples come to mind when a law-suggestion that outlawed all digitaldigital media copying without explicit permission from the author/owner, when people pointed out that they basically outlawed the internet as you wouldn't even be capable getting to a website's main page without having written authorization, (just signing onto your ISP became borderline crime), and it was hushed into obvivion.
another that comes to mind is the fees we have to pay for CD-R medias, as CD-R medias are a well known medium to transfer pirated software, which basically means that people either owning their own data, or using GPL/Opensource/bsd/whichever free software are forced by the danish government to pay "piracy fines" everytime we purchase a media.

this story was regarding a news harverster site that basically harvested god-knows how many news-sites, and linked directly to interesting stories, illegal imho not, immoral? perhaps but that is probably another discussion.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Fjord]

I'm one of the people who thinks that because deep linking is a configurable option, that it shouldn't be made illegal.

First your analogy. The fact is that we can't make a house 100% burglar proof without making it inaccessable to the owner. Even getting it to 5 9s would require a lot of cost.

On the other hand, setting your webserver to not allow external referrers is quick and cheap, much cheaper than it would cost the state to prosecute each deep linking offender. This is a big sticking point for me, because I really don't understand why we should spend thousands of dollars on the court system to support a $5 change in configuration (ok, maybe ~$40 if the sysadmin doesn't know how to do it).

There is also a difference in the scenario that you describe and what is going on here. Say you had a house and invited people to come in and look around with a big sign viewable from he highway saying "come into my house". You leave the back door and the side door wide open and in the kitchen have a small plaque "I only want people to come in the front door". Then you sue your neighbour for pointing out the side door.

Even this analogy sucks, because analogies always suck. It always better to talk about the thing at hand. The thing at hand is that people are putting up a public website that they want people to come to, and they want to waste goverenment money where a little expnse would solve the problem.

Bear also in mind that if you don't put lock your door, then it's not illegal for someone to come into your house, thus the "breaking" part of "breaking and entering". It's only trespassing until you tell them to leave and they don't. And if they steal stuff, that falls under a different law.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmm...eurotrash

Re:Deep linking implications

[aardvarkjoe]

Don't bother with metaphors on Slashdot; people won't get them. (So far, all three replies to this missed the point of the one you gave.) People: he's not saying that deep linking itself is analogous to breaking and entering. He's saying that saying that 'deep linking is legal because it can be prevented' makes as much sense as saying 'breaking and entering is legal because it can be prevented.' Please stop trying to extend the analogy in a way that wasn't intended.

Re:Deep linking implications

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Commercialization will destroy the free flow of information. Consider the history of Lisp, and why GNU ever came into existance...I promote Linux in large part because I hope it will bring the "Science" back to Computer Science.

Re:Deep linking implications

[kelnos]

ok, i'm being a nitpicky, devil's-advocate bastard, but i can't resist.

you're basically saying that if you don't take countermeasures to 'protect' your site from deep linking, you have no right to complain when someone does.

does that mean that if i don't take countermeasures to protect my house from a break-in (beyond simple locks), i don't have a right to complain if someone breaks in and steals my stuff?

granted, different levels of severity, but the relation is still there.

Re:Deep linking implications

[mvdwege]

Ah, but that's the good news.

A similar case of a news aggregation service deeplinking to newspaper sites was tried about a year ago in the Netherlands, and was ruled in favour of deeplinking.

Mart

Re:Deep linking implications

[jhoffoss]

I know what you're saying, and each of these examples has been extreme, but for a break-in, I would consider simple locks enough counter-measure. Regardless, even if no technological counter-measure is attempted to prevent deep-linking, I would take a notice stating "do not provide deep-links to this site" as enough, personally. Anywho...

Re:Deep linking implications

[jhoffoss]

Depending on the subject-matter of the site though, making it flash could quickly make it difficult to navigate, at least if it was designed by a less-than-skilled person. At least until recently (I think) Flash wasn't much good to a person using Linux, though. Perhaps I'm wrong though, I haven't been using Linux for web-browsing until recently.

Re:Deep linking implications

[Anonymous Coward]

but it sets a precedent and thats the problem.

Deep L:inking Defined

[grungebox]

Deep linking is when you link to an interior page. For example, Ticketmaster filed a lawsuit a while back (I think) against sites that linked users directly to interior pages to buy tickets for a specific show. Instead of going to www.ticketmaster.com and then searching for, say, Radiohead...a site that linked directly to the "Buy Radiohead tickets" page would be in violation.
This lawsuit is pretty deep.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Com2Kid]

Deep linking is when you link to an interior page. For example, Ticketmaster filed a lawsuit a while back (I think) against sites that linked users directly to interior pages to buy tickets for a specific show. Instead of going to www.ticketmaster.com and then searching for, say, Radiohead...a site that linked directly to the "Buy Radiohead tickets" page would be in violation.
This lawsuit is pretty deep.

That I can almost understand, since Ticket Master is relying on people to visit their website and see all the shows that they have to offer rather then just that one. It could possibly be proven that if everybody did that then ticket master would lose sales that it might have otherwise gotten from customers who would be enticed by other shows. In addition it also limits the customer's knowledge of the full range of 'services' (ick) that Ticketmaster offers.

On the flip side, fuck'em, user referral headings like the pr0n and warez sites have been doing for years.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[dattaway]

Why couldn't tickmaster simply check for the refer link and have their webserver decide the policy, rather than sicking lawyers on "bad" people? Are ticketmaster's webmasters that clueless?

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[spencerogden]

Poor them. They are lucky that people should send customers their way. It boogles me that these site complain about have eye-balls sent to their sites.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

Ticketmaster, however, lose. Ticketmaster is foolish to refuse business. People aren't being sent to deep-links for fun, but because there is something specific there for people. If I run a site devoted to rap music in Las Vegas, and there's a big rap show there, then it makes perfect sense to me to link to that ticketmaster sales page. My site visitors will want those tickets.

If they just wanted to look tickets, they'd go to ticketmaster itself.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

Why couldn't tickmaster simply check for the refer link and have their webserver decide the policy, rather than sicking lawyers on "bad" people? Are ticketmaster's webmasters that clueless?

Yes.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[silicon_synapse]

If I go rent a movie instead they'll lose business too (even more so). That doesn't mean it should be illegal. Life isn't fair. You can't legislate a profit although many seem to enjoy the challenge.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Com2Kid]

Yah, that is rather amazing. I could understand them bitching if they got massive links to some special offer of there that was below cost and designed to just draw in customers (loss leader), it would be the same as if somebody was standing outside a safeway offering to, at no cost, run inside the story and buy all the items on sale for you, but other then that. . . .

heh.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[C0deM0nkey]

I realize that you are not saying that you necessarily support this decision but...

That I can almost understand, since Ticket Master is relying on people to visit their website and see all the shows that they have to offer rather then just that one. It could possibly be proven that if everybody did that then ticket master would lose sales that it might have otherwise gotten from customers who would be enticed by other shows.

1) Tough. The original purpose and goal of the Web was the dissemination of information. Even today, with all the commercialization, the greatest benefit of the web is the ability to get information fast. Last time I checked, banner ads (in all their annoying glory) generally appear in headers that are pasted on EVERY PAGE of a site -- what difference does it make whether I hit the "entry" page or a "buried" page.

2) If you went to Ticketmaster (or wherever) for tickets (or whatever) and were then interested in other articles/services from TicketMaster you might visit their entry page ... if you weren't you'd buy your tickets at the deep-linked location and move on. What's the difference besides user choice, ease of use for the customer, etc. If the site is well-designed and appears pertinent to the interests of the viewer, the viewer will explore the site... 'nuff said.

Saying deep-linking is illegal is about as insightful as saying that failure to watch television commercials is theft.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Com2Kid]

Saying deep-linking is illegal is about as insightful as saying that failure to watch television commercials is theft.


True, but instead think of it as a case of teleporting into the aisle of a store that has the item you want, and right in front of that item, picking up the item, and then teleporting to the checkout stand. (though in the case of the website the checkout stand is actually right next to you).

A more apt metaphor I think, and while I still do not agree with the decision or Ticketmaster's stand on the issue, it does illuminate their possession a bit more.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Monkeyman334]

Here's a post I made a couple months ago on the topic in response to a similar post, I think it's still valid:

Let me just quickly say, scripts like that is the stupidest abuse of referrers I've ever come across. The referrer is a great tool for following the flow of traffic, not to police flow of traffic. The referrer is set in the browser (client side), it is not something that any browser has to use. And it can be easily spoofed or disabled. If 10% of the websites blocked my traffic based on my referrer, I'd just find a browser that let me turn off the referrer. And I'm sure I'm not alone. So by abusing the referrer, it's more than possible for browsers to just stop sending it, and hurt websites that are trying to watch flow of traffic to help the users out.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

think of it as a case of teleporting into the aisle of a store

last time I checked, teleporting wasn't illegal :)

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[SpatchMonkey]

You could write/use some proxy software that deletes headers you don't want to use, like Referrer. Anyone know of any examples?

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[C0deM0nkey]

...think of it as a case of teleporting into the aisle of a store that has the item you want, and right in front of that item, picking up the item, and then teleporting to the checkout stand...

Again, I think you are missing the point that the onus is on the store to provide the customer with incentive to browse and not strongarm them into walking through the aisles.

Consider: I teleport to the aisle of the store containing the product I was directed to. When I get there, not only do I see the product I am looking for but I see a menu of other items in the store AND maybe a "If you like this product you might like that product" blurb. Now, my curiosity is piqued and, if I have the time, I might go browse that item...otherwise, I might mark this store in my list of places to come back to.

Versus: I walk into a store and spend ten minutes looking for a product (a particular CD). Along the way, I'm told about Television Sets (I don't want a television set -- I want a CD), I'm told about Stereo Receivers (I DON'T want a stereo receiver, I WANT A CD), I'm told about Computer Software (I DON'T WANT COMPUTER SOFTWARE, I WANT A CD!). Finally, I get to the CDs, spend five to ten minutes looking for the CD I came to purchase and discover it is out of stock. What a waste.

Now, in all fairness, the whole reason an online retailer or service provider wants to eliminate deep-linking is because, statistically, sales go up the longer a user spends on a site. I realize this.

Inconveniencing a customer in order to line your own pocket is just downright immoral; provide incentive to your customers to browse your site!

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[richieb]

Why couldn't tickmaster simply check for the refer link and have their webserver decide the policy, rather than sicking lawyers on "bad" people?

I guess there are more laywers than competent web masters.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Ark42]

My ad blocker (socks proxy) has the ability to strip referer headers:

http://www.morpheussoftware.net/sab/

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[pblanton]

>Inconveniencing a customer in order to line your
>own pocket is just downright immoral.

Oh please! Immoral?? Let me get this right. It is "downright immoral" to inconvenience someone???

Jeez! Maybe you ought to look up immorality in the dictionary.

Did you ever notice that the campbells soup isle at the grocery store is not in alphabetical order? This is because the grocers believe that you will buy other soups than the one you are looking for, if you are forced to scan the whole shelf rather than being able to easily find one particular soup.

Is this annoying? Yes.

Is it immoral? That's just plain stupid.

I wanted a beer the other night but I had to go to the refrigerator myself, because my wife wasn't in the room. It sure would have been more convenient for me if she had been in the room and could have gotten me the beer. But since she wasn't I was inconvenienced.

The immoral bitch. I'm telling the preacher all about her loose morals.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[C0deM0nkey]

Okay, I'll give you that one. I probably was being either a) melodramatic or b) passionate about the issue. The way I was looking at it was this: the entire policy is set up to take as much from the customer as is possible. Making things difficult for an individual in order to benefit yourself may not be "immoral" but it certainly is "not nice".

Better?

In any case, I'm still interested in your response to the rest of my comment -- if you have any.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[p3d0]

Ok, so what do you do against a site that disallows browsers without a Referer header, and only allows requests with a Referer that contains a special cooked-up URL with a random number in it, that changes every hour?

This is basically using the Referer header as another form of cookie.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say. Their clever anti-hacking algorithm locks you out of the site if you refresh the order page too frequently. Now, this wouldn't be a big deal except for two things:

• The listing for a show on the venue page changes from "Goes on sale xx/xx/xxxx" to "On Sale" before the ordering page switches over. This means if you want to get in close to the opening you have to refresh the order page until it switches over.
• The "best available seats" algorithm is either the worst piece of shit ever written, or intentionally gives seats much worse than the best available. Try looking for a "best available" pair on a show that went on sale within the past couple of hours. Refresh the posted page a few times and notice how sometimes you get seats 50 rows back, sometimes you get 25 rows back and sometimes you get a pair in the 7th row. Note in particular how you seem to get the same 4-5 pairs (of widely divergent quality) in a seemingly random rotation.

Ticketmaster can lick my rim.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can legislate a profit (and it's not very challenging). Just because you shouldn't be able to doesn't mean you can't. After all, life's not fair.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Dalcius]

I'll bite -- it's too temping, I'd feel I was missing out on something if I didn't. =P I wouldn't even mention this if I didn't feel like the parent deserved it for being a troll.

>Inconveniencing a customer in order to line your
>own pocket is just downright immoral.

Let me break this down for you.

Inconveniencing - annoying someone, wasting their time, etc. A negative effect.

a customer - a person that is paying you for your services.

in order for you to line your own pockets - in order for you to get more money. Basis: greed.

is just downright immoral - is immoral.

Now, let's connect the dots!

Joe walks into your store to pay for your services. Without Joe and those like him, you're out of business.

You hassle Joe in attempt to gain personal benefit.

You are harming someone who is buying your services for your personal benefit. You are hurting Joe, a customer, to extract more money out of his pocket.

While the degree of immorallity is relative, it's still immoral (Read: immoral = wrong), unless you think harming someone for personal gain is OK in every aspect.

Realistically, yes, this happens. But that doesn't make it moral. That just makes it acceptable.

Realistically, yes, the degree here isn't large at all. But if you're going to nit-pick his argument, I'll nit-pick yours.

The fact is the customer is being abused for a business's gain, and that just sucks, no matter what level. But this is an imperfect world.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[mrmag00]

Junkbuster does it.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Kraft]

Ok, then ticketmaster could simply forward to the main page if a session wasn't already initiated once a user arrived at a deeper page.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Chandon Seldon]

Complain to tech support "Your site doesn't work" and then not be able to view the site until it is fixed.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Jeremi]

It could possibly be proven that if everybody did that then ticket master would lose sales that it might have otherwise gotten from customers who would be enticed by other shows.

Where in the law does it say that "anything that harms TicketMaster's sales is illegal"? If TicketMaster is using a advertising mechanism that can be bypassed, maybe TicketMaster should change their advertising mechanism, rather than trying to make it illegal to bypass it.

What businesses seem to be forgetting is that the whole point of a URL is a quick way to find content. If they don't want people to find a particular piece of conent quickly, then why are they creating a URL for that content?

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[dattaway]

The referrer is set in the browser (client side), it is not something that any browser has to use. And it can be easily spoofed or disabled.

Cookies set from the main page can enforce the refer policing of traffic.

And if sites like ticketmaster want to do this? Most likely they aren't visited. It is sites like these that annoy those who create webpages and as a result are likely to be ignored by search engines. If they want to make their own bed, they are going to have to sleep in it too.

Its within ticketmaster's right to analyze refer and cookies to police traffic and my right to ignore them. But they shouldn't have the right to make laws preventing how I communicate and making web pages is one way I communicate. Ticketmaster can kiss my ass and sue me when I deep link their showing of the goatsex movie.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[stevey]

Internet Junkbuster amongst others.

Junkbuster is a lovely proxy server that can be used to block cookies, referrers, and adverts from different sites.

It compiles and runs under Windows and Unix - all in all very nice.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't Ticketmaster missing the point?
Another website is sending custom their way, and they complain! Ey?
That is, to say the least, a bit stupid. Does this mean Amazon's partner scheme is illegal?
I can understand a complaint if someone is linking to your downloads or images, but when someone is sending customers your way, you complain? You deserve to go out of business.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[silicon_synapse]

You've really got to love slashdot math. 50 + 1 - 1 = 49. Would it really be that hard to calculate an overall value per comment and apply that to karma? E.G. 50 + (+1 - 1)=50 It seems so simple I'd be embarassed not to use it. Am I missing something that makes this impractical?

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

If the fix will stop whiners like you from commenting on your 49 instead of 50 karma, then it isn't really worth trying to fix.

Even if it was fixed you'd probably complain that a (-1, Troll) post shouldn't negatively affect your karma since the total up-moderation on your previous posts far exceeds 50 points.

OH GOD, I'M BITTER. That's why I'm trolling anonymously! No one loves me! No one mods me up!

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[aardvarkjoe]

Why should they bother? After all, the only use for karma > 25 is for bragging, anyway. It's not like spending a day or two at karma = 49 is going to hurt you.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[silicon_synapse]

I don't really care. Karma is pretty meaningless. I rarely use my +1 bonus so what good is it doing me? I just think its stupid to calculate karma that way. Besides, that method of calculating affects people at every karma level, not just those of us who've whored 50 points.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[civilizedINTENSITY]

They aren't complaining about the eyeballs. They are upset they can't control the eyeballs path. The freeflow nature of the internet upsets media control on many many levels.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[aardvarkjoe]

Besides, that method of calculating affects people at every karma level

How so? as long as you're not at the cap, +1 -1 will have the intended effect. Only when you get to 50 points will you get the strange slashdot math.

Actually, I think the best way to stop all the complaining would be to simply hide the karma values from the users. There's really no need to know the numerical value beyond 25. (Or should that be 24?) It would probably also remove some of the incentive for all us karma whores.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[silicon_synapse]

Only when you get to 50 points will you get the strange slashdot math.

Sure enough. I think I should go to bed. I do think it would be easier to just get rid of the karma cap. Sometimes I intentionally blow karma just so I have to work my way back up. Isn't that the sort of behavior its supposed to prevent? Doesn't seem to work very well.

Re:Deep L:inking Defined

[Anonymous Coward]

But how is a "deep link" URL different from a non "deep link" URL? Are they not both URL's?

I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

on an immediate boycott of all Danish newspapers in response to this tyranny. Who will join me?

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been boycotting Danish newspapers all my life, and I don't even know why. In fact, I didn't even know they had newspapers in Denmark.

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

we can still watch the swedish bikini team, right?

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Er, maby. As long as they are wearing something other than newspapers when you are looking.

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Naturally. We wouldn't want the harsh legalistic actions of one corrupt Danish court affect our ability to view babes in bikinis!

Re:I plan

[SHEENmaster]

Yes, I'll join you. Does anyone know why galeon can't translate the page using the google "translate to english" bookmarklet?

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that I am unwillingly boycotting all working Danish internet radio stations since they all now require WMP.

Re:I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden != Denmark

Sorry is a word not big enough

[Anonymous Coward]

On behalf of all Danes I would like to appoligize for this very poor example of good judgement. Sorry.

Re:Sorry is a word not big enough

[Anonymous Coward]

On behalf of all Danes I would like to appoligize for this very poor example of good judgement. Sorry.

Thanks. You're a Great Dane.

Mmm

[Sturm]

That's OK. I never cared much for Danish. I always liked doughnuts better anyways.

Re:Mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

What you people call "danish", danish people wouldnt touch with a ten foot pole. Maybe the danes who emigrated to the US ate something similar to what you are used to today. But its nothing a presnt day danish pastry chef would be caught dead making ;) /ScumBag

Re:Mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

What u call a "danish" is in Denmark called "Winerbrød" (Bread from Wienna) !

So, How Long Before Footnoting is Banned?

[kalidasa]

This decision is the best argument I've ever seen for continuing education requirements for the judiciary.

Also Illegal:

[tswinzig]

- Sending specific URL's to your friends via email.

- Citing specific pages in your footnotes.

- Pointing at specific locations with your finger.

Re:Also Illegal:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pointing at a specific location for them right now. And guess which finger I'm using ...

Re:Also Illegal:

[Com2Kid]

- Citing specific pages in your footnotes.

Oooh ouchies, hadn't thought of that one. Eek. That could be. . . . . icky.

Well, I for one will not be citing Danish newspapers in any of my future research projects, so hah!

Oh wait. . . .

Heh.

Any ways though, yah, with the recent trends towards trying to make inane rulings in one country applicable to multiple other countries, these types of rulings could very quickly become very very dangerous. :(

Re:Also Illegal:

[streetlawyer]

Do you have a translation of the judgement from which you are drawing these implications, or are you just making Chicken Little "the sky is falling!" prophecies on the basis of no real knowledge of the specifics of the case?

Oh sorry, this is slashdot.

Re:Also Illegal:

[Anonymous Coward]

"the most controversial site on the Web [adequacy.org] "

Nice try, but I'd have gone with:

"the most recent in a long line of discussion forum sites"

or maybe

"Like K5, only without the users"

Re:Also Illegal:

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Gee, what's wrong with you people? the parent post should be moded as 5:Funny, it's pure irony!

Re:Also Illegal:

[Hrothgar The Great]

That was a joke, son!!

Re:Also Illegal:

[Anonymous Coward]

Far more people need the balls to mod you down. Your karma whoring posts should have you up at 200 karma by now without a cap, and still you bother to make insipid comments. Shut up.

Re:Also Illegal:

[tswinzig]

Far more people need the balls to mod you down.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

Your karma whoring posts should have you up at 200 karma by now without a cap

I'm flattered that you've been following my posts for so long, but how exactly is it karma whoring if I'm already at 50? I post whatever I feel like saying about the article in question, and people can rate it however they wish. If I actually cared about friggin karma, I wouldn't post half of the stuff I do.

If it will make you happy, though, I will start posting stupid ass comments like yours.

More info

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another article on this. Sorry, danish and pdf, but very informative.

Re:More info

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read that PDF??? I don't think so. It's a document about a company arranging 3 and 4 day trips from Denmark to Berlin in Germany (and yes, I do read/speak danish, so I should know)...
Did you just pick some random PDF file on a danish page???

Sighs

[ZaneMcAuley]

They didnt need to take it to court, all they have to do is block it at the web server to prevent deep linking, just put em to the front page.

Re:Sighs

[Com2Kid]

That also Kills Bookmarks though, doh!

(well unless implemented VERY VERY carefuly it does, ouch)

And then you have little old ladies bitching at you too, and they tend to be a primary demographic of newspapers, not to mention repeat customers.

Re:Sighs

[scott1853]

Personally I'd stop going to a site that did that. Especially a news site that changes it's content every day. If I was a day late I'd have to dig around and find what section it should be in and then what date it was on. It would be like trying to find an article from last week on ZDNet.

On the other hand, I probably would never find out about that site because nobody would link to them.

Also, in order to enforce the ruling they're probably going to have to implement that referrer check on the server anyways, which somebody could easily fake the referrer if they really wanted to get around it.

Re:Sighs

[SpatchMonkey]

Not really. Bookmarks don't have a Referer header, so in the absence of a Referer header, or if it is a referral from somewhere allowed, then display the page. Otherwise, don't.

Texas, and now Denmark

[User 956]

Wired News has a similar interesting article about 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.

Re:Texas, and now Denmark

[markh1967]

Wired News [wired.com] has a similar interesting article about a cease and desist letter [wired.com] sent to an independant news site [barkingdogs.org] by Belo [belo.com], corporate parent of The Dallas Morning News [dallasnews.com], forbidding them from linking to individual stories within the site

This is a bit rich seeing as how Wired themselves deep link to other sites. Checkout Wired news and see for yourselves.

Re:Texas, and now Denmark

[fireklar]

Couldn't they make a system to dynamically generate URIs to see the articles when people visit the site, making it impossible to link to specific ones? Seems like a much better solution than trying to sue someone linking to their articles.

Re:Texas, and now Denmark

[fireklar]

If I'm not mistaken, Wired.com is just _covering_ the story, and has nothing to do with the dispute between Belo and barkingdogs.org.

Re:Texas, and now Denmark

[Anonymous Coward]

I am anonymous for a very good reason. Belo clarified their position on this and said they do not have a problem with deep linking. They actually "like" having people link to their sites. What BarkingDogs was doing was framing stories on their own site as well as using images that were taken directly form dallasnews.com.

Re:Texas, and now Denmark

[davew2040]

It's too bad that these things can't be started with a "Please link to our main page!" and ended with a "Sure, no problem!"

Yup, everyone's a little too litigious these days. Hey, I bet people wouldn't sue as frivolously if it weren't so easy to communicate with their lawyers. Ooooh, let's ban telephones and e-mail! :D

Another example why online newspapers blow

[Fastball]

Is there a print newspaper in existence whose online content isn't wrapped, shrouded, boxed, and wadded up in advertising and other unrelated nonsense? Print media has never understood the Internet, so we owe it to ourselves to deep link to their sites when possible.

Re:Another example why online newspapers blow

[Bazzargh]

I think the International Herald Tribune's UI is very purty (and it works ok on lynx too, though it looks worse because the link map hasnt been shoved to the bottom of the page). It does have ads but they're not the huge intrusive kind (yet).

Re:Another example why online newspapers blow

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that you don't understand the print media. The reason the content is "wrapped, shrouded, boxed, and wadded up in advertising" is because they need to make money so they can employ journalists to research stories.
That may seem like a crappy way of doing it to you, but I reckon it sure as hell beats user pays.

Hmmm.

[Paraplegic Vigilante]

Setting a precedent for the illegality of deep linking is not automatically bad. There may be some works of art that deep linking would have strange copyright issues with. However, if this is applied to all (or even many) companies/sites, it is a very bad thing.

Wrong....Deep Linking....

[curtisk]

....is the latest trendy fetish, you know the one where the one person takes sausage links, a tub of "I can't believe it's not butter ©", then using a rachet set........ ..oh, that "deep linking"......hehe my bad!

Re:Wrong....Deep Linking....

[Anonymous Coward]

Pillock.

Moronic.

[wirefarm]

If you put a document on the web and make it accessible through the use of a(n) URL, anyone can use that URL to access it.

Of course you can use referrer technology to block how people get to your document, but these people seem to lack the ability to do things like that.

What if I bookmark a 'deep link'? What about Google?

Personally, I think that the term "deep link" is a misleading term - each document is equally accessible from outside, well except for a few bytes in the length of the URL.

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Re:Moronic.

[SpatchMonkey]

That's a very good point you bring up about bookmarking a link. To be able to do that is a very desirable behaviour of one's web browser.

A technological solution to preventing deep linking but allowing bookmarks might involve the use of encryption keys, and cookies.

Basically, when you visit the site you would have a key generated for you and downloaded onto your computer in the form of a cookie.

Then when you visit pages on the site, the URLs generated for you have some extra data in them (perhaps after a '?') that when combined on the server side with the cookie that is also sent in the HTTP request, form a validation code that is checked against the page being requested.

If it calculates and matches okay, the page is served. Otherwise, the request is denied.

This would avoid deep linking because if the URL is given to someone who hasn't visited the relevant other parts of the site, they wouldn't have the cookie to match.

Shit, I should've patented that idea :-)

Re:Moronic.

[patches]

I would have thought that useing the referer tags would have been the better approach to this problem.

They could have even used deep-links to thier advantage, they could check the referer tag, and if it is from a deep-link, then show the article, but put more ads then normal, or a pop-up or two, and a message saying that if they had gone through the front door, there would be no ads.

Just my two cents...

Re:Moronic.

[dwsauder]

Jim is exactly right. This isn't a ruling against so-called "deep-linking". It's a ruling (okay, a potential ruling) against linking. Specifically, the owner of the destination of a URL can specify how that URL can and can't be used.

Re:Moronic.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>if they had gone through the front door, there >>would be no ads.

yeah, as long as the name of the "front door" isn't too hard to guess. cuz it's pretty easy to substitute whatever value you want for the http referrer.

session ids are better

Does the URL in the above write-up...

[Anonymous Coward]

(the one reading "only in danish") constitute deep-linking?

New Meta Tag?

[randomErr]

Just a thought but how about a couple of new Meta Tags:

<meta http-equiv="LinkStatus" content="NoLink">
<meta http-equiv="LinkTo" content="False">

If the browser and search engine was setup properly they could read the tag and ignore the link(s) on the page or give a page is unavalible security zone warning.

I Corinthians 6:1
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

Re:New Meta Tag?

[BlueFall]

If my browser or search engine did that, I'd start using a different browser or search engine. Since I use an open source browser, half of that isn't even necessary...

Re:New Meta Tag?

[BlowCat]

Then I'll use an "improperly setup" browser. Software should be on the side of the users, or the users will choose other software.

Re:New Meta Tag?

[SpatchMonkey]

This sounds a bit like the X-Archive: no heading in Usenet. The difference there is that there was a popular and widespread concern about one's posts being archived. In this case such headers would be unpopular with most people who have an opinion on it.

Sensible in moderation

[Stuart Gibson]

Let's hope that this doesn't mean that deep linking in itself becomes illegal. There may be a case where advertising revenue pages are bypassed or some other legitimate reason exists that the content publisher would rather users came via their front page.

However, it is well known that deep linking is good linking as far as users go.

I don't suppose there's any chance that publishers will come to a gentleman's agreement that it is improper to deep link if they explicitly ask not too (in the same way as it is considered "impolite" to provide direct links to files on others servers.

Finally, if DeCSS code can be considered "free speech", how can writing an URL not be subject to the same rational?

Goblin

Re:Sensible in moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be a case where advertising revenue pages are bypassed or some other legitimate reason exists that the content publisher would rather users came via their front page.

So "legitimate" here means "justified because it increases somebody's profits"?

Interesting use of the word.

Poor web design skills...

[st0rmshad0w]

I think all this mess can be traced back to the fact that everyone on earth seems to be an actor/waiter/web-designer.

So now it seems the inability to have skilled web design is somehow the fault of third parties who want to deep link?

Stupid. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish my 45 minute long Cold Fusion developer program.

Re:Poor web design skills...

[xaoslaad]

Right on.

The 'gentleman'(term used loosely) who set up my companies internet infrastructure left our mail server sitting as an open relay actively being used by spammers, dns servers allowing zone transfers to anyone, servers horribly unpatched, you name it.

What a mess I had in my hands taking over. Literally a trucker gone 'computer tech' (again used VERY loosely.)

Everyone who can click a mouse is a computer expert now. Everyone who can type ping a network engineer, everyone who can write a hello world program a developer, and everyone with a personal web page a web developer.

BS! BS! BS! I too have a personal web page, but I am not a web developer, I took a few C programs and compile source I download, but I am not a developer. I am a network engineer. And with 5 years experience at this I consider myself a major newb.

It takes a lot to become a pro. These fools that came in on a dot-com wave, declared they had taken a Cisco class and demanded an absurd salary are all getting what they deserve now. Unemployment, low income slack jobs, and a one way ticket back to where they came from.

Now, from the technical aspect I can think of at least a half-dozen ways to stop deep-linking if it is unwanted. From the web development end I can imagine there are just as many. Too bad if they can't figure it out. Their ignorance is the only crime.

and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse my stupidity, but why is anyone getting upset about linking to a particular page rather than to the top level page ?

What's the big deal ????

Re:and...

[SirSlud]

you can find out by going here, then clicking on the orange menu in the lower left corner, scrolling down the page until you see the link entitled 'deep linking explained', and then clicking on 'details' in the top menu bar on that page, and then pressing the 'i agree' button that appears on the subsequent page.

(sorry, I would have provided a direct link, but its illegal)

now do you get it?

this is absolutely bs

[lingqi]

in real-life terms, it would be the equivalent of:

"look for this and this information in THIS book" would be legal.

"look for this and this informaiton in THIS book, PAGE # xx-yy" would not be legal.

rediculous. -- heh, but it does make writing bibliographies easier -- "information obtained from www.nytimes.com"

Re:this is absolutely bs

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if I read this story correctly and the Danish court ruling document is composed anything like those in American courts, legal citations within the ruling would themselves be illegal because they refer to a specific section (a deep link) within a larger work. A certain irony there, hmmm? I wonder if they're going to take themselves to court.

Re:this is absolutely bs

[eaolson]

"look for this and this information in THIS book" would be legal.

No, I'm sorry. That's deep-linking to the library. You will have to instead link to the front door of the library, where your users will have to search for the information themselves.

Re:this is absolutely bs

[CustomDesigned]

Maybe this is a revival of Christian tradition. You'll never find a "deep reference" in the Bible. Only "as the Scripture saith" - and it is up to the reader to find the reference.

Of course, this policy makes more sense when the material referenced stays the same for thousands of years - as opposed to changing every day.

Re:this is absolutely bs

[Alsee]

You will have to instead link to the front door of the library

No, I'm sorry. That's deep-linking into the city. You will have to instead link to the city, where your users will have to search for the library themselves.

-

who cares about Denmark??

[mcdade]

Uh.. this is a moot point.. just make sure that your Deep Links are not going to/coming from denmark.. it's not a 'global ruling'... I'm sure if it does get over there there will be business agreements to deep link, after all lots of the time it promotes more commerce. I think that it's pretty much trying to protect copyright type voliations..

just thoughts though.

Re:who cares about Denmark??

[asjo]

Danes care somewhat about Denmark.

And given that Denmark is part of the European Union, stuff that happens in Denmark can potentially have a minor influence on the rest of Europe.

Best regards,

Adam, from guess-where, who thinks - like everybody sane - that the Danish newspapers association has gone absolutely bonkers.

Re:who cares about Denmark??

[Anonymous Coward]

Not yet, BUT... Danish law follows European Law, fight it now or it will be all over Europe soon and there has been several lawsuits of this nature in the US already.

Obviously . . .

[vegetablespork]

there's something rotten in Denmark.

Referer

[sirisak]

A number of large sites, both corporate and strictly informative, use a HTTP-referer mechanism to transport you to the top-level page if you just "ended up" in the middle of the site. Used properly, this is a good example of user-friendly interface engineering without being obnoxious. Just my $.02.

Re:Referer

[Anonymous Coward]

It does accomplish what they want, but it is obnoxious. And getting around it is one of the best uses of the Google cache.

Please note:

[Sheetrock]

While Denmark may seem a good distance away from many of us, the Hague Convention may hold all of us responsible for the silly laws one country imposes. Unfortunate indeed, because it may mean no deep-linking for us and the DMCA for the rest of you, and it seems like a rather convenient but nasty way of sidestepping the controversy surrounding each piece of legislation like this by simply allowing it to take effect without any discussion.

Re:Please note:

[Anonymous Coward]

And now that there is an international court...

Rather foolish

[Sebby]

considering that it's fairly easy to check the referrer and deny the page based on the result.

And besides, if you don't want people to see the content from just anywhere else, then put it in a protected area of the site! Don't rely on some 'judge' and 'laws' to help you and set dangerous precedents.

Re:Rather foolish

[anti-snot]

Shrug. Someone will patch their web browser to always return "www.somedomain.com" as the referrer when asking for a page like "www.somedomain.com/whatever/whatever". I might do it myself.

Re:Rather foolish

[dwsauder]

Unfortunately, that won't help the situation. Unless a critical mass of web users use a similar hack, there won't be any "deep-links" to click on.

Re:Rather foolish

[Sebby]

which is why webmasters can also put stuff in the protected areas of their site if it's really that critical that noone else links to it (as suggested above). This is very difficult to fake depending on the mechanism chosen

For more reading...

[chacha]

There's a story on Yahoo news regarding the deep linking brouhaha - it was written before the actual decision, but goes into what the big deal is. I will now deep link to it: deep linking story. Ironic, eh?

It was nice while we had it.

[pornaholic]

The internet that is. The real question is: will the buffoons in the US Congress screw us over too.

bookmarks

[pheared]

So, are my bookmarks now illegal?

Re:bookmarks

[stikves]

Unless you port them on a web page, they are legal.

Re:bookmarks

[pheared]

they are stored in html, usually. the concept of 'webpage' is kind of grotty.

what happens if my girlfriend uses my computer and clicks-through?

'post' is sort of subjective too. there are plenty of webservers that run sites that were not meant for public consumption: they just happen to be accessible that way. if I put it on my personal umuc.edu account with no index file and someone access it without asking me I'm supposed to be liable. lame indeed.

Re:bookmarks

[stikves]

I am not sure about the law in other countries. But here in Turkey, it's your intention what counts.

I think it's similar in US too. Because you get different punishments for murder on purpose and by mistake.

Also it was not port, is was "post". 20 second lameness filter made me confused. I did not check the post before submitting for the second time. Forget it :)

Can't read Danish..

[Kredal]

So I'll assume this is a followup to the paper being miffed that someone is linking past the front page, and hurting their front page revenue...

Hopefully no judge in the US sees this as a precedent, or Slashdot will be a very different place...

"In Time.com's new article, (Go from the fron page, about half way down, in the tech section, click on the second link from the right, spin around in a circle, and click next to the picture of the space shuttle) there's a new flight plan being shown. In related news, go to www.cnn.com, find the Sci/Tech section, and hope that the story hasn't already changed. The link you're looking for might be called "Shuttle takes off from California" if they haven't renamed it."

And of course, this doesn't even begin to touch on the Slashdot effect, when 100,000 people have to pull down three pages (or more!) to reach the story of interest, rather than just pulling down the one page story that they're looking for. Three times the traffic means only a third of the people will be able to reach the site before it's slashdotted.

This is a scary precedent.

Boycott..

[geekoid]

..all danishes.
No more bear claws.

fucking danish

[j1mmy]

I've always believe that Denmark is full of morons. This is just further proof.

Well, well, well.

[BigChigger]

All those comments about "stupid US courts" from the Europeans look a little hasty now, don't they?

BC

Need directions

[Zabu]

Deep linking becoming Illegal? That is like making it illegal to ask for driving directions. "Do you know how to get to McDonalds?" "Yeah, if you drive around long enough, you'll find it."

deep linking or data mining?

[fermion]

While deep linking to individual pages within a web site is generally a good thing, what about data mining a site and displaying content as ones own? I would like to know if this ruling has more do wi'th deep linking or data mining.

For instance, we should be able to send a browser to any page 'within' a site, but what about aggregating information or links in a way the designer of the website never intended, or publishing the information in a new media. Is there much difference between data mining a web site and publishing public comments on a site such as /. in dead tree form? I certainly do not know, but it seems to be a relevant question.

There are clearly limits to deep linking. Jakob Nielson gives the example of a quiz on his site. Going to anywhere but the first page of the quiz renders the process meaningless. It is true that in most cases you want as much help as possible to get a user to an 'inner' page, as this appears to one of the greatest impediment to usability, but do we really want people to pull, for example, images or frames from our sites and display them as their own content. As the previous NPR discussion illustated, there are times when this will unfairly transfer hosting costs

Re:deep linking or data mining?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the NewsBooster site you will see quite clearly that they are not data mining; each source is clearly and distinctly labelled on the link and the link takes you off site. If the ruling is about data mining, then NewsBooster wouldn't have anything to worry about :)

Why they don't want to go after Google

[lskovlund]

I was there during the proceedings and when the ruling was made. With Newsbooster, you can pay a fee to have Newsbooster store a set of search criteria _and perform that search continually_ so that you can just log in and have the search results displayed. Several members of the DDF (that's the Danish abbreviation) intend to jointly create a service that does this. Newsbooster also contains a (free) standard search engine, which the DDF did not object to. A classic case of trying to destroy the competition.

Clarification

[Penguin]

I was present at the court (yup, I'm a Dane) - and let me clarify the matter:

First of all, this is only the first part of the case, whether Newsbooster should be temporarily prohibited until the case is settled. Todays case wasn't settled by a judge, only a "bailiff" (according to my Danish/English translator :)

Second, the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association weren't concerned about search engines like Google or just a few deep links. Newsbooster did a systematic index and furthermore sold services for update-information whenever your predefined search words matched any news article.

Third, the case is very specific and isn't as much about technical details as it is of legal matter. It was concluded that Newsbooster was in violation of Danish law of marketing ("good ethics", mainly concerning not gaining/harvesting of other companies products and services) and Danish law of intellectual property, since the articles at the Danish newspapers' sites were to be considered as a database, an index. Databases are also covered by the law of intellectual property (as a simple example: A name and an address wouldn't itself be protected by the law, but an index like a phone book would as a whole) - and since Newsbooster copied what would be considered as a database, the ruling was against Newsbooster.

Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association is obligated to present the case in court in less than two weeks. There wouldn't be created a precedent until that case is ruled.

..

And some personal comments: My hope was that Newsbooster wouldn't be prohibited, but the following meeting at FDIH (Foreningen for Dansk Internet Handel / The Danish eBusiness Association) mostly concerned techniques like robots.txt, usage of Referer and stuff like that.

I believe it's important to notice that the violation might have nothing to do with links, search engines and other tools, and as such the problem shouldn't be solved with technology.

Re:Clarification

[dmarx]

Second, the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association weren't concerned about search engines like Google or just a few deep links. Newsbooster did a systematic index and furthermore sold services for update-information whenever your predefined search words matched any news article.

But what's wrong with this? How is this substantially different from me telling a friend, "There's a great article on page C5 of the Journal."? Why would they put the material on the Web if they didn't want people to link to it?

Re:Clarification

[Penguin]

But what's wrong with this? How is this substantially different from me telling a friend, "There's a great article on page C5 of the Journal."? Why would they put the material on the Web if they didn't want people to link to it?

To answer your question in a strict way (not considering whether it's fair or not): Legally the systematic index might be in violation with Danish law of intellectual property right - and gaining on it might be in violation with Danish law of marketing.

As mentioned, this is not a stand on whether it's fair or not.

Re:Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

NewsBooster, as I understand it is using the DNPA as their own info base for commercial use.

Analogy : I buy the NYTimes and Make a new journal made of the same articles.

DNPA does the work. Newsbooster gets the money... /. use different type of info sharing. They ost article on events and news for people to comment. And is not for commercial purpose.

Re:Clarification

[prizog]

"... as a simple example: A name and an address wouldn't itself be protected by the law, but an index like a phone book would as a whole."

Europe has the Database Directive, which grants certain sui generis rights to people who create collections of otherwise uncopyrightable information. These rights are analagous to copyright's restrictions on derivative works, called "extraction" in the database case, and on redistribution, called "re-utilization". These rights last for 15 years.

The UK and Australia simply grant copyrights to these collections.

The US doesn't have anything at all like this -- indeed, it's been explicitly ruled many times in the last decade that the constitution doesn't provide any authority to grant such rights. See Feist v. Rural Telephone Service for the specific phone book case, and ADC v. Hamilton for maps.

Re:Clarification

[zrodney]

mod parent up -- re: copyright of indices
phone books and maps. interesting and insightful

Re:Clarification

[setmajer]

The US doesn't have anything at all like this -- indeed, it's been explicitly ruled many times in the last decade that the constitution doesn't provide any authority to grant such rights. See Feist v. Rural Telephone Service for the specific phone book case, and ADC v. Hamilton for maps.

You've misread Feist.

Databases and collections can be protected by copyright in the U.S., but the information in them must have been selected or arranged in an original way (i.e., something more than just 'everyone in town X listed in alphabetical order').

The Feist decision reads, in pertinent part:

This case concerns the interaction of two well-established propositions. The first is that facts are not copyrightable; the other, that compilations of facts generally are. ...it is beyond dispute that compilations of facts are within the subject matter of copyright. Compilations were expressly mentioned in the Copyright Act of 1909, and again in the Copyright Act of 1976.

In Feist, The Court acknowledged that while facts themselves lack any originality (they were 'copied' by the author from the world around him/her), the selection and arrangment of those facts in a collection may be original and therefore copyrightable:

A factual compilation is eligible for copyright if it features an original selection or arrangement of facts, but the copyright is limited to the particular selection or arrangement. In no event may copyright extend to the facts themselves. [citation omitted]

In Feist, the Court was specifically addressing the 'sweat of the brow' doctrine, which stated that collections of facts were copyrightable due to the effort the author had expended assembling them, and that others wishing to publish the same facts would have to derive them for themselves. The Court held that employing this doctrine effectively extended copyright protection to the facts themselves, which was impermissable under the Copyright Act of 1909.

The result is that in the case of, say, a newspaper article reporting on a city council meeting, another newspaper is free to read the article and write their own description of the events at the meeting as those events are facts and not eligible for copyright protection. The second newspaper could not, however, simply reprint the original article as the article constitutes an original expression of the facts, which is eligible for copyright protection.

Re:Clarification

[prizog]

Sorry, I misplaced a modifier. I wrote:

which grants certain sui generis rights to people who create collections of otherwise uncopyrightable information.

And should have written

which grants certain sui generis rights to people who create otherwise uncopyrightable collections of information.

A modest proposal:

[mbourgon]

Everytime someone sues over deep linking, no-one link to these sites anymore. No links. Whatsoever. Have them removed from Yahoo, Google, everywhere. Remove entries from your own DNS servers. When they go from 10000 hits/day to 2, they'll change their tune. A harsh punishment, but amazingly appropriate.

But everyone deep links

[DABANSHEE]

Anyway why should I care.

I'm unsueable - just by having an ungarnishable income, like drug dealing &/or being on welfare, & making sure I have no assets that are bailifable (by making sure they are in a relatives name or by having a flatmate in the house who can say 'don't take that, its mine' & then leasing anything I need)

I can get up & slander the most law suit happy people in the world & there's fuckall they can do about it.

So if you want to deep link, give me some cash & I'll be your silent partner & you can do it under my name.

Re:But everyone deep links

[Anonymous Coward]

I can get up & slander the most law suit happy people in the world & there's fuckall they can do about it.

People with enough money to litigate often have enough money to hire people to take care of other, more physical dirty work, as well.

I solved my 'deep linking' problem...

[Sun Tzu]

...by making up the URL's as I go along. In a multiplayer strategy game it is important that players not be able to simply look into the other sectors to see who is/what is hiding there. Not being a complete fool I didn't just make any URL resolve directly to the game sector in question. You have to log in, get issued a 'ship' and navigate to that sector.

Of course, I'm not a professional webmaster who knows all sorts of sophisticated web stuff, so it wasn't a problem for me. I guess it's much more complicated if you know what you're doing.

BTW, I'm wondering what part of 'Uniform Resource Locator' these yahoo's don't understand.

Re:I solved my 'deep linking' problem...

[Rob Kaper]

BTW, I'm wondering what part of 'Uniform Resource Locator' these yahoo's don't understand.

Just because a resource locator is uniform does not mean it should be universally accessable, available or used by each and everyone.

Re:I solved my 'deep linking' problem...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

And thats exactly the dispute. The URL should be universally accessable, and available to be used by each and everyone. Thats what makes the free flow of information happen. Thats the purpose of the internet. Anything that impedes that purpose needs to be considered carefully for its appropriateness on the web. Allow deep linking, and get rid of the sites that complain about it. (Or perhaps just but them on a probationary status?)

Re: I solved my 'deep linking' problem...

[elemental23]

An interesting aside, according to "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee (which I'm currently in the middle of reading), the U in URL originally stood for Universal.

I am surprised-

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Being Danish myself, I am surprised by this ruling. 99.999% of the time the Danes are the ones with a clear head about all things.

Well, they *are* only human, perhaps this judge has some, ah, non-Danish lineage. This would explain this temporary lapse of judgement.

Re:I am surprised-

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, I do not find it strange that someone from Denmark are bashing non-danish people.

Today the danes are one of the most hostile in Europe towards non-danish people.

Re:I am surprised-

[anno1a]

Being Danish myself, I am surprised by this ruling. 99.999% of the time the Danes are the ones with a clear head about all things.
There are ignorants everywhere. People with no insight into computers usually don't use them, and are therefore the ones who sit in high places (like judges and lawyers), and also the ones who makes the grand decisions. In Denmark (at least) we have these everywhere! In the congress (or whatever... Folketinget), in the courtrooms... Everywhere! And they are the ones who keep screwing it up for us (or for the record industry in some cases).
I know plenty of danes who don't know anything about computers. I guess it's all about what crowd you are in.

Well, they *are* only human, perhaps this judge has some, ah, non-Danish lineage. This would explain this temporary lapse of judgement.
As I said, we have a lot of non-geeks in Denmark. Not many computer literates would be content as a judge, and not many judges understands how even their keyboards work. We could pick judges who know about this, but those people usually have an oppinion from the start, and then they aren't qualified.
IMO all bad rulings are made because either the prosecutor or the defender hasn't been good enough at convincing the judge, or understanding the case. The judge ought to know as little as possible about the subject from the start.

Re:I am surprised-

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

And with good reason. Circa 1991 Denmark opened it's borders to "war refugees" and it nearly destroyed the country.

Re:I am surprised-

[Anonymous Coward]

the judge must have visited microsoft at some point....

Re:I am surprised-

[Anonymous Coward]

Hvad stemmer du DanskFolkeparti. Jeg troede ikke i havde høj nok IQ til at benytte en computer.

Re:I am surprised-

[qabi]

Bah! That's downright racist speak!

It did not in any way destory the country. It put a burden on the country - but wars tend to do that.

well, I guess this just goes to show you...

[elphkotm]

that... KALROTH SUX!~!!

Re:well, I guess this just goes to show you...

[anakin357]

my number is lower than yours. :)

Precisely...

[Beautyon]

And thanks to the European arrest warrant, anyone anywhere can be arrested in Europe for remotely breaking the laws of one European state from another jurisdiction. Your local courts will have no power to stop you being transported and incarcerated in another country by foreign police.

This is not entirely new. Before this (1996) the Germans were able to raid an address in the Netherlands over the magazine Radikal. Read about it here.

The fact is that anywhere in Europe that absurd laws are passed, the practical effect now is that the law is simultaneously passed everywhere , for all people. This is A Bad Thing.

Re:Precisely...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Its a bad thing when a bad law gets passed locally. Forcing it upon a multitude would seem a way to get a paid law repealed. What would happen if another EU country heard a similar trial and a sane judge responded with technical understanding? Would the first precedent be undone?

Re:Precisely...

[Beautyon]

No. Lets say someone from England broke a German law. The German police will issue an arrest warant in Berlin, and the English person will be arrested in London and transported to Germany, no questions asked.

There is nothing that a UK judge can do to stop this, there is no extradition review; this is the problem.

In France, you have to prove that you are innocent when you are accused of something; there is no notion of "innocent until proven guilty" under the French legal system.

The new pan European arrest warrant, and the EEC in general is eroding the notion of jurisdiction. This is terrible because Europeans have completely different notions of justice to each other.

All laws in the EEC are now a sickening hodge podge of the worst legislation of each country. The Lowest Common Denominator if you like.

well

[Anonymous Coward]

next time you eurotrash talk shit about america remember this crap...and all the other stupid fucking laws in europe that you conveniently forget during a good america bashing...

Re:Let them prosecute

[Anonymous Coward]

Douchebag.

Bookmarks also illegal?

[alsta]

I can recall a lot of people putting their bookmark.htm file online and use that as a start page. Should bookmarks as we know them be illegalized too? Because that's `deep linking' too if you think about it.

Re:Bookmarks also illegal?

[drnomad]

Good point, I guess that the "location" of the link doesn't matter, so even your bookmarks/favourites, just as they are, are forms of deep links. So bookmarking in the first place could therefore be threatened by this legislation.

I can't read Danish, but my guess is also that there will be such a thing as "notifying" the user that bookmarking/linking is allowed.

Re:Bookmarks also illegal?

[Stacdaed]

> If you ever wondered why you'd want to browse the web in Emacs; it's not for you.

I can browse the web in Emacs!?!? How?

This is bullshit

[Pop n' Fresh]

The phrase 'deep link' is a complete misnomer. If you know the URL for a page, you can get to it in one hop, no matter what the site's designer intended. What if I happen to know how a site structures its pages, and I use that knowledge to go straight to an article? Am I guilty of deep-linking within my own brain?

I think that once a publisher puts a piece of content on the web, they give up the right to control how other people get to it. This ruling completely fails the reality test. Imagine if you bought a magazine and it had a EULA you had to agree to before you read it:

'This publication may only be read in the order proscribed by TimeWarAOLMicro$IBM. Please proceed to the Contents page by way of the advertisements on Pages 1-13. After observing all advertisements for no less than 20 seconds each, you may proceed to the Contents page, and from there to the Article you are interested in. If you do not agree to this License, you may return this magazine for a refund'.

I can hardly wait for this same court to declare the entire Internet in contempt of court.

How far are they going to take this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a lot of lawsuits going to happen in my country as a result of this. I haven't seen an exact specification of a 'deep link' (fill me in on the details please) and I haven't read the court ruling, but I believe that there are potentially loads and loads of homepages on the danish net that are suddenly made illegal.

I say this is a big mistake. It undermines one of the fundamental strengths of the internet. It is (an inevitable I suppose) step towards commercialization of the internet. The lovely anarchistic and free internet is slowly being ruined and my country is in front. I am ashamed and I wanna move.

No more search engines either

[DABANSHEE]

Afterall arn't the vast majority of search engine results deep links.

This comes down to the fact that web advertising doesn't work. Unlike telly there's none of this having to watch adds to watch the program crap.

Really deeplinking to advertisers I spose is like being able to instantly fast foreward to the actionshots in a movie that some network's broadcasting.

When will these news sites learn that they're going to have to pr0n up their sites if they want to make money from them.

Re:No more search engines either

[Ark42]

Anybody actually seen ads like this in real use?
Without software that filters Javascript good enough, these could be really annoying, as they "force" you to look at the ad before the site, without any redirects.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/dhtmlad .htm

goatse.cx links now outlawed

[user no. 590291]

Because if that isn't "deep linking," I don't know what is.

Who read the Danish article?

[withak]

So, who on the slashdot editorial staff could read danish to verify the details of the article?

The ruling concerns links from newsletters

[kabanossen]

The ruling concerns links from Newsboosters newsletters, not their web pages! Now, Newsbooster is a newsletter service so it's a bummer for them but the ruling actually does not stop them from posting the links on their web site.

Don't click--it's a deep link!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a deep link! It's illegal

News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

2600 didn't win the case using the "free speech" argument, so I'd hope URL writing would not be subject to the same rational. (at least in the US)

...should be illegal

[Rob Kaper]

Excellent comment.

Deep linking can easily be prevented with current technology using session-based guards against direct access to certain pages.

But, part of it should be illegal. Entering a cinema without paying through an unguarded area is illegal as well, regardless of the security measures taken. I might not agree with them, but I do believe that the publisher of data has the right to decide the terms of availability. If those terms require access through a certain pattern and not direct access, let's just obey that.

The linking itself should not be illegal, as that is equivalent to telling someone about a side-door of a cinema. Entering that way should be illegal, so if the linking site clearly indicates that there should not be a problem. The reference should be legal as long as the reader is informed that is not a legal act. Using the link should be illegal and linking without warning should be considered severe neglecance and might indeed be subject to legal action.

That might sound absurd, but we often compare technology issues to real life scenarios to explain flaws in (proposed) laws. Let's stay consistent, even if we do not like the consequences.

Re:...should be illegal

[Pepebuho]

Sorry but I do not agree. Deep linking is more like a post it note to a page in a book. It helps to mark a place of interest among several similar places. Shall we rule postit notes illegal because we want people to read the whole book instead of going directly to the section we want them to see? I do not think so.
Also, your side door example is not a good analogy. A better analogy would be if I tell you to enter the movie on the minute 45 because that is when the main character is killed, and that were the only scene on the movie that you wanted to watch.
The problem with your analogy is the familiar one when we try to extrapolate notions of common property to "intellectual property". They simply do not carry over

Re:...should be illegal

[wilhelm]

The side-door analogy isn't half bad. The movie theatre only wants you to come in through the front door, so they can know what you're doing, and also keep an accurate count of who comes through. Instead of getting the government to make sneaking in through that side door illegal, and waste the taxpayers' time and money by placing a police officer there, the movie theatre can decide that this side door should remain locked, and perhaps remove the outside knob, making it only accessible from inside (most of the theatres around my area do exactly this).

The same concept can easily be moved to webservers; referral headers, while fakeable, will probably work great in the general case, as somebody else in this thread mentioned. It shouldn't be the government's problem when there is a perfectly workable, simple, and legal solution which the complainants can implement; i.e. redirect all requests with an outside referrer to the main page, same as making all movie patrons come in from the outside through the front door.

Re:...should be illegal

[civilizedINTENSITY]

But a cinema is a private place one has to pay for the priviledge of being. The WWW is a public place. If I wanted to setup a oneman show in NYC's Central Park, would you agree that I could then charge admission to the park? How about I charge admission to just the trail that I am perfoming on?

Using *any* URL should be legal in all cases. If they don't want it public, they shouldn't put it up in public. Create a VPN and charge admission at the front door. Create a deadtree publication. Just don't try to say the WWW is a private place.

It should be up to the web developer

[jellomizer]

If you dont want your content deep linked then higher a webdeveloper who can make CGI Scripts ASP, PHP, JSP. Or whatever to prevent unorathrised access. After you setup a minumal security so the data is only available threw the webpage. Then you can accuse any attempts to deep link as a form of cracking (or Hacking for people who want to be that way)

Re:It should be up to the web developer

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet, if you don't want your "content" linked, DON'T PUT IT ON THE FUCKING WEB.

Re:It should be up to the web developer

[halmstrz]

Completely right. Why go to court for something like this when you can fix it yourself. Every HTTP request has a header, which gives you the referring document. If its not from your site, then send them to your home page.

You could do it with sessions, too. Only allow the session to be created on your index page, and if anyone tries to view a page and doesn't have a session created, send them to the home page.

There are probably 100 other (and better) ways of doing this, too. There is no reason this should be in the hands of anyone but the web designer.

"'deep' linking" is a misleading term

[jdavidb]

The reason "deep" linking should not be illegal is because there is no fundamental difference between a deep link and a regular link. We should quit playing the game by using this term to distinguish "deep" links from others.

You can't come up with a clear, unambiguous definition of deep links without having a special database or extension to the DNS database (!) to indicate what a site considers to be deep links on a case-by-case basis. In otherwords, the only clear and concise definition of a "deep" link is "a page on the website of Somebody Powerful that that Somebody doesn't want me to link to."

You can't just say, "A deep link is a link that goes somewhere besides the top of a site." For example, this is a deep link (to a website that has tried to force people not to link to them, I might add), while this is not. Both are links to something other than just ahost.domain.com, but the second is the top page of a site.

The real problem is web newbies (big media companies) think every website should have one entry point, but the web wasn't designed that way. We should quit helping these people persist in their misunderstanding of reality by using the term "deep link."

Re:"'deep' linking" is a misleading term

[PD]

Look at my sig. I'm trying to get google to return dallasnews.com as the top result for any search of "rag".

Re:"'deep' linking" is a misleading term

[chocolatetrumpet]

hell, let's just only link to domain extentions... here are my links: .com, .org, .net. You find the rest. Thanks!

Deep Linking should be legal.

[Psx29]

However, putting images that are hosted on someone elses server without permission on your site I could see as being wrong...

so what? who cares?

[Trinton Azaleth]

imho, if you put information on the internet, accessible in any way without the user having to provide identification or anything... then you are basically giving away your information. You can't keep people from doing whatever they want with the information. It is just like movies and music: if you can access it/view it/listen to it in the real world, then it can be copied, indexed, sorted, etc. No law is going to keep people from getting the information they want, esp when it comes to the internet.

Lets use laws when we can have a developer do this

[fcrick]

More bright computer ideas from the courts...

How long would it take to put in a little cgi/ssi/asp/pl/anything that would simply redirect all traffic that doesn't have the Referer: tag with the correct value. Sure not every browser does this, but there are workarounds for that too.

These people should have simply hired a single engineer who knew a little about web applications and then they wouldn't have to waste all that time and money in court.

laws like this are frankly rediculious...

Don't even *use* the term "deep linking"

[marhar]

The web has links, period. The term "deep link" was created by individuals who fundamentally don't understand the nature of the web. Using their terminology makes it much easier for them to stay on the offensive.

Sorry to sound so RM-esque, but sometimes the words really *do* matter... :-/

Re:Don't even *use* the term "deep linking"

[Rakarra]

The web has links, period. The term "deep link" was created by individuals who fundamentally don't understand the nature of the web.

Or just as likely, they understand it but want to change its structure.

bs.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably one of the greatest bullshit scams in the world. I wonder if they realize that URL stands for Universal Resource Locator? Just another instance of money prevailing over obvious technical conveniences...

To use a newspaper analogy.....

[carlos_benj]

Maybe they'd understand that deep linking is similar to something they don't have a problem with - or would they sic their lawyers on somebody who said, "Can I see the Sports Page?" Someone mentioned the rationale could be that readers skip past some of the ads. That's no rationale at all though. The paper could claim a more tightly focused demographic by putting ads on the same page as a related story and actually drive up their advertising rates because of the tighter focus. I mean, would you rather pay based on general circulation or pay a higher rate per set of eyeballs to target mostly those who might be interested in your product?

This verdict is only temporary

[poulbailey]

The court that dealt with this is Copenhagen's Fogedret. A fogedret can roughly be compared to a bailiff that deals out injunctions. Newsbooster (the company that deep linked) has already said that they'll appeal the verdict to the Danish High Court. This case isn't over yet.

i didn't think that...

[sugrshack]

Denmark set the standard for legal precedent in other countries...

puh-leeze.

Danish law in general

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't sum up in general what Danish law is capable of, but in general it work really good.

Obviously in this case the judge didn't know sh*t about the internet, but accidents do happen.

The Danish court system has a special instance (called "foged") which can be invoked to "freeze" the situation until a final ruling has been made.

I guess it's called a "preliminary injunction" in US.

You can read about the Danish legal system here: http://www.domstol.dk/
(In Danish, but there are Wnglish and French tranlations available... sorry, I dare not link directly to them *gg*).

BabbleFish

[GeckoX]

Wow, the fish sure can't spit that one out!

Code=! Free Speech

[phriedom]

'Finally, if DeCSS code can be considered "free speech", how can writing an URL not be subject to the same rational?"

But The Courts have not upheld code as Free Speech. At least the US Courts haven't. They have said that code is primarily a device, and secondarily speech. So if the function of the code is deemed illegal, then the code can be illegal.

Re:Code=! Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

> The Courts have not upheld code as Free Speech.
> At least the US courts haven't.
>
Yes, they have.
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bern stein_c ase/19990507_eff_pressrel.html

What exactly is a Deep Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies have several 'home' pages, such as pages for sections, divisions, different languages, products, and so on.

Unless they put on EVERY page that the users must start at a particular page, I can't imagine the concept of a deep link.

The company I currently work for (which has a really stupid marketing team) has on our web pages "No part of this website may be reproduced, or an external link established to this website, without the express written permission of an officer of *****." Of course, I don't have written permission of an officer, so I might get in trouble. :-P Guess this will have to go as an anonymous post (I want the karma!!).

Some of the stupid people have really enforced it, and a web search for my company reveals nothing. We're not on google. We're not on any major search engine that I can find, and it is quite funny. I told the people the problem with this, and they just don't get it. Thank goodness for anonymous posts.

I agree with the other posters -- people who don't understand the net whould not be allowed to publish on it or regulate it. That includes laywers and marketers.

Re:What exactly is a Deep Link?

[hoop33]

The irony is that if I click a link to a story, and it takes me instead to a home page that has nothing about the story, I'm not about to spend time finding it on my own. Not allowing deep-linking only hurts companies (like yours)

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf is deep linking? to many clicks to get to something? christ.. can imagine going to jail for that...

Is not a Web page public?

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole linking stuff is now totally out of hand! If I tack a poster to bulletin board located in some publicly accessible place--the local library, or nearby grocery store, a kiosk down the street--do I not assume that someone is going to look at my silly poster? If I did not want people to read what I posted, why in the world would I post it in a public place to begin with? How ridiculous would I look running after everybody who might "link" to my poster by word of mouth?

Could I really prohibit people from saying, "Gee, go look at Lenny's poster all about his pet cat Spot that is hanging on the library's bulletin board, lower left hand side, next to the notice about next week's book sale."

And is not the Internet an equally public place, accessible to all? This tastes so of the limiting of the freedom of expression to me. Oops, sorry, can't say more...I might be linking...

easy to keep out deep linkers

[bigpat]

I worked for a company that mulled over prohibiting deep linking, but it was a technological fix not a legal one. It is fairly easy to keep people from deep linking if you don't want them to. Just check the referrer... Shouldn't the burden be placed on the company providing the content, if it's content is so valuable then it should protect it. This is just a link for gosh sakes!

This case is about indexing, not deep linking

[Lars Clausen]

Having read several of the actual documents involved in this case, let me say this: This case is not about deep linking at all. In no way. Whatsoever.

What they're being sued over is having essentially copied the table-of-contents. They've taken the links and titles of all the newspaper articles directly from the webpage and presented them to users. Unlike /., they did not put their own title on the references or anything.

Under Danish copyright law, an index can be copyrighted. This copyright was violated.

This case sets no precedent for a site that collects links to articles about e.g. Linux, as such a site would have to put their own effort into making the index.

Everybody, STOP FSCKING PANICKING!

Thank you.

Re:This case is about indexing, not deep linking

[Alsee]

This case is not about deep linking at all. In no way. Whatsoever.... Under Danish copyright law, an index can be copyrighted. This copyright was violated.

Okaaay....
And how is that any less moronic? Unless you also happen to believe that Google (and every other search engine) should also be found guilty of the same violation of copyright.

-

Re:This case is about indexing, not deep linking

[ftobin]

Lars, my friend, people are not panicking as much as they are mentally masturbating :) BTW, are you staying in the cornfields this summer?

Referer redirects?

[deadkarma]

I don't understand what the big deal is.
If a site is this concerned with linking, how difficult is it to configure the webserver to redirect all requests without a proper referer to a main home page?

Yeah, there are ways to trick out a referer, but who would go through the trouble for a news article?

Re:Referer redirects?

[deadkarma]

Oh yea,

And if they want to get real freaky with it, you could use also use session ids, instead of asking the government to help you because of your lack of technical knowledge.

NY Times does this now

[wirefarm]

If I send you a 'deep link' to a NYT article and you are not registered, you get the login page - if you log in, you get the article.
All you have to do is check the cookie. (You could also have 'required content' set cookies that must be matched as well.)

If you know the Fark photoshop contests, people photoshop an image and then try to host it somewhere that has good bandwidth, like the sites that host eBay auction pictures - many of these sites have wised up and no longer allow the picture to be called from a fark.com web page.
You can do the same thing with a text document or a script as well .

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Re:Let them prosecute

[Anonymous Coward]

Vinegar puss.

If deeplinking was...

[Pyrosz]

made illegal that would mean that book marking such a site would be illegal. How would they enforce that? Guess if its made a law its one of those many little laws that I ignore on a regular basis. Bleh!

Sports Page

[drpentode]

It's like the New York Times saying you can't hand your buddy page 10 of the sports section without giving him the front page first.

Just as entertaining

[martissimo]

is to use InterTran, does more languages than the fish, and you still get a great laugh out of the incomprehensible stuff...no idea what duck breeding has to do with this case, but according to the translation it must be a big part of it ;)

Fogedforbud against deep linker

Nyhedstjenesten Newsbooster shall brake by that publish the news letter by deep linker to commodities at danish dagblades websider. A upset manager Duck-breeding Lautrup discloses, that Newsbooster lost at all points.
From: Germ Elmose

It is a upset managing director by Newsbooster, Duck-breeding Lautrup, there has received the award from Copenhagen Fogedret. The judge Michael Chest treats Danish Dagblades Brotherhood (DDF) medhold to, that there shall pack fogedforbud against nyhedstjenestens the news letter by deep linker. The award and its premises fills 38 pages.

- I am deep chokeret. Vi loses at all points, however it is certainly, that vi dear to Landsretten, says he.

Known retsmødet monday the 24. june beat Newsbooster themselves at, that deep linker is a integral part from internettets nature and that the service just gelejder readers to they danish dagblades commodities.

Other way round reason with DDF, that Newsbooster wheeler-dealer at jobs, that others has exported. DDF lead two vidner, partly director of studies from DDF, Holger Laudatory, and koncerndirektør by That Berlingske Official, Lasse Bolander.

Last-mentioned telling about the nyhedstjeneste, that Berlingske The time, Politician and Morgenavisen Jyllands- The mail is at way by and that too vil offer scanninger from their newspapers.

Newsbooster lead only ét vidne to one argumentation, that is to say Duck-breeding Lautrup. That surprise several media, that nyhedstjenesten no had call in others vidner example they from others netpublikationer and webkataloger that Celebrate a jubilee.

To that says Duck-breeding Lautrup:

- Decent shall være cautions by that carry a lot of vidner, however noted to bakspejlet should vi possibly orchard guided a vidne from a søgetjeneste, says he from retard to Copenhagen Byret.

Jurist: Only first instans- settlement
Solicitor from Bender.dk concern by speciality to IT- correct Per Meier participant friday the time 14 to a FDIH- appointment about the question. He handles repeatedly reservation to, there is some talk of a first instans- settlement.

He has no noted the premises by the arbitration and can be therefore no accent themselves about, whether the arbitration is surprising.

- Hyperlinks is a part from the traditional structure at internettet, so of which the definite settlement too goes Newsbooster to, vil that presumably get the consequence, that a number nyhedstjenester upcoming to that restructure their shop. So it'll get important importance both legal and convenient, says Per Meier.

Re:Just as entertaining

[Saggi]

Duck-breeding = Anders
This is a name!!!!

Ticket Master

[Anonymous Coward]

LOST this lawsuit! Read and learn. Kneejerk doofi!
Goat blowers!

Ticker Master

[Anonymous Coward]

These fucks ended up losing. LOSING. Remember this...

Now if you're going to quote the Bard...

[Howzer]

...please do it right! :)

[Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET]
HORATIO He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS Nay, let's follow him.

Re:Now if you're going to quote the Bard...

[Anonymous Coward]

I stand corrected :).

--vs

Exactly HOW Is 'Deep Linking' Different Then Say..

[thecampbeln]

Bob: Hey Frank, you remember where the XSLT information is in this XML book?

Frank: Yea, it's in chapter 7... page 125 I believe.

Really, how is ANY different and how is this not (yet) illegal as well?

On another note... exactly how does this effect web developers/authors/etc in other countries? Will I never be allowed to go to Denmark if I deep link?

A Conversation

[Phybersyk0]

wife: "you should really try out that new Thai restaurant, it's really good"
husband: "oh, really? tell me more about it?"
wife: "well, they've got great food, authentic atmosphere, native Thai cooks & waitstaff"
husband: "wow, that sounds really great, can you tell me where it is?"
wife: "no, i can't. you see, Kansas City has this rule that you can't tell anybody how to get to where you really want to go, they want you to first go to Kansas City, drive around for a few hours, until you happen to see a road sign for your particular destination, and then you'll find out the location"
husband: "Wow, that's stupid!"
wife: "I know." ----EOF

Re:A Conversation

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Kansas City . . .

Why don't any of the restaurants on Metcalf serve lamb?

I don't know, why?

Because all the sheep are waiting for tables.

What about favorites?

[nochops]

What about "Favorites", or "Bookmarks" in your web brower?

I guess people would only be able to make a bookmark to the top page of a site, and not make a bookmark to the content they actually want to remember.

This pretty much makes bookmarks useless, huh?

On another note, I wholeheartedly agree with those saying that people shouldn't even play the game by using the term "deep link". due to the nature if the internet, this term is very ambiguous.

Summary available at Yahoo

[alanjstr]

Read a summary here. The real issue was that the company doing the deep linking was deemed to be in direct competition with the site it was linking to.

Copenhagen's lower bailiff's court ruled Friday that Newsbooster.com was in direct competition with the newspapers and that the links it provided to specific news articles damaged the value of the newspapers' advertisements.

And in a related story. . .

[kfg]

an entire third grade class, including the teacher, has been arrested for bringing newspaper clippings to class as part of a social studies assignment.

KFG

can we say

[Anonymous Coward]

goodbye slashdot? AHAHahahaha.....

I love online translators

[Allaria]

Nyhedstjenesten Newsbooster shall brake by that publish the news letter by deep linker to commodities at danish dagblades websider. A upset manager Duck-breeding Lautrup discloses, that Newsbooster lost at all points.

It's all about duck breeding.
(used http://www.tranexp.com:2000 to translate)

Re:More info looks like a pron...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copied right from the PDF file, it looks like someone is starting to get personal with some slut on a bus... (but then again, my danish is awful)

"Samme bus og personale fra start til slut!"

Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from not getting page views for their banner ads, why would companies give such a hard time about this? I'm sorry, but if it's a publicly accessible page anyway, I don't buy into that "it violates out copyrighted material" line. This just seems like another way for web sites force as much advertising down our throats as possible.

Another easy way

[Pinball Wizard]

Set a cookie on your front page, and have it expire in a short period of time. Then, on subsequent pages, look for that cookie. If the cookie is not found, redirect user to the front page. Point out to your users that cookies are necessary to use your site, and offer to show them how to enable cookies for only certain sites if they wish.

Really, its not that hard to prevent deep links. Stupid, yes, but not hard.

Re:Another easy way

[chris_mahan]

If your site won't work without cookies, I'm not going there.
You may use cookies for added functiunality, but don't requre cookies. It's bad design.

Re:Another easy way

[Pinball Wizard]

On Slashdot's site you can be an Anonymous Coward, but you can't log in and post with your account without cookies(like you just did).

On virtually all ecommerce sites you can browse, but you can't buy without them.

If cookies are bad design, than http being stateless is also bad design. Its simply the way the internet works. Without cookies, statefulness goes away.

You're left having a read-only internet - you can read, you can browse, but you can't actually DO anything with it.

I would agree to the point that its stupid to enforce cookies on articles that are meant to be read. I was merely stating that its possible. However, if you refuse to shop online because their shopping cart requires cookies to work, well I disagree entirely. There's really nothing wrong with cookies per se, they merely introduce state to web applications. Keep in mind that certain things(like shopping carts) are not possible without them.

Re:Another easy way

[chris_mahan]

I have deployed solutions out there that are stateful, do not use cookies, and are very well received by my clients (sorry no links, corporate extranets if you must know). The statefulness is maintained via strings in the querystrings. Last version of Python has this capability built in (which I will be migrating to shortly).
Yes it's a bitch to code, but it's eveer so sweet. And there's no privacy concerns, since there's no trace on the machine whatsoever.

Re:Another easy way

[Pinball Wizard]

unless you are doing https those querystrings(and form variables for that matter) are passed across the net in plain text, ready to be sniffed by anyone.

Cookies on the other hand are private. The things you generally store in cookies are things you don't want passed in querystrings or form variables.

Yes, querystrings can provide statefulness, but watch out. The way you are doing it, unless on a restricted intranet or over https, would allow a malicious user to hijack someones session.

Re:Another easy way

[chris_mahan]

Granted, if they stayed the same between calls.
And if the IP address of the client was not checked.
And if the timeout was not set ridiculously low like we do.
And we do pass a lot of them over https.

But thanks for the heads up.

Smart tags

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Microsoft's grand "Smart tags" scheme?

Wouldn't that be autolinking? Would they be held to the same standards as us poor website owner shmucks?

Or did so many people complain about Microsoft doing it that now they are crying no one should be linking to anyone elses sites?

What about Google? They are knee deep in deep links. Wouldn't this put search engines out of business?

Or will the offended people get to pick and choose who the let and do not let link to their content. How Hitler of them!

Misread header...

[twoslice]

I saw Danish and Deep linking and I thought it was an article describing an orgy in Denmark that CmdrTaco attended...

There's an article in English now.

[lskovlund]

here

Re:There's an article in English now.

[lskovlund]

And I of course meant here (and very nearly made the same mistake again).

No, here is why

[Anonymous Coward]

This link was only a "shallow" link, it wasn't trying to provoke any "deep" thoughts nor did it have any "deep" meaning behind it.

Thank You.

Probably not what it seems

[harlows_monkeys]

I suspect that this is NOT about whether deep linking is illegal, but rather about what it was being used for.

Note that this concerns a site deep linking to news stories. Note also that most of the other deep linking cases in other parts of the world have ALSO concerned this very same thing.

Finally, note that there were similar cases long before the web. They didn't involve deep linking, of course, but rather involved newspapers getting their information from other newspapers. They were only getting the facts, not the expression of the story, so there was no copyright problem. Nevertheless, they were found to be violating the law.

So, what I suspect is that this is about unfair competition, or whatever the Danish equivalent is, NOT about deep linking. Deep linking was merely the means used.

It's important to keep in mind when considering how laws should apply to new technology is that in many cases the laws are concerned with the result, not the means.

To keep it short:

[The Creator]

No, it is not.

So stupid

[Restil]

This isn't even a legal issue. Its a technical one. 30 seconds of work on the part of the website administrator and nobody will be able to deep-link to anything, at least without a lot of extra work, more trouble than simply following the links. No lawyers necessary. No wasting time and money in court. And you won't even have to deal with the ire of millions of casual websurfers. Nobody gets upset when a direct link doesn't work, but everyone gets upset when you say you're not legally permitted to do so.

-Restil

Good thing..

[Suppafly]

Good thing that Denmark doesn't really matter in the grand scope of things :)

you are anonymous because you are a lier

[twitter]

from the wired article:

But to be on the safe side, the company's lawyer advises that "while we encourage links to the Dallas Morning News site, we must request that they all go to the homepage of the site, and not directly to any interior content. If needed, you can provide with your link info on how to find the specific article of interest once they are on the homepage. We trust that this clarifies our position."

Belo is clearly run by morons.

Re:you are anonymous because you are a lier

[Spicerun]

Belo is clearly run by morons.

What do you expect from the morons^H^H^H^H^H^H^H executives of a company who were the major investors of the cuecat?

Re:you are anonymous because you are a lier

[amRadioHed]

But to be on the safe side, the company's lawyer advises that "while we encourage links to the Dallas Morning News site, we must request that they all go to the homepage of the site, and not directly to any interior content. If needed, you can provide with your link info on how to find the specific article of interest once they are on the homepage. We trust that this clarifies our position."

I suppose that's not too unreasonable a request.

Today Dallas Morning News is running a fascinationg article on [fascinating topic]. The article can be reached from their home page by pasting the following URL into your location field...

Re:Code=! Free Speech (slightly OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

So then, if I had a machine that, given any recipe (code) and ingredients (input), could mix, make, and cook the proper food, would the recipe be speech or a device? The recipe is a human-readable subset of English in proper English sentence structures and grammar, as you'd see in any old home recipe. My machine breaks down and interprets the English to understand the recipe in machine terms. Such a machine, despite how odd it seems and expensive it might be to design and make, is reasonably feasible now from a purely technological standpoint. If I built this machine, would my recipes (or yours, for that matter) still be considered free speech as they are now?

Whether code or any other type of speech can be used as a device or part of a device is completely irrelevant to its status as speech.

Some other examples-
An artist (Marcel Duchamp, I believe) once displayed a urinal at an art exhibition as a work of art. He insisted that it be treated as art, and it has been, including being sold and proudly displayed by an art collector. The urinal is obviously a device, but we protect art as speech. If a urinal is art in this context, is it speech or a device? It's both, and Duchamp's art had every bit the protection of speech, though never tried in court as far as I know.

We treat drawings as art also. What about the drawings used as engineering schematics? Blueprints? They serve as instructions. We even have machines now that can do rapid prototyping, taking a drawing, some plastic, and automatically creating a prototype of the product without significant human intervention. Are those drawings any less art or speech?

"Primarily a device, secondarily speech" is nonsense, and I could just as easily apply it to our beloved Constitution.

Cognitive Model...

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be a total niche approach to the subject but wasn't the web *supposed* to link everything to everything else? Considering that's how trains of thought work isn't it really the most useful way to arrange the oodles and oodles of data and information? Wouldn't a progression of this attitude about linking result in outlawing the whole web altogether?

A translation..Well sort of.........

[Ramion]

I made a crappy translation. But it should be possible too understand what this is all about.

By : Kim Elmose

It is a upset managing director by Newsbooster , Anders Lautrup , there has received the ruling from Copenhagen's court. The judge Michael Kistrup that agrees with Danish Dagblades Forening (DDF) that a injunction agains newsboosters news letter with deep links. The ruling and its premises fills 38 pages.

- I am deeply choked. We lost at all points , however it is certain , that we will appeal to High court , he says.

At the courtmeeting monday the 24. june, Newsbooster themselves hit on that deep links is a integral part of the internet's nature and that the service just sents the readers to the others newspapers articles.

DDF on the otherhand says that Newsbooster steals the work of others. DDF lead two vidner , partly consultant from DDF Holger Rosendal , and president from Berlingske Official Lasse Bolander.

Last-mentioned tells about about a service that , Berlingske Tidende, Politiken and Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is on their way with - A service that will allow others too scan from their newspapers.

Newsbooster lead only one witness in there argumentation , Anders Lautrup. That surprise several media , that newsboosters did no had call in others witness's like from others Netservices and webcatalogs like Jubii (Jubii.dk).

To that says Anders Lautrup:

- You have too be cautions with having a lot of Witness, however looking back at it now, maybe we should have called in a witness from a search service. He said from Copenhagen's newscourt.

Lawyer: Only first instans settlement
Lawer from Bender.dk - concern with speciality in IT-Court - Per Meier is participant in a meeting with FDIH friday about the case. He repeatedly says that this is a first instant settlement.

He has not seen the premisses for the ruling and can therefore not say whether the ruling is surprising or not.

Hyperlinks is a part of the traditional structure on the internettet , so if the definite settlement too goes agains Newsbooster to, that will presumably get the consequence that several news services will have too reconstruct there shops. So it'll get major importance both legal and convenient , says Per Meier.

Hehehe - "Editorial Staff"

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, that cracks me up. I'm going to buy a foreign and place a story in pig-latin, and submit it here as "Linux surpasses sales of MS products in Togo". /. shames the Open Source developer community.

yes, the parent is a troll

[twitter]

I coppied the same text as the most glaring example of what that numb nut is doing:

Second, the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association weren't concerned about search engines like Google or just a few deep links. Newsbooster did a systematic index and furthermore sold services for update-information whenever your predefined search words matched any news article.

Obviously, this says don't worry about search engines, this only affects activity such as _definition_of_search_engine_. Duh. Search engines make systematic indexes of other sites and matches user keywords to direct that index. Seach engines profit from this organizing activity by selling advertisements. Pure troll.

The whole rest of his goofey post simply restates the bogus arguments dead tree publishers are using to further enlarge the power of their copyrights. The whole idea of "you should not profit from my effort without paying me" is without merrit. Deep links are simply direct references. The web shatters many copyright concepts because it is new and different. Copyright law's governing assumption is that publishing is expensive and must be protected by an temporary exclusive franchise in order to increase the public domain. The web fundamentaly lowers those costs, forever, and copyright must be rethought. Publisher claim that they will go out of business and the public domain will dissapear unless the public domain is destroyed. Good reasoning, eh?

There is zero possiblity that Dalas will be without an internet newspaper under any conditions of copyright law. Indeed, the freer publications are to use each other's content, the more news sites you will have. They will have to compete on grounds of merit rather than who has the most money and biggest press and other things that have nothing to do with what's going on in Dalas.

Re:yes, the parent is a troll

[Penguin]

Err, please don't kill the messenger.

It's okay with me if people don't want to accept the ruling (or even hear about it, although that's just plain ignorance). But please don't call me a troll, simply because you disagree with the round-up of the story.

As I mentioned I also hoped the ruling would be in favour of Newsbooster. I don't support the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association. But nevertheless, this is a fact mentioned by the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association - that they aren't concerned about Google or a few deep links. And you might agree or disagree on their statement (I know I do), but it's still relevant to mention.

Re:yes, the parent is a troll

[shanx24]

I sure hope Newspaper wins because this is a silly objection. There is such thing as "fair use" you know (http://fairuse.stanford.edu/, for the curious) which allows you to monitor content for research reasons. To give you a real example. Assume I am a GE or a P&G. I pay NBC, NYT or Fox top dollars to air my commercials. I *need* to know that these were played at the proper time, with the proper frequency etc that I have paid for. Now, this kind of monitoring is neither CNN's/NYT's business nor is it mine. I would like a third party to do this stuff for me. ONLY for research & monitoring purposes. I don't see what is wrong with Newsbooster's business principle. They are not in any way replication IP-protected content material, they are merely informing you when something relevant is published! My 20 yen.

Let's Put This Into English-Direct from Copenhagen

[jgeelan]

Court Rules Against Deep Links http://www.computerworld.dk/Default.asp?Mode=2=152 47 The Newsbooster news service must refrain from sending newsletters with deep links to articles on the Web sites of Danish newspapers. Shaken by the decision, Newsbooster director Anders Lautrup conceded that his company had lost on every count. The judge Michael Kistrup upheld the complaint from the Danish Press Association and agreed to its request for an injunction against newsletters with deep links. His decision, including its premisses, runs to 38 pages. "I am deeply shocked. We lost on every count. But we shall most certainly be taking this to the Court of Appeal," said Lautrup. At the 24 June hearing it was Newsbooster's contention that deep links are an intergral part of the Internet itself - and that his Newsbooster service merely shows its readers the easiest way to the newspapers' articles. The Danish Press Association's counter-argument was that Newsbooster piggybacks on work carried out by others. The association called 2 witnesses, Holger Rosendal and Lasse Bolander. Bolander, head of Det Berlingske Officin, told the hearing about a news service that the 3 newspapers Berlingske Tidende, Politiken, and Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten had under development, which will offer a scanning service of the 3 newspapers. Newsbooster called just 1 witness, Anders Lautrup himself. Journalists present were surprised that Newsbooster didn't call further witnesses, for example people from other Net publications or from Web catalogue services like jubii.dk [a Danish equivalent of yahoo.dk]. Anders Lautrup comment on that was: "You have to be careful not to call too many witnesses, though with hindsight it might have been wise to have called someone from a search engine." "Hyperlinks are a traditional part of the Net's structure, so if the final decision also goes against Newsbooster, the consequence would be that a great many news services will have to alter their current practice," according to Danish IT expert Per Meier, who adds: "If so such a decision would have considerable legal and practical repercussions."

ha, ha, ha, ha! LMAoRotF

[twitter]

ust a thought but how about a couple of new Meta Tags:

At the Dalas Daily News, a silly synchophant says, "That's a good idea boss, I'll do it right away to prove the concept."

Three weeks later, the boss is pleased his new browser won't go from BarkingDogs.org to the Dalas Daily News, but rather upset that it also won't go from the front page of the Dalas Daily News either.

Your tag is the equivalent of "don't ever read me unless the user is able to type my name without any instruction", or simply "I'm hidden, go away".

Thanks for a fine troll.

This whole "deep-linking" issue...

[davew2040]

... was created by the marketoids. As soon as people realized that this whole online advertising hack was a way to make some money, then they started creating these silly legal defenses that just end up circumventing the natural order of the technological system that permits the business to transpire in the first place.

It's funny how people have a tendency to take the law into their own hands the moment they think they have a handle on technology. I guess it's even funnier when judges go through with it.

In other news...

[suss]

Donut court says it's naughty to dunk them into coffee. Stop it now.

Oh yeah, deep link all you want, we don't care.

Danish courts rule book table of contents illegal

[piku]

blah

The answer is yes.

[twitter]

do we really want people to pull, for example, images or frames from our sites and display them as their own content. As the previous NPR discussion [slashdot.org]illustated, there are times when this will unfairly transfer hosting costs

Well yes we do want that. If your site sucks so bad that others can put your information together in a way that other find easier and better, you have a fundamental problem that can't be legislated away. There is no constitutional right to suck. Ther is a constitutional right to free speech. These laws are only of interest to those who wish to suck, Ticket Master, RIAA and the five music publishing companies, Local Monopoly Newspapers, the four TV broadcasters and others who put billboards on every surface imaginable. They can all rot.

Exactly!

[Slur]

That's exactly the point we need to spread far and wide. Sites can enforce their policies themselves by using the myriad of technical solutions available. For example, if a web surfer comes to their site without getting a cookie from the front page then they are redirected to the front page. If they want to allow deep linking then they provide hidden pages for their partners to use that require authentication before redirecting to the linked page.

If a company begins establishing policies for the use of their network resources then they're simply creating a private network, and should take advantage of the technical resources available to secure the kind of privacy and use that they want. Going to court is a waste of time and money that they should have paid me to actually solve their problem!

I'd be a little surprised if the Danish court actually argued against these kinds of solutions in their ruling.

related: indymedia netherlands (redundant?)

[f64]

a court order stopped indymedia netherlands from linking to a site that dealt with methods to stop nuclear waste being transported by rail. the interesting thing is that it wasn't linked directly to the information, but required the user to click three or four times before getting to the banned article in question.

pressrelease with info from indymedia.nl here

Re:ha, ha, ha, ha! LMAoRotF

[Anonymous Coward]

Your posts would be better if you would spell Dallas correctly.

Why don't they just bounce incoming deep linkers'?

[babbos]

Wouldn't it be simpler for everyone if they just bounced all 'deep linkers' clients to their slash ( '/' ) ?

Would surely create a navigational mess to all incoming to deep links people, but that is what they want to accomplish, not?

Just put a check on the client's referrer and act accordingly... surely clients blocking referrers will pass, but who cares? They are less than 1% of what clients a massive website gets...

Too simple?

Re:ha, ha, ha, ha! LMAoRotF

[Anonymous Coward]

Your posts would be better if you would spell Dallas correctly.

That reminds me of a joke. A man on campus asks, "Where's the library at?", and gets the snooty answer, "Don't you know not to end sentances with a preposition?". "OK," the man says, "Where's the library at, ass?"

DalASS, thank you, thank you.

oh oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

wait for bush/riaa/mpaa:

if you support deep linking you support terrorism!

Publishing date revisited

[pornaholic]

A little off topic, but nobody said this before, and it seems incredibly important.

It was unsettling from the first time I read it, but over the holiday it hit me just how bad the ruling on now is now can be. If now is now, what's the publishing date on dynamically generated webpages? Date of the program? Date of the generation?

Even worse, what's the publication date of any information my programs generate? What happens if my program was written, then run for a year, and the resulting information was put on a webpage. Do I have pre-emptive rights over someone who came up with the same information 6 months before? There's another side of this too. What if my program was faster at generating the information, but someone else's was looked at (externally) first?

On the more devious side, what if I make a program that publishes (arguably a poor example, but makes the point clear) DNA sequences and puts them on web pages. Hell, since I'm Megacorp, I'll make it generate every possible arrangement of 15 bases. When someone else comes up with the sequence they wish to patent, I know I published before them.

Even better, what if I make a program that chooses 1 of 100,001 things to say about a person, all nice except 1. When that one thing gets printed, am I guilty of defamation, or was I guilty at the time I wrote it? How can he prove that it actually happened if it's pseudo-random anyway? Could I defend myself saying that I never guaranteed it would actually happen?

Googling in Denmark?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're worried about this, how about setting up a page with a form using google to search the pages of the suing newspapers. Let them try to stop google...

Sites of the danish members of DDS:
*www.berlingske.dk
*www.bt.dk
www.bornholm stidende.dk
*www.borsen.dk
www.bergske.dk
www.a rbejderen.dk
*www.information.dk
*www.eb.dk
www .fyens.dk
www.fynsamtsavis.dk
www.helsingordagbl ad.dk
www.herningfolkeblad.dk
www.venstrebladet. dk
www.horsens-folkeblad.dk
www.jv.dk
*www.jp.d k
www.kal-folkeblad.dk
www.kj-avis.dk
*www.kris teligt-dagblad.dk
www.licitationen.dk
www.folket idende.dk
www.midtjyllandsavis.dk
www.nordjyske. dk
www.nordschleswiger.dk
www.sj-nyheder.dk
*ww w.politiken.dk
www.randersamtsavis.dk
www.skivef olkeblad.dk
www.vejleonline.dk
www.weekend-avise n.dk
www.stiften.dk
www.bladkompagniet.dk
www.d agbladenegefion.dk
www.lp.dk
www.jobdanmark.dk
www.dimma.fo
www.flensborg-avis.de
www.ftonline. dk
www.metropol-online.dk
www.ritzau.dk
www.ser mitsiaq.gl
www.sosialurin.fo
www.tipsbladet.dk

You should especially go for the major nationwide ones with real news sites. (marked *)

This isn't the first time!

[grimpie]

I just thought I'd point out a similar case: Ford Motor Company sued 2600 Magazine for having a link to ford.com. Recently Ford has dropped its appeal against 2600. Hmmm, I wonder if that's the first 2600 victory in court... Anyway, check out the details at www.fordreallysucks.com

I was there

[AnteTempore]

As a Danish netadvocate I was both at the trial and when the ruling was made public.

If some questions are still unanswered feel free to reply here or look at:
http://ole.tange.dk/projekter/newsbooster

Wired.com info

[pointwood]

The haven't made a story about the ruling yet, but they have written 3 articles about the story: http://search.wired.com/news/default.asp?query=new sbooster

Im tired...

[night_flyer]

Im tired of people looking to the law when they themselevs are capable of fixing the problem themselves...

they seem to manage at anglefire to prevent linking from outside the domain...

7am.com versus Nando Times

[NewtonsLaw]

Sometimes it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I consider myself to be one of the pioneers of news aggregation and linking -- having done this on a number of my own sites since 1995.

Back in 1998 I came into conflict with the Nando Times when my 7am.com news site over the use of their headlines and links on the syndicated Java news ticker and news-aggregation pages.

Nando tried to claim that use of its headlines and links to its pages were a breach of copyright and that anyone wishing to do this would have to pay $100/month for
the privilege.

I told them to go take a hike and they threatened to sue for breach of copyright. Suffice to say that once they checked with their legal department as to the validity of their claims they decided to back down.

Although they were one of the first news sites on the Web, Nando simply didn't get the concept that links drive traffic and traffic generates ad revenues -- or at least it did when there were advertisers willing to pay for placements.

The stupid thing about this whole situation was that the 7am.com News Ticker became so popular and drove so much traffic to the various sites included on it that if I decided to remove the links to a particular news site I'd often get an email complaining that I *wasn't* linking.

Around the same time I had similar problems with my Aardvark site and found myself battling a long list of local news publishers who threatened legal action if I continued to deep link to the stories they were carrying.

As with Nando, these sites eventually worked out that traffic = revenues and withdrew their stupid threats.

I should make it clear that I have a very ethical and honest linking policy which I advertise on my sites so that both the linkers and linkees know what I expect and offer. It's a shame that more sites don't do the same so as to avoid confusion and conflict.

I've been deep linking for some seven years, been threatened with law suits over my linking activities by much bigger publishers on no less than six occasions -- but never had to spend a day in court and never backed down.

Some people just take longer to learn that the WWW is *made* from deep links and that to disallow them will effectively destroy the fabric of the web.

HYAAALP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Iyee keennoot spork Denoosh! Dork! Dork! Dork!

In English

[geekculture]

You can find an English version of the story on boston.com

Re:Code=! Free Speech (slightly OT)

[phriedom]

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I'm completely FOR deep linking. I think it is the responibility of the original site to use technological measures if they don't want people getting straight to "interior" pages from somewhere else. If the pages have a URL, then I say they are PUBLIC.

Having said that, I don't think this is a Free Speech issue, and I don't think the courts are going to see it that way either. The Courts are not consistant about this issue, and some judge might agree with you, but I don't think you could count on it.

For your first example, Yes, your recipe could be found to be "content neutral" as the DeCSS code was found to be by a NY judge, and therefore not afforded the same protection as "pure speech." Because the judge might decide that your recipe doesn't express anything, but instead is primarily for doing something. Just because it is words, doesn't mean it is speech.

For your second example, well ART is in the eye of the beholder. And I am completely in favor of people having the freedom to call a urinal ART and display it, and sell it. But art or not, you still can't do something illegal with it. If I take a firearm, functional or not, and paint it bright pink and march into an airport as a legitimate political protest, or artistic social commentary, I'm still going to be in big trouble, if I don't get shot. And a judge isn't going to say that my freedom of expression is more important than the public safety.

Likewise, most judges are not going to decide that your freedom extends into the area where someone elses property rights start.

Now what I really hope the judge in this Dutch case finds is that linking is not republishing, and therefore not a violation of copyright, or theft of a database. Instead, linking should be considered commentary on and directions to the source pages, which are public.

Passing off

[gidds]

Deep linking is only a means to an end, isn't it? Isn't the real crime here that of passing off -- claiming credit for something that isn't yours? If so, then that should be the precedent, not deep linking itself.

in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

in other news, deep throating is still legal.

Re: Corrected post

[fferreres]

Here's the correct version, I should always preview first.....

The analogy is correct, but I don't agree it's the same case. Houses are meant to be private, the Internet, shared. Not copier, but at least REFERENCED by links. Your proposal is like building a public museum and museum guides that tell you what are the hot spots.

I agree that deep-linking can be abused. That means there FAIR deep-linking and UNFAIR deep-linking. Taking you to another homepage (not embeding a part and making it look like your own with IFRAME or whatever technology) is not ok. Pseudo "you didn't leave my site" top bars, etc. are not ok either (some will disagree). Another unfair use of DL is direct content downloading. For example, i don't like bandwith stealing or notice avoidance, so if you want to link to a Video, please link to the page that has the link to download the video, not the video directly (there are a lot of reason why I say this. Maybe some people can think this is an "antideeplinking trolling" but it's not.).

But I wouldn't like to have to resort to a full batch of lawers to start battling a site to remove unfair deep linking (or cheap linking). This alone would kill a lot of sites that can't hire a lawer for every link they place. And also, you have the problem that site policies may change without notice, so what do you do? Recheck every link in your page every fscking day to make sure you can still to those places? Nonsense.

So what we need fair-use deep linking policies. I think a fine rule would be:

Link to html pages, not actual files (.jpg, .zip, whatever). Maybe sites could choose a role from a limited "fair use linking", for example:
- Content site: Deep link to html pages only
- Mirror site: Deep link whatever

You should be able to restrict linking to html pages. If you don't want them, don't be on the Internet. Sites should be warranted the right to link to every html page without limitation. If you want to limit that, don't allow deep linking at a technical level.

Well...thanks for reading my point of view!

Re:breakin the law - i wonder ...

[fferreres]

This surelly can't the ilegal:

http://www.computerworld.dk/Default.asp?Mode=2&A rt icleID=15247
(or ay other deep link)

What is the problem? The feature that the user can avoid the copy/paste and can just click a "link"? Or is the sole act of saying there some page with specific content there ilegal?

In any case, it's the client accesing the page (if the link is a fair non-embeded, non direct-download link).

Er... what?

[Anonymous Coward]

most bible thumpers I've encountered seem to be very pedantic about having a very precise chapter and verse reference for every issue that is alleged to be from scripture.

In addition to illegal deep linking...

[SpryGuy]

...it will now be illegal to tune into a TV program at any other time than the beginning. Bookmarks will also be illegal. On DVD players, the scan and chapter functions are now illegal; you may not jump arbitrarily into the movie. In books, indexes will be illegal from now on. Showing up at a party "Fashionably Late" is now illegal.

Is this the most ridiculous and stupid ruling a court has come up with yet? Why yes, I think it is. Be wary of the potential for precedent if this ruling isn't overturned or at least deeply ignored.

Re:ha, ha, ha, ha! LMAoRotF

[twitter]

Your posts would be better if you would spell Dallas correctly.

It's hard to spell when you are falling out of your chair laughing.

How's this any difference from a page reference?

[dabootsie]

Okay... but why haven't they made bibliographies or references to specific pages of other works illegal in published works? It's the same thing. What makes the internet so special? Oh, that's right. Complete and utter ignorance on the part of the lawmakers.

I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't understand why a news site would be concerned with deep linking. Simply put, this is horseshit. I am completely in favor with protecting copyrights so I would never copy an article from one site to another, but what the hell do these sites care about links since every page that is linked has the news agency's name, art, advertisements, and links plastered accross the linked article anyway. How is this hurting a news agency in any way? if anything it is driving readership to their site...someting I would think they would want.

Well this makes things easy when considering sources for articles. From now on, any site that does not allow deep linking will be dropped as a source on any and all sites with which I am associated. I hope everyone else does the same until finally these sites get a clue and realize that they are not only killing the "web," but they are also killing their bottom line.

On this ruling...

[minion]

This ruling basically makes all research papers you'll ever write in college illegal. Footnotes, Endnotes, etc that list reference and page number are nothing more than printed deep linking.

When you specify something specifically, its illegal. There goes the ability to look up zoology in a dictionary, online or off, since you'll need the read the entire dictionary first before you're able to view the page that contains zoology.

Re:How's this any difference from a page reference

[Alsee]

Complete and utter ignorance on the part of the lawmakers

And judges.

-

Danish courts...

[Anonymous Coward]

where child pornography was allowed for so long?

Deep Linking Solution No. One

[zenasprime]

http://nl9.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_pr oduct=DM&p_theme=dm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200& s_dispstring=deep%20linking&p_field_advanced-0=&p_ text_advanced-0=("deep%20linking")&p_perpage=1 0

1. Highlight the above URL using your mouse/mouse button and pointer.

2. Select COPY from the EDIT drop-down menu, located at the top of your window (see the appropriate help file for instruction on how to use this feature).

3. Using above mentioned mouse/mouse button and pointer, place cursor into URL address field at the top of your browser of choice (we recomend Microsofts Internet Explorer).

4. Select PASTE from the EDIT drop-down menu, again located at the top of the window.

5. Click on the go button OR press the RETURN/ENTER key on your keyboard.

copyright 2002 bellace
patent pending
all right reserved
Send all payments for use of the above mentioned method to zenasprime@zenasprime.net

Re:Deep Linking Solution No. One

[zenasprime]

blast foiled again!

Damn IE stuck spaces all throughout that url. Well you get the idea.

http://nl9.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_ pr oduct=DM&p_theme=dm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200& s_dispstring=deep%20linking&p_field_advanced-0=&p_ text_advanced-0=("deep%20linking")&p_perpage=1 0

If it doesn't work this time you will just have to do without the irony.

Oh, and their site is buggy, slow and expensive so who really would want to link to them anyway.

z(p)

Bingo..

[Archfeld]

Cookies themselves are just code, its how they are used, or misused that is a problem.

I think they ought to do the Newspaper test

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words: Is the site public or private? If it is open to the public then any part of the site should be accessible. If it is private, then none of it should be available to the public until payment is made.

A newspaper is a great analogy. You can pick up the paper and read the front of it. But to read the rest of it you are supposed to pay for the paper. Not that everyone does - but that is the general idea. However, yesterday's newspaper can usually be found in the library and read for free. Thus, sites on the web who want people to pay for their information (or just go through their front pages) should also be forced to allow anyone to read yesterday's information. Just like in a library. :-)

Just my $0.02 worth.

A few other things:

1. I am for limiting deep linking. Not because I like the idea in general. Only because the site is owned by whoever it is and they can do anything they want to with their web site just like you can with yours. You want to keep everything to yourself - that's your business. My rights stop at your doorstep. So I'd link to your front page with a well placed message saying something like "these guys will only allow you to read their stuff if you eat ruttabaggas or go through their front door." Or maybe something not quite so nice - but with the same sentiment. But it is still your website and I do not have the right to tell you how to run it.

2. There really is a top level to websites. Unlike someone else who said there wasn't and that it was all imagination. The truth is the fewer the number of slashs in the URL the higher up the chain you are. Yes, I know - be stupid and make an entire site with everything backwards. Fine. The other 99.99999999% of us will do things in the ordinary way and create a top-down view. Thus http://my.web.site/main.html will come first and if we have hundreds of things to work on they will be all in subdirectories below the main directory. Thus the terminology of being on top or below. Which, those of us with common sense realize means that there is an inherent flow to how things are set up. Insanity and wishful thinking aside - this is reality. Not to mention the fact that most (if not all) documentation on web servers ask you to set up the top level directory to serve web pages from and not the bottom level directory.

yep...

[Anonymous Coward]

i actually worked for a company whose were site was a generic IIS ASP script... which basically pulled different info based on what URL was requested in the headers... you were technically looking at the same page but with different content pulled based on what info the browser requested...

of course this was mostly because of to fend off Netscape and IE differences...

Re:How's this any difference from a page reference

[SirNonya]

Resist! Ignore the damned laws! Deep-link to every page that doesn't want to be lined to! Imagine if every IT worker went on strike...

Off-topic:

Many people hate school. Imagine of the antischool rebels united. Say 10% of all kids dislike school. Say 10% of those refuse to go to school. Nice idea, huh. If only we could get the word out...

Re:breakin the law - i wonder ...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Copenhagen's lower bailiff's court ruled Friday that Newsbooster.com was in direct competition with the newspapers and that the links it provided to specific news articles damaged the value of the newspapers' advertisements."

You aren't in competition, but someone could perhaps see into their site without viewing the advertisements along the way. Its all about the money... Its about establishing *control* over the flow. If you don't control the flow, you can't make people pay.

So what I'd like to know is what "right" do these people have to establish controls on the value of advertisements?

Look at it this way.

[theRiallatar]

They'll legislate deep linking as illegal, Google, Yahoo!, Northernlight, and whatever else is still around will shut down, information will be hard to find, the internet will go belly up and all these companies will question why nobody visits their websites anymore. Sure, we'll still have an array of points, the regular sites we visit, but those silly people who just go to Yahoo! and search every time they get on the web, (the "Where'd my Yahoo! go?" syndrome) will completely lose interest. If the companies have two brain cells, they'll wise up, pay to get the laws repealed, and set the web back 10 years, not entirely a bad thing.

Re:breakin the law - i wonder ...

[ErikLange]

The problem is that NewsBooster runs a service where clients can subscribe to news in certain categories from several newspappers. Hereby they are packeting the newspappers content into a new product. So the individual deeplinks "as such" are not the problem, but a collection of deeplinks served to a client on a subscribtion basis is a different product, than the content of the individual links (otherwise Newsbooster would have no point as a service) - and this new product is based on other peoples copyrighted content. The subscribtion service is what makes Newsbooster different from Google... I'm not saying that I'm agreeing with the newspappers, but that's the problem, as they see it ;-)

Marketing departments should be shot.

[theolein]

Plain and simple. Up against the wall, bullet between the eyes and all this stupid shit would be over.

Re:breakin the law - i wonder ...

[fferreres]

Yes, it certainy bothers the newspaper that they are giving information for free, and the linkers are charging money.

The system as it is now is unstable, meaning a lot of newspapers will dissapear. I know this because i run a content company that provides big portals with specific sectors news, but they don't pay us $$$. That's "the policy"...we get to survive, but it' s a bit unfair :)

Pretty strange...

Specifics in danish

[allanj]

As you mention the article is in Danish, which suits me (a Dane) just fine :-). The article is kind of thin on specifics, but my guess is that the main issue has to do with them linking to (print) newspaper web-site articles. In Denmark we have a (somewhat dumb) law that forbids re-prints of newspaper articles without express permission of the newspaper involved. It's my GUESS that this is the real issue here, since no newspaper is going to give anyone the permission to reprint whatever they write, and no link-site is going to ask permission every time - they probably wouldn't get it anyway.

To me, this is yet another case of old-media vs. new-media, and this time around, the old-media won the first round, but the article states that it is highly likely to get appealed, and the Danish courts are no more computer-literate than any other courts, so the actual outcome is anyones guess.

Sorry

[KrunZ]

With 6.000.000 inhabitants, about 60 people do not have a clear head. This guy is clearly one of them.

If a nation is full of nationalism it is damn hard to be a nationalist.

Think it is ok in that case.

[Anonymous Coward]

The page earn money from making resumes from newspapers, and the newspapers just want to pay their employees that money instead of letting the thiefs get away with the money.

If the thiefs makes a deal with the newspapers, then im sure they would pay for the job he does - if he does a good job (getting peoples eyeballs on the adds the papers have...)

What's next: illegal to leave magazine open?

[wessman]

How in the hell can it be illegal to deep link to a publicly available URL? If the website doesn't want people linking to the printable, ad-free page, don't let them thru security, not law.

What's next? No bookmarks allowed? Get arrested if you leave a magazine open to a specific article? What crap!

the future of linking....

[Anonymous Coward]

here is the link to the article I mentioned:

Go to www.wired.com, select the technology link (above, to
the right), the link to the article should be there, but wait it could
have been archived. Ok, not to worry, find the search...if you can....
actually better you go back to the start again, it is general practice
to have a search field on the front page of a site, isn't it?. When you
are there, then search for the following article ID: 0,1282,53535,00.html...found
it?, oh dear 'no query results', I see. ......OK, not to worry, lets try
another method. Go back to the front page again.... lets try the title
of the article.. How to Move Lab Mice, Cleanly... oh dear,
oh dear 'no query results' again, well I am really stuck now... how about
e-mailing the webmaster and asking them if they know what the site link
is....they never answer back you say, because its a fact that less than
10% of sites can cope with amount of mail that comes in, you say. Ok,
ok, well how about not using the internet at all, phone the producer of
the page directly, maybe you can get them to e-mail it to you, here is
the number... ah, Wired is owneed by a company called Terra-Lycos, they
look quite big, they have a lot of numbers....maybe you can try the 'Corporate
Headquarters and Office of the Executive Chairman': mmmm sorry, cant tell
you the address because it might infrindge copyright... go to www.terralycos.com,
then click on 'Contact-Us', then you will see a quick selection field,
select 'Locations' , it will link straight through to a page with all
the offices, their addresess and main contact numbers. good luck on the
search for your article.

TIM BERNERS-LEE says:

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamental thing about the space--about this Web, as I said, is that anything can refer to anything. Otherwise it's no fun. (http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html)

"WE TAKE CONTROL OVER YOUR MIND"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's not about copyrights at all (in fact). It's about MIND CONTROL.
Please tell me - HOW could LINKING be a violation of anybody's 'intellectual property rights' ??? In fact, it's the non-paid ad 'get this product directly'. It's no more harmful than pointing a tourist with the tip: "to get the best beer in our town, get to the street X, turn to they street Y, walk yourself inside the shop YY and buy the beer XX, and it's located on the shelf on the right from their door.' Well, any action against such activity should be at least called the EXTREME STUPIDITY. But there's something more.
Companies as those, who oppose direct "deep" linking, DO NOT want your interest in their products; they want you to bugger of, if you don't want to succumb to THEIR routes. They want you to be made to get to the specefic locations, be it, to see an ad, or 'use terms', or something else. They dont' want your money - they want your SOUL. To control your mind, that you couldn't choose for yourself. It's the brute anti-capitalist, anti-market and anti-freedom policy.
And, as the conscious, free individuals, we should respond with BOYCOTT of their products (but acknowledge them about it first - let them know that we are the POWER, because the POWER is the only thing they believe in!), and with the massive e-mail sending (but one e-mail per person, please, to not cause the DoS attacks, only opinion-sharing), opposing such awful policies.

Well, I'm in NO WAY affiliated with Newsbooster.com -- I even haven't known about their existence till I've read about their problems. But I'm a free-market libertarian, and so I oppose the tyrannical regulations in the name of 'intellectual property' GONE INSANE. As I've said - it's NO about IP at all; it's about controlling your MIND. Should the technology advance in the way that they will be able to control your mind directly (ie. 'wiretapping' your mental processes in your brain and pushing the ads inside) -- the folks like those anti-link crazies WILL be lobbying to make those activities legal.

Yours,
Critto, http://www.libertaryzm.prv.pl (Polish libertarian site of Critto, in PL and English)

PS. I am NOT anonymous coward - my nickname is Critto, and my name - Christopher. It's just I'm so lazy to register ;)))