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."

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. ;)

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.

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.

[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.

[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?

[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?

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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...

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

I plan

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

[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.

Obviously . . .

[vegetablespork]

there's something rotten in Denmark.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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: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?

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

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

[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

[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.

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?)

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.

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.

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.

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.

...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

[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: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.

"'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".

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: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.

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)

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.

-

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

[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.

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.

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

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

[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...

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Bingo..

[Archfeld]

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

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?

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.