Law Firm Claims Copyright on View of HTML Source

An anonymous reader writes "A law firm with all sorts of interesting views on copyright has decided to go the extra mile. As reported on Tech Dirt, they've decided that viewing the HTML source of their site is a violation of copyright. From the site's EULA: 'We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so.'"

Comments

oblig.

[niteice]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

:o

Cache-Control: no-render

[jasonwea]

Frankly, I'm surprised they permit browsers to render their precious markup.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[Inverted Intellect]

I went to the site just to look at the source. Really, if they insist on people not looking at it, there must be something good in there.

Turns out the coder is just ashamed of his HTML coding skills.

If that was all they wanted to hide, they could have just gone with the JPG format. It would be utterly useless, but at least no one would be able to look at their naughty parts.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[Shadowplay00]

Turns out the coder is just ashamed of his HTML coding skills. Hmm...

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

Yep. Probably don't want anyone to know their intern has a bootleg copy of GoLive.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[hobo sapiens]

I'd bet this is to prevent anyone from spoofing their site.

As if someone couldn't mock it using other markup.

For "intarweb lawyers", they sure don't understand the internet.

Morons.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[McFadden]

Presumably, if you've been to their site, you've already infringed their precious copyright, since your browser had to make a 'copy' of their precious HTML simply to render the page. Viewing it is irrelevant - the crime has already been committed.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[maevius]

I went too just to look at the code. I looked at it for about 5 secs.

<p cass="bodyB">By using our website, you agree to the following:</p>

cass? Yes what about it?

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[Kpt Kill]

IANAL but i did take a Intro to business law course. In it I learned that browse-wrap agreements/contracts have been struck down time and time again and are not enforceable in a court of law.

Browse-wrap being "by viewing this post you agree to pay me 1000 dollars". Now, if there was a [I agree] button that you click on before entering the site... That could be a valid contract, unless the court decides its unconscionable.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[alx5000]

When viewing source is outlawed, only outlaws will view source!

If you don't want anyone to view

[WebHostingGuy]

then don't publish it online.

Re:If you don't want anyone to view

[Samari711]

It'd fall under either latches or unclean hands because their actions are contributing to your "violation"

Re:If you don't want anyone to view

[radiumhahn]

I choose to use my first ammendment right.

To quote their internet publication:

"Instead of telling you that you cannot use someone else's trademark in website tags or content, we can explain how you can use it legitimately. Instead of using a contract that might overstate your results, we can help you draft agreements that will minimize the ability of unreasonable clients to get their money back (unless you want to offer a money back guarantee). "

- source link

I am inclined to think these lawyers are scumbags. Welcome to America asswipes!

Re:If you don't want anyone to view

[nine-times]

I'm just stating the obvious, but...

These guys seem to have a shockingly stupid understanding of the Internet and copyright, even if you ignore the fact that they're claiming to be expert lawyers on Internet-related issues. I had assumed that the submitter must have misinterpreted things, but directly from their user agreement:

Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the "look and feel" of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so.

(emphasis mine, and yeah, note the irony of me posting the text where they say all text on their site is copyright protected)

IANAL, but my understanding is that copyright is very much what is sounds like. "Copy right"-- the right to copy. The HTML code is necessarily copied to your computer in order to render the page. Therefore, the copying is done. Unless you can manage to argue that viewing the HTML code constitutes an additional "copy", then there isn't any possible chance that it could be a violation of copyright. It'd be like selling someone a book and then saying, "But you can't read this in bed, because we consider that a violation of copyright!" I'm sorry, but copyright doesn't allow you to determine how I use a legally-obtained copy.

What might allow them to determine how things are viewed or used is some sort of "User Agreement", which I guess is what they're trying to do. However, they're trying to make it binding simply by stating that, "By using our website, you agree to the following". However, calling it a "User Agreement" doesn't mean that anyone agreed to it. This agreement isn't even on the front page, and so it's entirely possible to browse through the site without ever seeing the agreement.

Authorize my foot in your asses.

[Spazntwich]

I just went and stoled me some of that there intellectual property.

Smells good.

Invalid HTML

[alanw]

W3C says that the page isn't valid HTML - does that invalidate their claim?

Re:Invalid HTML

[TDyl]

Only 58 errors? I'd've thought there'd've been loads more.

they seem a bit stressed

[phrostie]

i think they just need to get laid REALLY bad.

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[Joe Snipe]

why would a bad lay help?

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[rich_r]

Like documentation, any lay is better than no lay...

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[raehl]

/* The following function takes a single integer input, x, and returns an integer output, x + 4 */

int addFour ( int x ) {

    return (x - 4);

}

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[Esion Modnar]

i think they just need to get laid REALLY bad.

Funny. I was thinking the same thing. Only I was thinking they need to go get FUCKED.

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[budgenator]

/* The following function takes a single integer input, x, and returns an integer output, x + 4 */
 
int addFour ( int x )
{
    return (x - 4294967292);
}

this should actually work on some machines and not others.

Content?

[the eric conspiracy]

So the content is part of the HTML source for the site. How are you supposed to read the notice without reading at least part of the HTML source?

Re:Content?

[Typoboy]

Sorry to bring logic into this, but I am really curious if they understand that their "HTML Source" has to be transferred to the user machine in order to display their page?

Re:Content?

[alan_dershowitz]

They totally understand this, and say as much. This is why they threaten the force of law if you look, because they know they can't actually physically stop you from looking. I believe they even know that their legal argument is false. Knowing that they can litigate you into financial oblivion right or wrong acts as a deterrent here, and I think this is their strategy. I can even tell you why they care. Because they are lawyers, and in their world everything they touch is valuable and the thought of someone using it without permission is highly offensive to them.

Re:Content?

[orkysoft]

Now you're hacking their webserver too!

Re:Content?

[sumdumass]

What if this is just a poorly disguised study to see how many people will do something they are specifically told not to do. Even with a threat of legal action.

The results of this could be used in a lot of things from product advertising, public image control, and even motivating voters to come out for a cause. It this is a test to develop a theory or justify it, or just see what would happen to compare current tactics to the results.

Or maybe it is just a ploy to get free advertising. I mean it gets their name out, make it known, and what are the chances of someone who barely remembers their name, remembering why when they need a lawyer? Two years from now, they will probably be one of the most popular law firms on the net.

Re:Content?

[StikyPad]

Maybe because they could never find out the results? There's no way for a server to distinguish whether a client is viewing the source or the rendered page.

Useless

[nsebban]

It's not like they have any means to know you actually viewed their source.

Re:Useless

[nuzak]

Sure they do, paste it in. I think just for their legal reasons, posting wget or lynx -source output would be interpreted the same as well.

I was going to prove it by posting their HTML source here, but posting any significant chunk of it, just to show what I think of their precious copyright, triggered the lameness filter. How apropos.

For those who are too lazy to do some digging...

[AceCaseOR]

The name of the law firm in question is Dozier Internet Law. The link is to their web page. Enjoy!

So no visiting either?

[john_is_war]

The website is displayed via HTML... so technically I'm not allowed to view the web page itself...

Thinking about it further, the sites EULA is printed using HTML, so I technically shouldn't be allowed to see it, as per the EULA, and therefore am not obligated by it.

Oops... Too Late

[excelblue]

If you happen to not be using a web browser and browse the website with telnet, making your own HTTP requests, an interesting case comes up:

You viewed the HTML before you are given notice that you are not authorized to view it. What happens in this case? Are you guilty of infringement?

Also, what exactly is the legal definition of 'viewing HTML'? Does it mean reading it with your own eyes, or does it include using a web browser to read it?

Re:Oops... Too Late

[Sicily1918]

You can view the HTML output, but not the code itself, as their disclaimer states. Of course, that's like saying you can read my book, but not the words.

I own this!

[nexxuz]

Every word that I type I own! If you are reading this then you are in violation! Please send all your money to my off-shore bank account now!

I'm 'wget' - come arrest me!

[TheGratefulNet]

% cd cybermorans
% while 1
while? wget -rm -np http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/
while? sleep 10
while? rm -rf *
while? end

that'll keep 'em entertained. oh, and me, too.

Re:I'm 'wget' - come arrest me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here's why - they're infringing on someone else's copyright!

OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004

Re:I'm 'wget' - come arrest me!

[complete loony]

If you're going to fill their logs, the least you could do is add inappropriate referrer urls.

"Why are we getting hits from this .... tub ... girl. You'd better check out this site so we can send a cease and desist letter."

This is why law needs a "duh" clause

[CaptainPatent]

They have placed HTML (an interpreted language) in public space to be viewed by people visiting their site.
If this were source code of some sort where users were supposed to be separated from the code then they may have ground to stand on, but the point is the exact text of their web page must be read and interpreted and is granted freely as such.
Hopefully this will bring the judge to the final ruling of: "duh!"

Re:This is why law needs a "duh" clause

[binaryartist]

Similar to what I think. They are sending the HTML to my machine. What I do with it shouldnt be their concern. I may chose to use a HTML renderer with it or may just prefer to look at HTML. That is my business. If they didnt want people to look at their HTML, they shouldnt send it to them in the first place.

In other words...

[kaan]

All our source are belong to us.

You're in violation

[Anonymous Coward]

...They also state that you shouldn't link to their site without permission.

Re:Suggested technical fix

[Feyr]

a simpler fix, that doesn't involve breaking any standards /etc/init.d/apache stop

Better still:

[TheAxeMaster]

W3C also says this:

Line 3, Column 62: character data is not allowed here. ...ref="http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/user-agreement/" / You can't put user agreements in code! Maybe they were trying to get us to implicitly agree to them by hiding them in the code we're not allowed to view! Crafty bastards...
 
Really though, they are idiots. HTML isn't some magical closed source EXE, as much as they would like it to be.

Re:Better still:

[Edy52285]

This is an impossible claim they make. Think about what a website really is, is it what the browsers render? Well different browsers can render the same code in different ways, so no, its not the rendering. Is it the code? Yes, the HTML of a site IS the site. From the website owners perspective there is no way of knowing what software or device the user is accessing the code with, for all they know, its being pulled up as just text, which would be the HTML. Since in order for the owners of the site to show you the site, they must send you the raw HTML so that the browser can do its thing (like render structure and styles and ask the server for any images the code points to). Since thats all they are doing, it makes no sense that they would try to force users to not look at it. What im trying to say is that, in order for you to see the licensing thing, you need to see the site, in order for you to see the site, they ahve to send you the raw code first, which is then at the whim of whatever software your using to render it. Was there not recently something about EULA's not being valid if the user has to purchase the item before seeing it? The same would apply here. You cant agree to the EULA before seeing it, and you cant see it before,.. well seeing it. At what point would this stop, would you then start suing indivuduals who use the wrong browser, because they are not correctly rendering MY website? Or what about Userscripts and Greasemonkey, oh seems like those people would get sueing for altering the code without permission. This makes no sense.. you cant make proprietary something built off of an inherantly open platform It boils down to making a sign that says "The content of this sign is copyrighted, by reading this you are violating copyright laws"

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[bigstrat2003]

Thanks for the link. I just went and infringed on some intellectual property rights... who knew it could be so damn fun?

Bah!

[Greyfox]

That's what they get for not hiring an administrator for their web server who knows what they're doing. If they don't want people looking at their HTML source, they should just change the permissions to disallow it: "chmod -r 000 $WEBSITE_ROOT_DIR" This will also save them a ton of bandwidth! Anyone have a link to their site so we can critique their page layout and other IP?

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[nmb3000]

The name of the law firm in question is Dozier Internet Law. The link is to their web page. Enjoy!

"we also are intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry"

"We maintain records of IP addresses and other information contained in log files"

"We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission"

Well, you're screwed now. They're hackers, they have your IP, and you linked to their site.

"you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way"

Of course, I'm in trouble too because the every act of viewing their page required me to download a copy of it. I suppose they could put their website on a CD, then mail it to everybody who calls in and asks to visit their website.

Morons.

If you actually read the source you find...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...the line: // OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004

RFC 1149 fetch needed

[RichMan]

This just cries out for someone to implement a page fetch of this using RFC 1149.
Then to archive the transmit and receive buffers in a book.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html
--
Frame Format

      The IP datagram is printed, on a small scroll of paper, in
      hexadecimal, with each octet separated by whitestuff and blackstuff.
      The scroll of paper is wrapped around one leg of the avian carrier.
      A band of duct tape is used to secure the datagram's edges. The
      bandwidth is limited to the leg length. The MTU is variable, and
      paradoxically, generally increases with increased carrier age. A
      typical MTU is 256 milligrams. Some datagram padding may be needed.

      Upon receipt, the duct tape is removed and the paper copy of the
      datagram is optically scanned into a electronically transmittable
      form.
--

Re:Well then

[eosp]

So you're going to rewrite them in Perl?

advertising

[belmolis]

It seems to me that these people are doing a terrific job of negative advertising. their activities tell me two things: (a) they don't know much about copyright law; (b) they're a bunch of jerks. If I were considering employing them, both of these features would warn me off them. I'm tempted to think that they have a mole in their office who is out to undermine them.

Re:Apropo legal responce

[polymath69]

Can some one find the British legal responce that essentially equates to telling the other party to "Fuck off" in so many words?

"We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram".

Interesting legal question

[sigmabody]

So, the interesting legal question for the source code viewing clause would be: if you put something in a public area (eg: the internet), can you then claim someone viewing it is in violation of your implicit license agreement to view it? That is, if I post a sign outside my house, can I prohibit looking at the sign without wearing 3D glasses, for example? Someone with knowledge of how the normal law works want to educate me?

Re:Interesting legal question

[julesh]

That is, if I post a sign outside my house, can I prohibit looking at the sign without wearing 3D glasses, for example? Someone with knowledge of how the normal law works want to educate me?

Erm. No. Don't be silly.

Which is, of course, what somebody should have told these idiots.

Next website I do...

[Perseid]

"By viewing this HTML source you agree to send $100 to me. If you do no consent, too bad, you're already viewing the source now. And don't think I can't tell - *I* know JavaScript."

Followon questions

[bdemchak]

I wonder how well they thought this through ...

Do they stop Google from crawling their site?? Google interprets the HTML differently than a browser would.

Will they stop Google or archive.org from caching it?? ... or re-rendering it within a frame??

Do they place other requirements on the browser ... such as exactly how the browser interprets the HTML for the sake of rendering??

Considering that there are virtually ubiquitous substitutes for HTML browsers that *do* enforce source protection, can they be deemed to have constructively waived their claims by publishing in an inherently unsecure medium like HTML?? (I'm thinking that they could have published in secured PDF or Flash.)

The mind boggles ... one wonders where they're going with this!?

Their HTML code revealed

[Experiment 626]

Ha ha ha, not only can I view their precious HTML code, I'm posting it to Slashdot for all the world to see!

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://goatse.cx/">
<title>Attorneys at Law</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FF66FF">
<!-- If you can read this, we're going to sue you! --/>
<h1>The Law Offices of Moron, Idiot, and Dumbass</h1>
<img src="OMG_Ponies.gif"/>
<blink>Need an incompetent ambulance chaser with no understanding of the law to
represent you? You've come to the right place!</blink>
</body>
</html>

Re:Suggested technical fix

[rs79]

&;ltanalcopyright

I see you've read "HTML for lawyers".

Re:Guilty? No.

[spun]

They obviously believe that anything they say is the law when it comes to content they produce. That's complete baloney. They can say whatever they want; it doesn't make it so. No, I don't think they believe that for a minute. I think they think we'll believe it though.

Re:Generated by a Tool for Tools

[pdangel]

Or better yet. Can you lay claim to open source code they used to manage the site?

http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/admin

I wonder what the people at Zope.org think about losing copyright to their work?

Mod me up and get me sued...

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

Notice that they have a link to a google analytics script near the bottom...since google analtyics is not their intellectual property, does that mean we are still allowed to view that one line?!
<html>
<head>
<base href="http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/user-agreement/" />

<title>User Agreement/Privacy Policy</title>
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Dozier Internet Lawyers: Top rated internet lawyer, internet attorney, internet lawyers, online lawyer, online lawyers, internet attorneys, internet law firm, web lawyer.">

<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="keywords go in here">
<META name="y_key" content="1dfad02220b8c67b" /> <!-- For Yahoo authentication -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="/imageswap_js"></script>
<csactions>
<csaction name="BF50B80B1" class="Open Popup Lite" type="onevent" val0="PopUp1" val1="680" val2="524" val3="true" val4="false" val5="false" val6="false" val7="false" val8="false" val9="false" val10="true" val11="" val12="" val13="#" val14="qtvr.html" val15="false" urlparams="14,15"></csaction>
</csactions>
<csscriptdict>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
function CSClickReturn () {
var bAgent = window.navigator.userAgent;
var bAppName = window.navigator.appName;
if ((bAppName.indexOf("Explorer") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mozilla/3") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mac") >= 0))
return true; /* dont follow link */
else return false; /* dont follow link */
}
CSStopExecution=false;
function CSAction(array) {return CSAction2(CSAct, array);}
function CSAction2(fct, array) {
var result;
for (var i=0;i<array.length;i++) {
if(CSStopExecution) return false;
var aa = fct[array[i]];
if (aa == null) return false;
var ta = new Array;
for(var j=1;j<aa.length;j++) {
if((aa[j]!=null)&&(typeof(aa[j])=="object")&&(aa[j].length==2)){
if(aa[j][0]=="VAR"){ta[j]=CSStateArray[aa[j][1]];}
else{if(aa[j][0]=="ACT"){ta[j]=CSAction(new Array(new String(aa[j][1])));}
else ta[j]=aa[j];}
} else ta[j]=aa[j];
}
result=aa[0](ta);
}
return result;
}
CSAct = new Object; // OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action

Some of their code revealed!!!!one1

[noidentity]

Here is some of their super secret codes revealed:

<html>

<p>

And the most valuable, apparently:

<font>

(posted anonymous for obvious reasons)

Now sue me. Pls !

[Anonymous Coward]

<html>
<head>
<base href="http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/" />

<title>Internet Lawyer, Trademark Infringement Lawyer, Domain Name Dispute Specialist!</title>
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Dozier Internet Law and Dozier Intenet Law, PC are top rated Internet Lawyer Specialists representing business interests on the web as advocate and legal counsel.>

<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="dozier internet law, dozier internet law pc, dozier lawyer, dozier internet, internet lawyer, internet lawyers, interent attorney, internet attorneys, john dozier, john w dozier, john w dozier jr">
<META name="y_key" content="1dfad02220b8c67b" /> <!-- For Yahoo authentication -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="/imageswap_js"></script>
<csactions>

<csaction name="BF50B80B1" class="Open Popup Lite" type="onevent" val0="PopUp1" val1="680" val2="524" val3="true" val4="false" val5="false" val6="false" val7="false" val8="false" val9="false" val10="true" val11="" val12="" val13="#" val14="qtvr.html" val15="false" urlparams="14,15"></csaction>
</csactions>
<csscriptdict>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
function CSClickReturn () {
var bAgent = window.navigator.userAgent;
var bAppName = window.navigator.appName;
if ((bAppName.indexOf("Explorer") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mozilla/3") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mac") >= 0))
return true; /* dont follow link */
else return false; /* dont follow link */
}
CSStopExecution=false;
function CSAction(array) {return CSAction2(CSAct, array);}
function CSAction2(fct, array) {
var result;
for (var i=0;i<array.length;i++) {
if(CSStopExecution) return false;
var aa = fct[array[i]];
if (aa == null) return false;
var ta = new Array;
for(var j=1;j<aa.length;j++) {
if((aa[j]!=null)&&(typeof(aa[j])=="object")&&(aa[j].length==2)){
if(aa[j][0]=="VAR"){ta[j]=CSStateArray[aa[j][1]];}
else{if(aa[j][0]=="ACT"){ta[j]=CSAction(new Array(new String(aa[j][1])));}
else ta[j]=aa[j];}
} else ta[j]=aa[j];
}
result=aa[0](ta);
}
return result;
}
CSAct = new Object;
// OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004
if (typeof MPStoreOpenWin2 == "undefined") MPStoreOpenWin2 = new Array();
function MPOpenPopupLite(action) {
var posX = 0;
var posY = 0;
if (action[4] == true) {
posX = Math.round((screen.availWidth/2)-(action[2]/2));
posY = Math.round((screen.availHeight/2)-(action[3]/2));
} else {
posX = action[12];
posY = action[13];
}
if (action[16] == true) {

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[kennygraham]

No wonder they want to keep it hidden. No doctype! I'd be ashamed too.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Sneeka2]

Apparently GoLive was though.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[slacknhash]

They claim they own all that code. Does that extend to <meta name="KEYWORDS" content="keywords go in here"> and <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">? Have to ask...

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Demiansmark]

Great, now we're all going to be sued

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Rhodin]

Er, I don't think I could hire a law firm that doesn't check its spelling. In the header info, they've spelled 'internet' incorrectly. Twice. ;)

<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Dozier Internet Law and Dozier Intenet Law, PC

internet lawyer, internet lawyers, interent attorney

I mean, outside of the fact that I wouldn't hire them for philosophical reasons. As an artist, I've relied many times on emulation as a means of learning technique. If people want to poke through my HTML (as messy as it can be) as a means of learning what to do and not do in web design, I say give'r. :)
- ev
_____________________
http://evanbutler.com/

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[tacocat]

So they have a copyright on the word META? Or the use of META in HTML? Or what?

This stuff is getting out of hand. Imagine what would happen if lawyers were limited to a maximum total income of $100,000 per annum. The only ones left would be lawyers who actually enjoyed what they did enough to not be an asshole. They might actually be better at practicing law too.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[slacknhash]

I'd be more concerned about them laying claim to meta tags identifying websites as being generated with Adobe GoLive, myself. If I were working for Adobe or even using GoLive, that is.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[koweja]

Important Stuff

• ...
• Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated...

Indeed. It just never mentioned what direction to mod you.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[D4rkn1ght]

No wonder they want to keep it hidden. No doctype! I'd be ashamed too.

http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/user-agreement
HTML error (1/5): The DOCTYPE declaration is missing.
HTML error (3/63): Illegal character "/" in tag.
HTML error (9/49): Illegal character "/" in tag.
HTML error (14/13): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (15/286): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (15/297): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (15/297): Can't find start tag for end tag . Maybe the tag was implicitly closed before.
HTML error (16/14): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (16/14): Can't find start tag for end tag . Maybe the tag was implicitly closed before.
HTML error (17/16): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (88/17): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (88/17): Can't find start tag for end tag . Maybe the tag was implicitly closed before.
HTML error (89/16): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (94/17): The tag is unknown in this HTML standard.
HTML error (94/17): Can't find start tag for end tag . Maybe the tag was implicitly closed before.
HTML warning (100/354): The attribute "LEFTMARGIN" is deprecated in the tag and should no longer be used. It is suggested CSS be used instead.
HTML warning (100/354): The attribute "TOPMARGIN" is deprecated in the tag and should no longer be used. It is suggested CSS be used instead.
HTML warning (100/354): The attribute "MARGINWIDTH" is deprecated in the tag and should no longer be used. It is suggested CSS be used instead.
HTML warning (100/354): The attribute "MARGINHEIGHT" is deprecated in the tag and should no longer be used. It is suggested CSS be used instead.
HTML error (168/19): Illegal character "/" in tag.
HTML error (175/19): Illegal character "/" in tag.
HTML error (222/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (224/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (226/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (228/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (230/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (232/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (234/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (236/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (238/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (240/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML error (242/17): The attribute "CASS" in tag

is not allowed.
HTML warning (267/75): The attribute "HEIGHT" is deprecated in the tag and should no longer be used. It is suggested CSS be used instead.
http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/Dozier_css
CSS Error (23/17): Invalid property value "bold".
CSS Error (336/7): Invalid property value "margin:".
CSS Error (336/7): Unknown identifier ":".
CSS Error (368/10): Invalid class selector.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Herby Sagues]

There's a simpler solution to "the lawyer problem". (suing) Lawyers must share the losses as much as they share the winnings in a trial. It should work like this: A lawyer, when dealing with a customer to initiate a lawsuit, must decide on one of two payment methods. One is fixed income, with no sharing of the proceeds in case of winning. The other one is sharing the winnings as well as the losses if the suit is lost. That way nobody is going to initiate a suit if not quite certain they are going to win (as they have to pay for the lawyers a fixed fee). And lawyers are not going to accept lawsuits that have a low probability of being won, because if they lose they'll have to pay for the trial, the other party's lawyers and all other expenses out of their own pockets. Outcome: dissapearance of frivolous lawsuits, dissapearance of ambulance chasers, reduction of the burden on the justice and a happier living for all of us (other than for the lawyers, most of which would have to find decent jobs).

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[ritalinvillain]

please tell me that 'we also are intimately familiar' is meant to construe 'we have carnal knowledge'.

They use an OSS CMS, nice.

[Stormx2]

Check out the admin panel. The error message is a zope.org message. Zope is licensed under their own OSS license. Now who's breaking copyright licenses? :)

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[Rangataua]

Interesting, their site has been cached by Google: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:0T2TX0bv-usJ:www.cybertriallawyer.com/+cybertriallawyer.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

Those guys had to become programmers

[suv4x4]

They use the law as if you can program the world, just if you say so:

We do not permit our website to be "spidered", or a program run through the website, for purposes of obtaining email addresses to be used in commercial email campaigns. We do permit search engines to access our website for purposes of indexing search results. We do not authorize you to access the Dozier Internet Law, P.C. website by conducting "click attacks", which is the practice of clicking on one of our online ads for the purpose of running up our advertising costs.

Hehe, well, guess what guys: the email harvesting and indexing bots won't read your threats.

Their robots.txt says:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Backup
Disallow: /Form
Disallow: /acl_users
Disallow: /MailHost
Disallow: /test
Disallow: /test1

Thanks for letting us know where *not* to go. I'm sure the Chinese spam bots will also *not* go there and *not* see what you have there.

Curiously they should've just put this: Disallow: /

Re:I smell a slashdotting coming on

[webmaster404]

I think this is the only time that most /.ers will RTFA, just to view the source

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[InvalidError]

Our firm has handled 252 legal matters in the past two years Three more cases to go and they'll gain a temporary geek credebility booster.

Re:Generated by a Tool for Tools

[sgartner]

Generated by:

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

So can they even lay claim to something generated by a tool? From the statements on the web site any reasonable person can conclude that the entire web site was generated by a "tool" (regardless of what software he/she used to build the web site)?

Reading != Infringement

[AeroIllini]

These people clearly have a very dim understanding of what copyright is and how it works. I'm not sure I'd want them representing me in a court case involving nuances of copyright if they don't even understand the fundamentals.

Copyright is about publishing, not viewing. Infringement is defined as someone other than the copyright holder publishing the copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder. That's all. Restrictions on viewing can only come from not publishing. Once it's published, game over. The purchaser of the published copy has every right to view the contents. Incidentally, this is why the RIAA goes after only uploaders, not downloaders.

By placing their copyrighted work on a public webserver, they have effectively published it to the web, and by not placing it behind a registration or payment wall, they have also effectively offered it for sale to the public in published form for $0. They are essentially handing out free pamphlets on a street corner, which they then forbid you from reading. There are no protection schemes (i.e., DRM) in use, so the DMCA circumvention provision doesn't even apply (it wouldn't apply anyway to mere viewing, only to infringement, which means publishing).

However, were I to copy their source code wholesale and use it for my site (including the design and/or layout), then they have a legal leg to stand on, and can sue me for infringement. Until that happens, any court in the country would give them a hearty "fuck you" if they tried to sue someone on the grounds that the source code was read in a browser.

Also, I found this gem on their site:

"Thank goodness for John and his team. These big law firms just don't understand how to handle technology litigation. With their trial record, technology expertise, and legal and business perspective, they have been a godsend...."

-- Internet Content Company CEO. Apparently the little companies don't understand how to handle technology litigation, either. To call them shady would be an insult to used car dealers everywhere.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if their site got hacked?

[KWTm]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone pwned their site and replaced little things? Maybe something that they probably wouldn't notice but prospective customers would read carefully and realize how full of it this firm is? Something like

"we also are intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry. In fact, our website gets updated by the hacking industry from time to time."

"We maintain records of IP addresses and other information contained in log files. Soon we will figure out how to actually look at those log files to see what information is contained there."

"We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission. In fact, you are not allowed to look at our web site without our permission. Hey, are you looking at this site right now? Stop that! Fine, our lawyers will be contacting you shortly."

some telltale phrases, eula by and for fanboys.

[clsours]

This EULA and website is by and for fanboys.
intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry
What hacking industry?
We make no representations, express or implied, concerning the functionality, security, or technical integrity of the button, and while the button is hosted by you and merely links to our site, we still provide the button solely on an "as is" basis.
The phrase "the button" is defined two paragraphs later, and poorly at that.
We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws.
Very very disingenuous. Copyright law protects against....COPYING! (not viewing; ever heard of this new technology called THE PRINTED WORD?). Also it is nearly universally refered to as copyright law, not "the copyright laws"
Dozier Internet Law, P.C. obviously has the capability to immediately react to such misappropriation,
The word obviously has no legal value, and is out of place in an EULA. The whole point of an EULA is to make an agreement explicit in every detail.
Of course, we do not sell any of the information collected on our website.
Again "Of course" has no place in an EULA
Businesses of the Internet, hear my cry: Do not use 15 year olds as your legal counsel!

Re:dynamic html

[fyngyrz]

Shakespeare's character has a quote from the correct page of the instruction manual for this kind of lawyerly behavior: "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Another thing: Trade Secret.

[clsours]

The only Intellectual Property law that would permit Dozier Internet law to keep their source secret is "Trade Secret" protection, and they explicitly remove themselves from this protection with this phrase: "We don't presently conduct e-commerce activities in the sense of accepting registrations or providing private access to a protected area of our website." Trade Secret protection explicitly requires access to such secrets to be limited, authorized, and secure. Dozier, you struck out.

Re:Another thing: Trade Secret.

[cpt kangarooski]

copyright could be used to prevent copying and distribution of the source, but viewing the source would not be protected by copyright.

Not directly, but it is possible to put conditions on the making of copies of the pages, and all people browsing the net necessarily make copies in order to do so. The issue would be whether they had managed to accomplish this and that they were even trying.

Copyright, Service Mark, Trademark, and Patent IP rights are secured by the US government. Securing your IP rights involves registering the content of your IP with the USPTO. The only copyright they cold claim on viewing the source of their code (even at the loosest reading of copyright law) would be any pages that are not in the first 10 or last 10 pages of code for each copyrighted work.

That's not really accurate.

There are federal and state copyrights; there are federal and state marks; there are federal patents (AFAIK no states offer state patents, though they could to the degree it wouldn't be preempted; probably not interesting to them, though). Registering copyrights involves the US Copyright Office, not the PTO, and the scope of protection really has nothing whatsoever to do with the amazingly stupid deposit rules they've set up of late.

These lawyers ought to know better

[WebCowboy]

Take a look at this line in the code: // OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004

They "own all the code" MY ASS. Perhaps they retained the services of Mindpalette to design their website or their own developers used some of their code, but this statement indicated to me that they DO NOT own at least a good chunk of the JavaScript in this file. Have they done their "due diligence" concerning their IP? Are the (retarded) terms-of-service on this web page compatible with the terms of service agreed to by Mr. Baldwin? I am the author of some GPLed scripts myself, and if I discovered they were used on this site I would take issue and even consider legal action!

Geez...get any 10 lawyers together, one will be a real decent person, the other nine will be total asshats.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Geez...get any 10 lawyers together, one will be a real decent person, the other nine will be total asshats. Are you sure you can find one decent lawyer when you only have 10 total? I think you need a much larger collection of lawyers before you'll accomplish that...

While I'm not defending this kind of crap, it's pretty easy to like a lawyer who is on your side. I was just part of a successful class-action lawsuit against my employer for a number of really really stupid practices including rounding hours and restricting breaks. And it's hard for me to hate our lawyer.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[Nazlfrag]

It just appears that way because it's logarithmic. 100 lawyers will net you 2 good ones, 1000 lawyers 3 good ones and so forth.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[ShieldW0lf]

Take a look at this line in the code: // OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004

They "own all the code" MY ASS. Perhaps they retained the services of Mindpalette to design their website or their own developers used some of their code, but this statement indicated to me that they DO NOT own at least a good chunk of the JavaScript in this file. Have they done their "due diligence" concerning their IP? Are the (retarded) terms-of-service on this web page compatible with the terms of service agreed to by Mr. Baldwin? I am the author of some GPLed scripts myself, and if I discovered they were used on this site I would take issue and even consider legal action!

It's very funny. The acts of paying for an internet connection and a computer, setting up a server and a domain name, and put these html pages unsecured upon that server is an act of publication. That interpretation is why Kazaa lady got nailed. The thing being published is not a browsing experience, it is a text file. I can use any tool I wish to view and interpret that text file, be it one I downloaded or one I wrote myself.

Unless they have secured the pages against free access and collected an agreement to terms of use prior to transmitting this text file, they can not retroactively enforce them. This means they cannot enforce that I use any particular viewing medium for the text.

However, what they have done is materially represented in the same site that they own the technology and the copyrights as a corporation, and also that the copyrights are some individuals property.

If it isn't fraudulent on the basis that they use the obvious message to intimidate people via legal threats without basis in fact into not seeing the contradictory ownership message in the comments, it's most certainly too sloppy to be borne on the front page of a site run by Internet Lawyers.

I knew lawyers were scum, but I figured it would be necessary for them to be at least somewhat smarter to get in the door. Apparently not.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[DMUTPeregrine]

High concentrations of lawyers cause destroy goodness. A bit like higher and higher concentrations of people decrease the average IQ of the mob.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[Crayon Kid]

Stockholm syndrome.

Indefenseble...

[arthurh3535]

I can't believe the idiocy. How can anyone in the world tell the difference between just viewing the web page and viewing the 'source' of it? It's derivative in that it requires the browser to read the whole thing, even the parts that are trying to hide. What morons...

Just on general principle...

[UnCivil Liberty]

I'd suggest that everyone click this link to an image that was commented out in the HTML source, as the hits to their server log will surely make them scratch their heads.

http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/common/image3.jpg

Geodetector In Da House

[Anonymous Coward]

This website's privacy statement claims they are not collecting personal information, although they use "geodetector.com" to collect each user's location. Err, ok.

Here's there embedded detector URL: http://geodetector.com/geo767

Re:They were already successful

[antic]

Especially since any blogs linking to the site will bump up their page rank...

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[iminplaya]

Morons?

Let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of these people until now?... Operators are standing by. 1-800-623-3925 x665. That's 1-800-MADEYALOOK

The firm is "Dozier Internet Law"

[BillX]

Ah yes, I've had contact from these yokels before. A while back a message board I administer got hit with a spam run, one of the spam posts advertised this company. One of the moderators cheerily replaced the payload link to Dozier's site with the text "Edited to remove references to legal company. Don't be so damn cheap, go and buy advertising." ...prompting of course a demand letter from the company claiming defamation, copyright infringement (the spam consisted partly of advertising copy direct from their site) as a start.

Mr. Dozier served his legal process by creating an account on our forum and sending a poorly-spelled diatribe using the "report to moderator" feature. In the end I nuked the spam (it was spam, after all), but not before solving the "legal problem" once and for all by banning his account and IP block from the server.

Well, that means that...

[coppro]

I'm in ur homepage reading ur source. _

Re:You're in violation.. not linking

[pbhj]

They should use the special protection facility in apache:

"# apachectl stop"

it prevents people from linking to your content (at least via port 80) and stops them from viewing your source code. As a bonus it also cuts bandwidth bills.

Use it today! A better internet experience for all.

...and they are hosting p0rn!

[wbiles]

http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/acl_users/Examples/FileLibrary

GoLive

[Kadin2048]

GoLive is one of those programs that gives you just enough rope to hang yourself with, if you don't know what you're doing.

I happen to like it and think it's a fairly decent tool, but I can imagine in the hands of someone who was totally clueless, and only used it in the WYSIWYG mode .... well, you'd get something like what you see above. Garbage. It has a tendency to do the usual WYSIWYG-editor things, like produce weird redundant nested tags, and generally make the code look horrible.

The idea is that it's very easy to switch from "Layout View" (WYSIWYG) to a nice color-coded HTML view, and from there to previewing it in your browser(s) of choice. I don't think the author in this case got the idea.

Re:dynamic html

[debrain]

Shakespeare's character has a quote from the correct page of the instruction manual for this kind of lawyerly behavior: "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." This is a common misconception of what Shakespeare said ...

Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society."

As the famous remark by the plotter of treachery in Shakespeare's King Henry VI shows - "The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers," - the surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking.
- "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - it's a lawyer joke

The same is true today. The common perception of lawyers, vis-à-vis this Shakespearean misquote, has arisen concurrent with the corporate oligarchy which views civil rights and independent thought as a threat to consumerism and profits.

That sounds more cynical than I intended it to, but I don't think it's terribly exaggerated. Rights cease to exist where legal representation falters.

Kind of takes the fun out of the quote though, doesn't it?

Re:dynamic html

[theshowmecanuck]

Rights cease to exist where legal representation falters.

Rights cease when common people can't understand what rights they have because lawyers obfuscate the English language with legalese and thereby try to cement their own overpriced job security. Also by way of insisting on self regulating their own (hah!) legal monopoly on administering and representing the legal system. Too bad we don't have a justice system any more or the modern lawyer would likely be tarred and feathered.

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[deniable]

Their robots.txt says something different:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Backup
Disallow: /Form
Disallow: /acl_users
Disallow: /MailHost
Disallow: /test
Disallow: /test1

Is this a shopping list or what?

Re:dynamic html

[olddaedalus]

Actually, an exceptional level of congratulations are in order, as this subthread's OP has neglected to actually *read* the page he has linked to. The page at spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html) that debrain cites as evidence instead contends that his interpretation is laughably incorrect, and the result of an attempt to turn a Shakespearean frown upside down. If you'll scroll down, the author later contends,

DICK.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

The audience must have doubled over in laughter at this. Far from "eliminating those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution" or portraying lawyers as "guardians of independent thinking", it's offered as the best feature imagined of yet for utopia. It's hilarious. A very rough and simplistic modern translation would be "When I'm the King, there'll be two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot" "AND NO LAWYERS". It's a clearly lawyer-bashing joke. Now, I'm all for defending the lawyers and sophisters - I hope to become one, soon enough - but I had to laugh when I realized that debrain's argument of a misquote was "supported" by a misquote of its own.

Neat, how that works.

Re:Akin to leaving your front door unlocked?

[rtb61]

It is really annoying when people try to disable right click, some idiot message pops up on the screen, which you have to cancel prior to gaining the right click menu. Under firefox of course Tools, Options, 'Content tab', Enable Java Script(should be on but do use http://noscript.net/), Advanced, Diasble or Replace context menus (make sure it is un-ticked). My browser, not your browser, my browser ;).