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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.'"
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
:o
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Frankly, I'm surprised they permit browsers to render their precious markup.
I just went and stoled me some of that there intellectual property.
Smells good.
W3C says that the page isn't valid HTML - does that invalidate their claim?
i think they just need to get laid REALLY bad.
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.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
% 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.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
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.
--
"We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram".
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Ha ha ha, not only can I view their precious HTML code, I'm posting it to Slashdot for all the world to see!
Here is some of their super secret codes revealed:
<html>
<p>
And the most valuable, apparently:
<font>
(posted anonymous for obvious reasons)
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? :)
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.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
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"
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.
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.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.