Slashdot Mirror
Startup Threatened Into Settling Over Hyperlinking
An anonymous reader writes "A tiny startup that was threatened by a massive law firm over nothing more than a humble hyperlink has been forced to settle and change its linking policies, handing Goliath the win in this gratuitous trademark case. Under the agreement, real estate startup BlockShopper can no longer include hyperlinks anywhere on its website to Jones Day, a massive Chicago law firm, except explicitly on URL text. Essentially, jonesday.com is okay, but not blah blah blah." I wonder if the owners of jonesdaysucks.com feel the same way.
Seriously, I love how there's no end of intellectual property stories on this site, and no end of shocked comments.
You guys honestly believe the onus should be on the base website to exclude others? Like it's not possible to supply the "referrer" in the link you post? You have the absolute right to point to any resource on my server you want?
Hey, thanks for the public domain code, guy, I'm sorry if you didn't prevent me from linking around your license agreement. Yeah, I know that nude picture of your boyfriend was supposed to be password protected, but unfortunately, I'm clever and there's nothing you can do about it.
Get a grip- this isn't the death of the internet, this is what should happen, particularly if the linker doesn't respond to 'please remove that link'. If you have some right to link, against my permission, shouldn't that right be vindicated in court instead of just automatically yours without process?
There's no judge, you idiot. This is an out-of-court settlement.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.