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Deep Linking Troubles Continue
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jul 28, 1999 09:35 AM
from the ain't-that-fun dept.
from the ain't-that-fun dept.
Glothar writes "There is a case currently before the US court system (somewhere) based on one web site linking to content (trailers and other fun stuff) within Universal Pictures' web site. Universal is basically saying it can not be done. There is an article on Wired about it. Basically, they want it to be a copyright infringement. In reality, they are upset because they want everybody to have to look at advertising. However, it may make the URL I just gave you a copyright violation as well. Ironic. " Proof once again that the old school business world has a lot to learn about
the Internet.
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Deep Linking Troubles Continue
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I think everyone is missing the biggest Point (Score:3)
Stupid people.. (Score:3)
Keeps people from using your images and crap like that.
The copyright infringement thing is just silly, but I can understand why they don't want people doing that. Its easy enough to fix technically...
NEWSFLASH: Supremes rule anti-advert-ware illegal! (Score:5)
Washington DC - After more than two years in and out of the courts, The Supreme Court today upheld the lower courts' ruling that the viewing of a website in any other layout and format other than the one set-up by that site's authors.
The original suit was brought by a cartel of web business all over the country, initially sponsored by by the Direct Marketers Association (DMA). The defendants were Junkbusters Inc and thirty-four other businesses and individuals who had created software to let users by-pass blinking pictures, pop-ups advertisements, and intended controls on font, color, size, and backgrounds.
This means that the lower courts' previous award of seventeen billion dollars is due immediately. Upon hearing the ruling, Junkbusters immediately filed for bankruptcy, but it is widely believed that their the software authors and corporate directors will be personally liable. Furthermore, the text-based web browser, Lynx, is now illegal to use except on your own sites, as are any proxies that filter or rewrite incoming webpages in any way, including the suppression of blinking text. Both Microsoft and AOL Microsystems must immediately issue mandatory patches to their browser to disable the users from being able to disable automatic loading of images or moving GIFs.
A joint statement issued by the not-for-profit American Association for the Blind and the International Epileptics Support Center decried the decision as essentially barring their members from the web. The DMA praised the decision, stating that ``the needs of Commercial Enterprise would no longer be stymied by Communists and other PBS and NPR sympathizers.''
President Gore also weighed in with his pleasure at the decision, adding, ``This just blasted away the roadblocks in my Information Superhighway. Next term, we're going to the stars!'' This appeared to be an oblique reference to his constituents' efforts to gather re-election funds through click-through advertising fees. The president was in closed conference this afternoon with top members of Congress and with his InfoBahn Czar about how soon they could implement a new mandatory A-chip to be placed in televisions and VCRs so TV and video advertisements could no longer be avoided by consumers through editing, muting, fast-forwarding, or channel-surfing.
A hacker squad known only as the Spamvert Amnesty League (SAL) briefly seized control of the Whitehouse website, where they replaced the campaign advertisements with malicious notices of revenge against all spamvert supporters everywhere. At the same time, a digitized parody video of Clockwork Orange appeared on the Fox channel's satellite download in which consumers were held prisoner as commercial advertising was blasted into their propped-open eyes and ears. Credits on the video listed the SAL, and their choice of the European anthem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, has led authorities to look in Europe for their homebase, since as we all know, uncounted intellectuals, artists, anti-commercial socialist sympathizers, and other commie rats have long taken refuge there from the righteous wrath of invasive American Plutocracy.
Not Linking to HTML (Score:5)
This is an extremely sleazy thing to do in my opinion. I wonder how he would like it if slashdot linked directly to his http://www.movie-list.com/smalllogo.jpg image whenever it posted a movie story. I think this guy would get really pissed at the amount of traffic this would generate on his server. Bandwidth usage = $$.
Now, that being said, Universal did not handle this correctly. Calling in the lawyers will not fix their problem since I could easily post the same links to newsgroups, etc.. They really need to look for a technology solution. Heck, I can think of at least twenty pr0n sites that would be able to give them a clue.
In any case, both sides screwed up. If we end up having some clueless legal precedent set by this then BOTH parties should be blamed.
I'm inclined to blame movie-list more on this one. Universal has already talked to them once before and from their point of view this new stuff could look pretty spiteful. I still don't think they should have called in the lawyers but I understand why they did.
Intellectual Dishonesty (Score:3)
It's intellectually dishonest, in fact. It's not the stubbornness of old media saying this, it's everybody but the pants-less newcomers in love with the idea of content free for the taking. Even if it's not truly free. Merely linking to pages is perfectly acceptable: that's what the web is about. By linking to pages, not content, you provide the originating site with due respect, earned revenue and earned visits, publicity and promotion, increased identity and branding. You provide your visitors with the full experience and an opportunity to view an item in context. Withholding context is like hit singles: what is the rest of the album for? Why did the creator spend all the time and effort and money? Shouldn't the opportunity for immersion be offered?
When I see what I consider stolen links, there's always a sense of unease, discomfort, and dislike. Part of it is that these sites keep poor company: the worst offenders are porn sites, warez sites and the banner-laden pages of wimps with puny get-rich-via-banner schemes in their heads. But it's also because it's unfair, unreasonable, arrogant; it's the maneuver of the stupid and the cowardly, the uncreative, the lazy, those lacking in judgment and intelligence, the pimples on the ass of humanity.
If you wish to include an excellent trailer or movie or gif, provide your users to the link of the page of the owners of that content: your site gets credit for the referrer URL, your site becomes and avenue for path-making to other sites and your site still is given credit for the new information by your visitors.
Where are the rules of gentlemanly and gentlewomanly conduct that guide most of us? They should apply here, too. It feels wrong to link to images on another site. At least, it should.
Re:What's the problem? (Score:4)
You should not have to consult a lawyer or get permission in writing before making a link.
If Universal is that concerned about people getting to the content without going through the main page, they should have their web server check the HTTP_REFERER variable and deny requests that are from non-approved sites.
Just think. If Universal's webserver admins were a bit more competent, we'd have yet another "Interesting Legal Question" going unaddressed.
I can open a newspaper to page X column Y. (Score:4)
Architecture is policy, code is law (Score:5)
HTTP and HTML were not designed to force people to view advertisements, they were designed to share and link information. If you don't like the limitations of a technology, don't use the technology.
The culture of the net says that the right to link is implicit. If you don't like the customs of a people, don't enter their territory.
Now, it is a bit dishonest to deep link into someone else's site without attribution, but it can't be illegal. For the courts to allow ownership of the address of a copyrighted work would make most periodical indexes, card catalogues, bibliographies, and footnotes illegal.
Clueless linkers and linkees (Score:3)
So this idiot writes a threatening e-mail to me because his site wants to refer people to my site (bus schedules) and keep a frame up top with their advertisements in it. Their reasoning is that they are driving traffic to my site, so they have a right to show advertisements around it. They are upset that I won't allow that.
Clueless idiots. Of course, if he had any brains, he could write a LWP perl script to just grab my content and embed it into his pages.
So the same with Universal. Plenty of technical solutions to prevent your pages from being pirated, as well as to pirate other pages.
But no, let's fight this out in court... :(
Re:What's the problem? (Score:3)
Big companies don't know how to cooperate; they could have asked him nicely to link to the main page, or perhaps compromised, and had him link to some internal index page. When you get letters from lawyers, though, some people are naturally going to get their back up, and be *less* cooperative. But I imagine that these large companies don't know how to do anything without using lawyers.
Yes, it would be nice if people could just cooperate. That was, after all, the model the web was designed with. Unfortunately, many people don't seem to know how or want to do that.
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