Law firm claims copyright on viewing HTML source

An anonymous reader writes: A law firm with all sorts of interesting views on copyrights 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. Poorly timed April Fools joke, or just some fancy lawyering?

They don't "permit" it?

[mark-t]

Uh... right.

Viewing copyrighted content does not itself constitute copyright infringement. They can "claim" it's infringement all they want, but a) they wouldn't ever begin to be able to prove it, and b) they'd be wrong.

They got it backwards

[mrjb]

Obviously these asshats have no idea what they are talking about. I will never let them defend me for IT related issues.

If anything, the web page as nicely layout for you by your web browser is a COPY, and the source is the ORIGINAL.
If they would be serious about this, they should sue all their visitors. But then again, the REAL original being copied is on their servers, free to be viewed by the general public.

That said, viewing is not the same as copying. Just because I look at a pretty lady, doesn't mean