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RE: Didier's lab report

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: martind@n..., north@s..., xml-dev@x...
• Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:07:08 -0600

Hi Didier:

If they copy copyright material in any media 
beyond fair use without the permission of the 
owner, it is illegal.  Capability does not 
alter culpability.  Proscribing fair use is 
getting trickier but all that happens when a 
developer or company tries to stretch these 
definitions is that the bans get tighter 
and the likelihood that deep freedom of 
expression via the internet across venues 
will still exist in the coming years grows 
less.  It is a legal chinese finger puzzle.

Prosecuting them is the real problem.   
OTOH, last year, a competitor appropriated 
the content of our company's web site, 
transformed it, removed the sources, etc. 
and published it on the web. A letter from a lawyer 
did wonders.

For providers of services that strip ads or 
any material which the originator attests 
is covered under a copyright, and states in the 
local originating site (does a URI attest 
to ownership?) that "this material in whole or 
any part is restricted.. blah blah), caveat vendor.

Policy before code.  At some point, some company 
will put a product on the web that violates a 
law in some venue and will become a test case. 
Ummm.... well the guys that were selling fake 
IDs have already lost their court case but that 
was a product sold on the web, not a web product. 
The nabsters have been bought out and are settling 
as the mp3.com guys did.  Who are the losers:  the 
artists as usual.   It doesn't auger well for 
rich content for free, but even the pornographers 
are giving up on that one.

Len
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Didier PH Martin [mailto:martind@n...]

Didier replies:
Its even worse Len. Imagine now that I have a special browser equipped with
a stylesheet that can transform any XHTML document into...XHTML but this
time without any double click advertising (just doing this let you remove at
least 50% of the web's ads). In this case, it is perfectly legal except if
the law state that the user has the obligation to read the document without
any transformation. I am not a lawyer but I think it is legal to transform
any content for its own consumption.

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