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"Deep Linking" Controversy Renewed in Texas 439

Posted by CmdrTaco from the god-i-thought-this-was-over-with dept.
DaDigz writes "Wired News is reporting on a cease and desist letter sent to an independant news site by Belo, corporate parent of The Dallas Morning News, forbidding them from linking to individual stories within the site. They claim that the author can only link to the site's homepage, and attempting to link to stories within the site violates their copyright." Next week Time Magazine will require you to read pages 1-36 before reading the article you want on page 37. Don't complain, it's their copyright ;)
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"Deep Linking" Controversy Renewed in Texas More

"Deep Linking" Controversy Renewed in Texas

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  • email to a friend (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:05PM (#3444507) Homepage Journal
    I can't deep link to an article, but I can email it to a friend?

  • Their copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drsoran ( 979 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:06PM (#3444516)
    Since when does copyright law force you to read anything you don't want to? The example in the post of reading the first 36 pages before you can view page 37 is exactly right. When I go to read a magazine I'm not compelled to read the table of contents (complete with blinking flashy full size ads) before I go to read an article, why would the web be any different?

    In other news, footnotes in term papers and publications are now illegal according to these idiots in Texas. hehe.
    • You (or someone) paid for that copy you're reading, so you can do what you like with it. Except copy it.

      The case here is more like if you xeroxed page 37 and posted it on telephone poles all over town with your business's phone number on it.
  • If linking to information becomes illegal, that will destroy the whole Internet and how it works. The whole idea of hyperlinking is to allow dissimilar sites access to information without having to replicate it or paraphrase it. I feel ill...

    • They never complained about being linked to. They complained about specific info being linked, in a specific way.

      As the creators of the content, they should have the right to control how and when that content is made available. And to whom.

      • Re:Nobody said that (Score:5, Insightful)

        by arkanes ( 521690 ) <<arkanes> <at> <gmail.com>> on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:50PM (#3444950) Homepage
        Amazingly, they do have that right. They choose not to use it. Linking has nothing to do with copyright - you don't alter or reinterpert content, so you aren't creating a derivative work. You certainly aren't duplicating it. Copyright does not, and cannot, apply. Thats just basic sense. If they want to enforce a certain style of presentation, let them do so - it's like printing a book, but claiming you can force people to read it backwards. You can't, if you want people to read it backwards, you print it backwards. If you don't want people linking to content, make it impossible to do. This can be done trivially by not posting it on the web.
        • with restrictions.

          Restrictions which they are currently trying to enforce.

          Do I think they are misguided, for putting restrictions like that on their content? Absolutely.

          BUT... I absolutely belive that it is their right to put those restrictions in place as well. The content is theirs. Just because they made it available in some way to the public, doesn't take away their ownership of it.

          • More to the point (Score:3, Insightful)

            by kaladorn ( 514293 )
            If I say to you "There's a neat picture in this book Y on page Z" and you go grab book Y and flip to page Z without reading the rest of it, are you somehow redistributing? Are you in violation of copyright? NOT.

            Copyright does not enter here as no COPY is made. You are providing a signpost or link (driving directions, a page reference, nothing more) that tells someone where some content is. How you describe that content (if at all) is up to you, but you certainly are NOT redistributing it NOR are you COPYING it.

            The visitor must actually visit the other site and the OWNER's web server distributes any information. Therefore how the heck could you be violating a COPYright? Can't can't can't!

            I can see objections to mirroring. I _can't_ see this kind of BS attorney-drive goonery as it pertains to linking. There IS no COPY therfore no infringement of COPYright.

            Think of another equivalent. I've built a house with murals on all the outside walls. You drive by... I've told you "Gee, the mural on the left wall is neat!" so you go look at it. You don't make a copy.... the only information is provided by the original source. But suddenly you're violating (or so is the bogus claim) copyright because you didn't look at the front wall first?

            I think you need to understand what is actually occuring here and understand the actual nature of copyright law to understand why such tactics boil down to lawyer-aided thuggery.
        • No, they don't. It's no different than someone saying "go look on page N at this article", or someone cutting an article out and tacking it up on the bulletin board.
      • So what you're saying is that only links to main site should be legal. That means Slashdot is completely illegal. Then all search engines are too... I'd say the 99% of the web pages would be illegal.
        • What I said, was that if the linkee doesn't want to be "deep linked" they should absolutely have that perrogative.

          As the creator of the work, I firmly believe that they have the right to control access to it, on whatever whim they have.

      • Re:Nobody said that (Score:3, Insightful)

        by at_18 ( 224304 )
        As the creators of the content, they should have the right to control how and when that content is made available. And to whom.

        They are using the wrong medium.
        If you don't want an article to be "deep linked", don't put it in a web page! It's freakin' obvious.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Criminal Incompetence. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Circuit Breaker ( 114482 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:08PM (#3444537)
    Two (2) lines in the web server's config file would have solved the problem. Even if they pay they're sysadmin $1000/hour, and he has to read two hours worth of documentation to find that out, it would still be more cost effective - the lawyer fees are probably well above $100/hour, and it won't end in less than 10.

    A cease and desist letter should be considered criminal harrassment in this case, and the lawyer behind it should fear being disbarred for sending out such a letter. But there's no chance of that happenning.

    Oh well, at least I'm not a US citizen, so it isn't MY taxpayer money that will go down the drain. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my legal rights.

  • deep linking on slashdot (Score:3, Funny)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:08PM (#3444538) Homepage
    this just in, "Linux advocate web site slashdot.org (NYSE symbol OSDN) sued for deep linking on an article about deep linking. In other news, ACLU defends rights of deep-link advocates and also defends terrorists rights to burn down ACLU headquarters." *sigh*, what next...
  • This is such a subversion of the inherent structure of the Web...it's like putting up a billboard on the freeway but restricting anyone from reading it from a car.

    What does their copyright on news stories have to do with what page is linked anyway?

    W

  • Technical Solution (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:08PM (#3444545) Homepage Journal
    The solution for this case is technical, not legal. If you don't want people to link to you, have your server check that their browser sends a referrer url from your site. If it doesn't redirect them to your front page or an error page.

    • Re:Technical Solution (Score:2, Informative)

      by Ovidius ( 144915 )
      Don't tell us! Tell the Dallas News (via their contact form [dallasnews.com]) and their parent company, Belo [belo.com].

    • Re:Technical Solution (Score:5, Informative)

      by ReelOddeeo ( 115880 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:41PM (#3444860)
      There are other technical solutions.

      You could use an expiring url. That is, encrypt an expiration timestamp into the url. Now, your main page could have links which work, for an hour, into stories in your site. But if you bookmarked those links and use them after they expire, then those expired links simply give you back the main page again. Suppose you use 3DES to encrypt the expiration timestamp, you just keep the key private. Since only your server knows the key, only you can decrypt it. Or use other crypto.

      Another possibility is through the use of sessions. Some web systems keep track of you by a "session", such as a shopping site might need to do. Within the session, links to stories within the site have the session id (or some function thereof) embedded into the url. Once the session has expired, or the user has logged out of the site, or even closes their browser window, the old links no longer would work.

      Other techniques could be used with varying degrees of success. Instead of sending a <a href="story382728.html"> tag, send some javascript which is heaviliy obfuscated, but which eventually writes into the document the actual link. All kinds of code obfuscation techniques could be used, including implementing a small code interpreter with the actual code to write the url written in the interpreted code, with a layer of crypto thrown in just to make analysis of the interpreted bytecode more difficult. (The crypto decode key must be part of what is downloaded, so this doesn't defeat analysys, just complicates it.)

      Other techniques include a challenge/response system implemented in Javascript. If they're on your main page, then clicking on the link to the story, creates a hidden layer (or frame) and sends a tiny <form> to the server with variables requesting a challenge. The script on the server generates some challenge code. The javascript computes a response and encodes the response into the url link to the story. Now the difficulty here is that you must hit some other magic url via. a form with hidden variables and a POST request in order to obtain the challenge code, before you compute a response to it to include into the url. The story links could expire fairly quickly so that the Javascript code has only 60 seconds to compute and hit the url with the correct response code before it expires. This makes it very difficult to try to even hit the story using netcat connected to port 80 of the server. Again, you would have to analyze the javascript code.

      I'm sure I could think of other techniques if I thought about it longer than it took to write this message.

      • Re:Technical Solution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BlueUnderwear ( 73957 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @03:05PM (#3445055)
        Other techniques could be used with varying degrees of success. Instead of sending a <a href="story382728.html"> tag, send some javascript which is heaviliy obfuscated, but which eventually writes into the document the actual link. All kinds of code obfuscation techniques could be used, including implementing a small code interpreter with the actual code to write the url written in the interpreted code,...

        This technique is to be considered as highly antisocial, as it not only forbids deep linking, but also forces the user to enable javascript. Many users have disabled javascript for security reasons (obnoxious popus, cross-site scripting, etc.), while others may use a browser that does not support javascript, either by choice, or by necessity (blind users surfing with a braille line must use a text-only browser). Moreover, if you push javascript too much, it may well only run correctly in one single browser (the one you developped/tested it in), ruining all portability of Html (and if you don't push it overly, then it will not be obfuscated enough to truely hide the URL). By using such techniques, you'll be perceived as a moron who does this in order to force users to use Internet Explorer, rather than as somebody who wants to protect your deep links.

        with a layer of crypto thrown in just to make analysis of the interpreted bytecode more difficult. (The crypto decode key must be part of what is downloaded, so this doesn't defeat analysys, just complicates it.)

        Actually, such techniques can be defeated even without analysis: just run a sniffer and log the URL's that your browser tries to access. You'd be inconveniencing the legitimate user without really impeding a determined attacker.

        You're earlyer suggestions (session ids or timestamps embedded in URLs) are much more user friendly.

        • Can't the same techniques that prevent people deep-linking to pictures be applied here? Geocities has a script running that prevents people following deep-links to certain files because they end up paying for the bandwidth and don't receive advertising revenue for it.
    • Which of course would render all their handy dandy little 'Click here to email this article to a friend!' links useless.

      I agree that it's dumb for anyone to try and enforce this legally, but if they try to do it technically, they're screwing themselves too.

      The idiotic part of this is, when i click on a deep-link, i often end up going to the homepage and checking out other information as well. They're so not losing anything here. it's silliness... ah well.. long live free enterprise with all its ugly flaws i guess.

  • obligitory (Score:4, Funny)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:08PM (#3444546) Homepage Journal
    oops [dallasnews.com]

    i think i just broke (c) law. aaaah!

    • Re:obligitory (Score:3, Informative)

      by blair1q ( 305137 )
      You didn't.

      You performed fair use, using a reasonable portion of their material for your own creative commentary. (Weak and misguided, but creative.)

      What you did there didn't damage the DMN. Since you're not taking the place of their front page, you're not taking valuable clicks away from them. Quite the opposite.

      --Blair
      "IANAL, I don't even like looking at it."

    • Re:obligitory - me too (Score:3, Insightful)

      by marcop ( 205587 )
      I am linking [slashdot.org] to your post which contains an "illegal" link. Did I just brake the law too?

  • Does this mean the end of google? (Score:4, Redundant)

    by eaddict ( 148006 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:08PM (#3444547)
    Don't all the search engines 'deep link'? I guess the new search engines will only point to home pages. What a crock!
    • Just like preventing deep linking has a simple technical solution, so does keeping links out of search engines. A one line robots.txt file will prevent search engines from archiving any of your site. If you refuse to make that simple 30 second effort to solve the "problem" and instead choose an expensive legal solution, then someone really needs to be fired and committed.

      Search engines are not spammers. If you tell them to go away, they're more than happy to oblige you.

      -Restil
    • Personally, when things like this come out, I would love for Google and the gang to basically say ...

      "Screw ya! We are not even going to link to your home page or any page that you have in your domain. In our eyes you do not exist. Since our search engine can not read your bogus copyright, we must for our protect yank all references to your pages."

      Organizations like this that are trying to "protect" there pages, yet still generate revenue would have a change in tone real quick.

      Honestly, Google has the weight right now to do this, with them being the engine of choice for both Yahoo and soon AOL.

    • Don't all the search engines 'deep link'? I guess the new search engines will only point to home pages. What a crock!

      Never mind that - it could be the end of slashdot. I wonder when Taco will be getting his "cease and desist" order(s)!
    • Your search term "nanotechnology" appears in 56,483 documents which are somewhere within the following websites

      Chicago Tribune
      New Scientist
      CNN
      Tech Industry Forum
      Slashdot

      Keep looking, you'll eventually find it

  • Damn idiots... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:09PM (#3444553) Journal
    Been said before, over and over, just do some sort of apache rewrite rule that takes any referrer other than their site and rewrites it to the home page.

    No need to sue...

    Maybe instead they should fire their webmaster for being clueless...

  • Its surprising (Score:2, Informative)

    by dracken ( 453199 )
    It is surprising, but sadly it might violate existing copyright laws according to this Wired article. [wired.com]

    -Dracken

    • Re:Its surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:26PM (#3444728) Homepage
      From the article: "When someone provides a link without my permission, which grants a user access to a part of my website without going first to my site's home page, the user may experience something different from what I intended when I established my website," Bruce Sunstein, an intellectual property law attorney, said.

      If I read a book backwards, I will have an exerience other than what the author intended. Have I infringed his copyright? No.

      If I play a LP at 45 rpm instead of 33 1/3 rpm, I will have a different experience than what the publisher and recording artist intended. Have I infringed their copyright? No.

      If I set fire to a piece of sheet music instead of placing it on my music stand, I will have a different experience of the work than if I had used it as the publisher intended. But have I infringed anyone's copyright? No.

      If I read a website with a text-to-speech converter (assuming there's plaintext to read in the first place), I will have a different experience of the site than the publisher intended. Have I infringed his copyright? No.

      I don't know what is wrong with these "intellectual property" people, but they are creating a new oxymoron, it seems to me. There is very little intellectualism discernable in intellectal property theory.

      • Re:Its surprising (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jdavidb ( 449077 )

        Furthermore, a link doesn't "grant a user access to a part of [your] website." You grant access to your website. If you don't want people to access it, take it down.

    • I'd change that link -- you're deep-linking a Wired article without getting permission. =)
  • If you're an ASP type of guy, try this [4guysfromrolla.com]. You have to plan ahead a bit, but DIY beats not having to deal with people who aren't polite about linking.
  • I could understand if someone was taking content from their site and embedding it in their own site. But linking is effectively saying "there is something interested over there", similar to me posting "hey, read page 46 of random book".

    I can't imagine how someone would claim it is copyright infrigement if the "infringer" never touches the content in the alleged infringing act.

    As has been stated before, if you don't want someone to get your content unless they go through your site, don't serve it to them. But don't expect other people to implement this for you.

  • The deep-linked article in question [dallasnews.com] could not be mistaken for part of the BarkingDogs.com site.

    According to the Belo lawyer:

    "By providing any direct links to content within the site, you allow visitors to avoid the homepage, which:

    * can result in a viewer not understanding that the content is on our client's site; and

    * allows the viewer to avoid the advertising, etc., on the homepage (which places our client in a bad position with respect to its advertisers, etc.)."

    Excuse me? (1) I can easily understand that the content is on a different site, and (2) the deep link in question has a large advertising banner prominently displayed across the top of the page.

    IANAL, but it sure sounds like this lawyer doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

  • Comment from the newspaper:

    One of the ongoing issues with Web content is that it's free, and how do you make money off that?

    Well, you DON'T, it's FREE!!

    Of course they might mean Free as in Freedom, but then why are they sending C&D letters?

  • Instead of wasting time with lawyers, why don't they just come up with a complicated procedure for making links like the government does over at thomas.loc.gov [loc.gov]? They could even leave out the instruction manual, making it technically difficult to the point where most people simply wouldn't bother and would instead link to a more user-friendly site...
  • It is pretty easy to let somebody know you don't want them to deep link. The easiest but most effective way would be to use a cookie system where if the web page doesn't detect a cookie that's only established by the home page, it redirects you to the home page. Heck, if you were a good web designer, you could even provide a link back to where they were trying to go.

    Can people still deep link? Well, with that method, I don't see it happening very easily. Let's say they did, though, so what? If somebody wants something bad enough, they'll obtain it. You're far better off appealing to their good nature. If you ask somebody politely to send them to the home page, they'll comply. If I linked to a site and got an email that read "Could you please direct them to our home page?", I'd likely comply, or at least work out a solution.

    Anybody who cries foul when a website is being used the same way every other website in the world is used really doesn't belong on the net.

  • What about Google, Altavista, Lycos, etc... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:17PM (#3444645) Homepage
    It seems that major search engines are the biggest "violators" of deep linking. Majority of the time when I do a search, I am not given the home page of the site that has the information I want, I am given a "deep link" to the exact page I need. Maybe the Dallas News is playing favorites over who can link to their "deep pages".

    And what is a "Deep Link"? Aren't all the documents on a web server stored on a hard drive? Last time I checked, the surface of a hard drive has no depth that would differentiate the height from the bottom of one document from another. So I am lost of the Dallas News argument. As far as I am concerned about my web site, all pages on it are home pages. I don't care if you link to "index.html" or "/news/04-02-02/index.html". Just link. The Internet is about information and making a clear route to it.

  • as far as the Court is concerned between:

    This [dallasnews.com]
    and
    This: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/topstories/storie s/050102dnspomavsbrite.1b9f8.html ?

    As far as I can tell people only complain when you actually embed a hyperlink in the source, rather than just display it as plain text. A difference of 15 characters.

    Perhaps we could simply argue that we are just writing down the address of the story, it's the damn user's browser that is turning it into a highly-illegal hyperlink!
  • -- begin belo's position
    "ultimately that this is our content and we should have some control about where and in what way it is used. We'll see what happens in the law and in the courts to decide how to proceed."
    --end
    This is such crap. If you want to control your content then fine, do it. Placing a web page on a public web server is like placing a stack of flyers in a student union. Sure, it's your content, but you've given up direct control of who get's their hands on it. If you want to make sure that people only see content the way you want to then you'll have to try something else. Like making people login (aka NYT).

    Seems to me like all these problems arise from the fact that people don't understand that a web server is by default public. Same with the internet in general, being the 'open' standard that it is.

  • Policies (Score:2, Interesting)

    by klorentzj ( 99010 )
    Yes, maybe they could implement something that would prevent deep linking (like checking the referrer page), but they probably figure it's only a matter of time until someone finds away around that and deep links anyway.

    This might lead to something reminiscent of the coding wars between AOL and MS over the Instant Messenger client.

    The point is: they are trying to establish their right to assert a _policy_. This is why you would go through legal channels. Once you have established that as a right, then you could implement measures to prevent deep linking. This way, circumventing those measures would already be established as unlawful.

  • The locations of articles within the Dallas Morning News website is content itself, created by their employees (and computers).

    By replicating the service by which users may find articles in the website, the linker is copying the copyrighted table of contents information, and using it for profit.

    Fair Use allows copying in small amounts in otherwise creative commentary, but if a website reorganizes the table of contents to most of the online newspaper just to keep people looking at their own banner ads, then it needs to pay for the privilege.

    Which makes me wonder how long www.1stHeadlines.com [1stheadlines.com] will survive.

    --Blair
    • So let's say the table of contents is copyrighted.

      A single link sounds like fair use to me. If you aren't framing the result or other trickery, how is the link to the article not fair use?
    • You could quite likely argue that a table of contents isn't copyrightable, for the same reason that phone books aren't (the layout/presentation is, not the content). A compiled list of information isn't considered a creative work and hence isn't protected by copyright.

  • Once again, the obvious. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:29PM (#3444749) Homepage
    Legal or illegal, it simply doesn't matter. DMN or any other website for that matter can EASILY prevent unauthorized sites from deep-linking if they want to. Any access to a page other than the front page can cross-reference the referrer field and if it didn't come from the DMN website or some other authorized source, you simply refuse the connection, or forward it to the front page, or whatever your heart desires. Even if you (and your lawyers) think its illegal without your permission, WHO CARES!!! It's a simple fix that requires no excessive legal expenses.

    -Restil

  • BarkingDogs' answer to BELO (Score:5, Informative)

    by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:35PM (#3444815) Homepage
    Here it is [barkingdogs.org], enjoy!
  • that this [dallasnews.com] is a really crappy article. Do not read [dallasnews.com] this [dallasnews.com] article! [dallasnews.com]
  • Guess I better find a new homepage:

    http://news.google.com/ [google.com]

    Switching to:
    Slashdot.org [slashdot.org]. Oh wait. Shit!

    Guess I better find a new life ;-)

  • Belo and CueCat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:39PM (#3444838) Homepage
    Belo is the same company that partially funded the braindead CueCat concept back the the dot-com boom "flush money down the toilet, its the way of life" days. And likewise, therefore pushed the lawsuits to stop those evil hackers who are opening our precious free product that you don't really own just because we gave it to you.

    -Restil

  • Tim Berners-Lee (Score:5, Informative)

    by discHead ( 3226 ) <3zcxrr602@sneakemail.com> on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:40PM (#3444856) Homepage

    "The ability to refer to a document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is more efficient but changes nothing else. . . . There is no reason to have to ask before making a link to another site."

    --Tim Berners-Lee [w3.org]

    1. Goto Dallas Morning News website
    2. Note name of company advertising with Dallas Morning News (e.g. cars.com)
    3. Write a letter to said company (e.g. cars.com) informing them that you will not be doing any business with them specifically because the advertise with Dallas Morning News online.
    4. Repeat steps 1-3 as often as necessary

    Belo will quickly change their position to allow free linking to anyplace you like.

  • The HTTP protocol works in terms of requests, not commands. Furthermore, it gives the HTTP server the URL of the requesting page, as well as lots of other info such as the browser identity. If the Dallas Morning News wants to refuse requests coming from BarkingDogs.org web pages, then all they have to do is to do so. There's plenty of precedent, including (for example) Microsoft's some-time refusal to render pages to users of Opera...

    Why this isn't a "capabilities" issue instead of a legal issue is beyond me.

  • Frames (Score:2)

    by rsidd ( 6328 )
    One problem, I think, is that too many sites use frames in a stupid way, with the article contained in a single frame with no other content, and it is impossible to link to that article with the surrounding frames intact. So people deep-link to the frame alone, thus losing the masthead, the sidebars, the ads, etc... (can't think of examples offhand but you probably know what I mean.)

    This was, I think, the case with some other deep-linking complainants (who didn't think of just fixing their pages instead). However, in the case of the Dallas News, this doesn't seem to be the problem. Possibly it's an unthinking copycat case. Really, I can't see what they're complaining about -- they gain a visitor, who will view their ads, possibly click on them, possibly browse the site further, which they wouldn't have gained otherwise.

  • This problem is easy to fix technically, without using the refferal address. By putting no system in place to protect against deep linking in a medium designed for extensive linking they put themselves in harms way.

    BTW, technical solution is to use session tracking. The homepage sets up a flag in the user session which article pages can check for. If not found send the user to a landing page for incoming outside links.
  • If they really cared so much about their copyright, they could just have all their pages check the Referer URL of incoming requests. This is easy to spoof, but it at least forces somebody to go through some effort to use the site in a manner they deem incorrect.

    Other than that they should just get over it.
    • And if only the kind webmaster of goatse.cx would to this. that's the only website I know of that i wish would forbid hotlinking of images(like geocities, tripod, etc).
  • First of all, DMN ought to be glad for any reader they get, no matter how.

    Second, these guys are morons for standing in the way of what brings in more readers than anything else- a higher Google ranking. Google largely ranks pages by the number of links to them from other sites. If DMN makes a stink about deep linking, other webmasters won't link to them anymore- kiss of death. The web worked this way even before Google, but now it's more important than ever.

    This is not just a matter of marketing style, salesmanship technique, or professional opinion- it's a strict, technical fact, that marketers and webmasters must heed. If I were in charge over there, I'd kick some sense into the jackass who made this decision- or fire him- quick!

  • The Link Controversy Page (Score:4, Funny)

    by mutende ( 13564 ) <klaus@seistrup.dk> on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:51PM (#3444961) Homepage Journal
    Don't forget to visit Stefan Bechtold's Link Controversy Page [uni-tuebingen.de] that has links to legal articles, cases, technical solutions, link license agreements, hyperlink patents and related stuff.

  • Is this just a scam? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sun Tzu ( 41522 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:52PM (#3444963) Homepage Journal
    ...To get slashdotted?

    I refuse to believe that these yahoos both put their content on the net and then expect people to change the way they use the web while viewing their content! Especially since it is in their power to control access to their info while still making it available on the web.

    We're supposed to believe that these people are so technically inept and unimaginative that:

    They can't figure out how to do this with cookies, hidden data, dynamically changing links (bad idea since people would link to invalid url's), or referrer data? They also can't figure out that the net is inherently a public place unless they take measures to prevent that? They can't understand that a law won't change the way people not subject to the law operate? They can't understand that naive people will continue to deep link to their content until their lawyers contact them, endlessly?

    Impossible. No functionally literate human is that stupid. Therefore, this must be a cpublicity stunt. :)
  • If you don't want other sites to link to your content, just check HTTP_REFERER and redirect to your damn home page.

    I hate it when clueless morons invoke the law to accomplish a purpose better served by one frigging line of code.

  • In Other News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mockura ( 524860 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:57PM (#3444989)
    Comcast Cable has sent cease and desist letters to Sony, Magnavox and other major television manufacturers, demanding removal of the number buttons on TV remotes.

    "By allowing TV viewers to go directly from Channel 2 to Channel 50, they are denying channels 3 through 49 of valuable 'click-through' advertising opportunities. This will not stand!"

  • icopyright (Score:3, Interesting)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:58PM (#3444997) Journal
    It's always been amusing when I see an article where icopyright offers to allow linking to an article for $5. Example [icopyright.com]. Their other services, such as reprints ($250, hosted at icopyright for a guaranteed amount of time, not at the original source) seem reasonable, but this linking-to comes with no guarantees. Other than they won't try to sue you, I guess. Their description:

    HTML Link permission allows you to link to a specified Web page. Clicking on the licensed HTML link, whether embedded in a logo, in text, or in some other object, results in the immediate display of the Web page. Note: linked-to content is not guaranteed to be hosted by the Web site owner for any specific length of time; refer to the publisher's License Agreement for specific terms of use.
    I wonder how they would treat thier example. By clicking above, you get a page that has a link to the original article. So, linking to icopyright is just one step removed, and (so far) free. I wonder if icopyright takes this linking-to seriously. By allowing linking to their site, they can generate revenue for themselves, but at the same time, they diminish the "protection" they offer to their customers,

  • Just another thought (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Belo says that those links "can result in a viewer not understanding that the content is on our client's sitea" and, more importantly, "allows the viewer to avoid the advertising, etc., on the homepage (which places our client in a bad position with respect to its advertisers, etc.)."

    I don't know about you guys, but when I followed the deep link to the news article, I still saw plenty of adds and when I went to kill the window, I still got a pop-up add for my trouble. I don't think they're being placed in a bad position with respect to their advertisers at all. If anything, they're in a bad position with relation to their readers.

  • I notice that slashdot never misses the opportunity to post articles regarding deep linking. If deep linking became illegal, slashdot would suck, or just not exist. All the news items posted here are deep linked. When was the last time you saw a post that linked to wired.com, but not the article. It's like, "hey, there is a great article on open source something-or-other at osdn.com but we suggest that you just go to their homepage and look at the banner ads, oh, and by the way, good luck finding the article."

  • But a "home page" has no special status... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @03:12PM (#3445133) Homepage
    ...well, unfortunately I can't seem to find it, even via www.archive.org's "wayback machine," but I could have sworn that in the old days when the Web meant lynx and lynx by default took you to a CERN page with some introductory material--INCLUDING an EXPLICIT statement that the concept of a "home page" was a completely arbitrary convention, that there were no features distinguishing a "home page" from any other page.

    Hyperlinking between pages at ANY level is the essence of the Web.

    Aren't there any W3C standards that still say this?

  • At Least Do It Properly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @03:26PM (#3445258)
    From the article: "When someone provides a link without my permission, which grants a user access to a part of my website without going first to my site's home page, the user may experience something different from what I intended when I established my website," Bruce Sunstein, an intellectual property law attorney, said.


    It always strikes me as insane that this argument keeps getting trotted out. They're attempting to misuse a law that's not suited to their purpose when there's one that was so kindly gifted to them...


    If it's really such an issue, check the HTTP_REFERRER. If it's not your site, bounce them back to the front page. You can do it in a couple of lines and then you get to sue anyone who goes around it under the security circumvention clause of the DMCA. Great, now you can stop wasting everyone's time with nonsensical positions.


    Actually, thinking about it, will someone go and patent that suggestion so the media conglomerates can't use it? I won't claim prior art if you use it sensibly. :)

  • Remember that others do this too, such as our friend[tm] CDROM.COM!

    230-Welcome to ftp.cdrom.com, a service of Digital River, Inc.
    230-There are currently 166 users out of 3000 possible.
    230-
    230-This machine is a TeraSolutions TS-710 Internet server with 4GB of memory
    230-and a TSR-2250 RAID-5 storage system (300GB total capacity). Please visit
    230-www.terasolutions.com for more information.
    230-The operating system is FreeBSD. Should you wish to get your own copy of
    230-FreeBSD, please visit www.freebsd.org for more information.
    230-
    230-Webmasters and Web Sites may not link to files in this archive
    230-(FTP.CDROM.COM) without prior written permission by Digital River, Inc.
    230-If you are interested in linking to files in this archive, please send
    230-an e-mail to cdrom@digitalriver.com for details. Digital River, Inc.
    230-reserves the right to seek compensation for unauthorized use.
  • Not to be too poetical, but this is a threat to the net.

    The entire internet is based around deep linking.

    Imagine how much of a pain in the ass the net would be if NO ONE used deep linking, and ONLY linked to the home page. Worse yet, I have a road runner website: so can TimeWarner/AOL force people who want to link to my site to "link to the road runner homepage, and give instructions on how to get to my site"? That's nonsense.

    So, you lame corporate spamming fucks, if you don't like deep linking, GET THE FUCK OFF THE NET! As if corporations have actually done anything useful for the net anyways.

    Sorry if you don't like deep linking, but its a fact of the net. Putting up a website and then saying, "but no one can deep link" is like buying a car and then bitching about how crazy everyone drives. You don't like how other people drive? Get the fuck off the road, then, old man.

    Deep linking is, simply put, a fact of the net; and a good fact. There are many other good facts of the net -- file sharing, freedom to express alternate ideas anonymously by creating accounts from public computers, etc -- but deep linking is one of the most important ones.

    Not only does deep linking SAVE the netizen time and pain, but it also SAVES the netizen bandwidth because he doesn't have to download useless ads. But corporate netinazi's don't like that; they try to say that a netizen who uses a deep link or makes one is a neticrook. But really, these netinazi's should be happy, because deep linking saves THEM bandwidth too. Why should they want to use all the upload bandwidth to navigate a user through several layers of their site, when that user knows specifically where (s)he wants to go?

    I argue to embrace and extend deep linking by creating a few scripts for your home page which allow users to view "stories" and "images" from other pages in a defined box on your page.

    Make a script that goes to the desired link -- automatically logging in with your user ID (if necessary) so that your user doesn't have to log in -- and retrieving the desired text and images ONLY, and placing them, reformatted, in the box. This way, the person visiting your website doesn't have to get any unnecessary crap.

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