p2pnet.net news view:- Ok. So I come across this article about a woman suing the Internet Archive for copying and storing her site. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I think she does have a case.

But in a very strong sense, I also think she’s absolutely barking mad.

First things first: the whole idea of this is pointless. If she’s so concerned about her web site being copied, the simple thing to do is add a robots.txt file to her site to stop anything crawling it. As was stated, robots don’t understand copyright information, all they look for is that file.

So from the word Go, everything’s already looking bad for her. It’s the main thing she can do if she’s really worried about her web site, and she hasn’t done it.

Secondly, there’s a very interesting thing on the IA website FAQ, which backs up the first point rather nicely.

“How can I remove my site’s pages from the Wayback Machine?”

The Internet Archive is not interested in preserving or offering access to Web sites or other Internet documents of persons who do not want their materials in the collection. By placing a simple robots.txt file on your Web server, you can exclude your site from being crawled as well as exclude any historical pages from the Wayback Machine.

Thirdly, and this one’s a no brainer. EVERYONE knows if you put something on the Net, it becomes publically viewable. Anyone with access to the Net, whether mobile phone, laptop, desktop PC, anything, can see it.

If you don’t want it seen, then don’t publish it!

As far as I’m concerned, once you put something online, it instantly becomes public property. You’ve just given the public permission to view it and copy it.

Why do I say copy it? Well, I’ve just looked at her web site. Now if she’s serious about this, I’m going to sit here and expect her to file a lawsuit against me for copying her website because Internet Explorer has just cached the whole thing, and I have a copy of her site sat on my hard drive.

Smooth…

She seems to think her site is special, too.

“This web site is licensed to be viewed on a computer only.”

I’d love to see a copy of this license that says I can only view it on a computer, though I’d hope it details what kind of computer, because computers come in quite a variety of forms these days. Laptop computers, Palmtop computers, Ultra-Mobile computers.

I suppose you could call the PS3 a computer if you want: you can run
Linux on it. Sorry, but you have no control over what it is viewed on …..

Oh wait, I just copied that text from her website. There’s another
thing to add to my lawsuit… Not that it’ll work, because US law has
no effect over here in England.

Sorry, love, but you haven’t got a leg to stand on here. Whether you say it’s copyright or not, you haven’t taken any obvious steps to prevent it from being copied. And unless you’re willing to sue everyone who visits your site, you don’t stand a chance.

Let’s hope common sense wins here, and she stops this pointless lawsuit and saves her money.

Daniel Hudson – p2pnet
[Hudson (huds601 - danhudson89 [at] gmail.com) is a UK Student who’s taking a BTEC National Diploma in IT, and who says he’s, “highly passionate about Bittorrent, Technology, and freedom of speech.”]

[A Reader's Wite says: "Suzanne Shell has a degree in computer programming. She left out the robot.txt on purpose. also www.profane-justice.org owns a website http://badadvocates.com/ proving what kind of person she is .. billy - http://thetruthistold.com - Ed]

Also See:
copying and storing – Woman sues WayBack Machine, March 17, 2007

Slashdot it!

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

---

rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site

---

Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 2366 times