Latest on UK WWW links copyright infringement case

[Frank O'Connor]

Just my 2 cents worth,

Jan Whitaker <jwhit@primenet.com> says:

>Hmmmm....I can see your point to some extent, but having looked at the
>services that comu.net.au is offering, it would seem to me that you would
>want as much traffic as you can get from any links from anywhere.
>
>I call on the journos to comment on this one, as I'm not a journalist.  If
>you think about the content of a modern newspaper from the publishers
>perspective, it is an advertising system with news/information as the
>enticement for people to buy it.

As a sometime journo I'd have to agree. Business sites on the Net will fail
big-time unless they can attract clientele, and copyright moves to restrict
link access will bury some business sites. The bottom line on a business
site is that mission critical product should probably not be made available
for disssemination through the Web on an open page anyway.  However,
business sites will need some exposure, and links targetted on those sites
will be critical to their success.

The problem for everyone is that the copyright law is not going to
recognise this. If it applies, then it could be argued that Alta Vista,
Lycos, Yahoo and a heap of search engines are opening themselves to
litigation ... as well as the average site proprietor who simply whacks a
couple of links onto their home page.

Ron Ipsen says:

> No I'm saying that if they want to add a link to it then they should ask me.
>The perogative is mine if I wish to charge them for the link. If I do not
>wish them to link for free and wish to charge them and they do not wish to
>pay then they do not have to link.

I doubt the big indexes and search engines will have the time or
inclination to do so ... and at any rate if you don't appear in them, you
don't appear ... period. The alternative is to PAY search engines and site
indexes to create links to your site - and I don't know that that's quite
the effect everyone wants. Personally, I've yet to see a site in Oz that
I'd pay to simply connect to.

 Jan says:

>Plagiarism has a long history and is understood as "cheating" from school
>days.  Is it plagiarism to say, hey, go look at that neat info on the 2000
>problem that IBM put up?  Is it plagiarism to be included ina Yahoo
>listing of pertinent sites on a particular topic? [I liked the phrase
>"sign posting"].  I don't think the current "rules" [that's what a
>paradigm is, a set of culturally agreed to rules for seeing the world]
>consider "connecting to other info" as a wrong thing to do.  Is there an
>ethic that is being breeched?

Mmmmm ... ethics is part of it, and the legal precedent being established
or promoted seems to have as much potential for stifling Net/Web
development as it does for protecting copyright. I do hope those that
espouse a strict interpretation realise this.

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Life is a heap better than the alternative.
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