Firefox add-on lets surfers tweak sites, but is it safe?

TalkBack 28 of 86:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Drawing the copyright line

"The author of the site is explicitly allowing and therefore authoring the ability of the hosted ads to exist."

** There's quite a leap from someone allowing hosted ads to exist on their page to claiming that they 'authored their ability to exist', whatever that is supposed to mean. I can't see how merely permitting ads to appear on one's web page is tantamount to being their author and claiming the same rights as their author.

"Furthermore, the author has permission to display the third-party copyrighted material."

** Agreed, but that point was not in dispute. My contention was that because the copyright in the ads is vested in the originator of the advertising, the creator of the web page has no case to claim copyright infringement if those ads are removed from his page.

"Lastly, the author is not allowing anyone to change the content of the page, whether it is solely owned by the author or owned by another party and used with explicit permission."

** If the author of the substantive content of the page is not in control of the content or appearance of its non-substantive portion (i.e. the ads), how can he claim that his copyright is being infringed in respect of those parts of the page for which he is not directly responsible?

"If this specfic author were an affiliate that earned his living from the commisions of those ads, one could easily argue unfair business practices as well as copyright infringement. Not only on behalf of the directly affected author, but also for the owner of the ad."

** The 'unfair business practices' point might be argued if the page was redistributed by the end-user. That is not strictly a copyright issue, however. In practice, I believe it would be very difficult for either the originator of the ad or an affiliate to demonstrate a quantifiable (and hence actionable) loss of revenue resulting from the suppression of the advertising unless he could show that the reconfigured page had been viewed by a significantly large number of individuals who were thereby diverted from seeing the advertising on the unaltered version of his page. In essence, I don't see that the application of the Greasemonkey technology for the purpose of stripping a viewed web page of its ads is any different in principle to installing pop-up blocker software, in which case your proposition that the creator of the original page 'authored their ability to exist' implies that all those of us who use such programs are in a position to be sued by the creators of the pop-up ads and their affiliates because we thereby deprived the Orbitz travel agency or the manufacturers of the X10 camera of their rightful revenue.

"With that said, I think this goes a lot deeper than ad blocking. These scripts can be used to trransform pages in various ways inlcuding, inserting ads, inserting links to competitors sites, or just about anything else you can imagine."

** Perhaps so, but these points could only be argued if the modified version of the original page was being repackaged for public consumption. It will be interesting to see what considerations are actually taken into account in the practical interpretation of any 'copyright infringement'- and 'unfair business practices'-based lawsuits.

"The line must be drawn somewhere or copyrighted content on the web will be a thing of the past."

** I agree that the copyright line must be drawn somewhere, but I do not think this is the right place.

Posted by: Reality Checker   Posted on: 03/23/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Dell on OpenManage Dell Dell Computer Corporation runs its business on thousands of Dell PowerEdge ... Download Now
• Effective Performance Testing in Java Environments Quest Software When applications perform poorly so does your business. With performance ... Download Now
• Improve Performance in SAP Application Environments Quest Software With the exploding growth of data, the typical DBA must spend a ... Download Now