Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Can I copy your pages and then charge people to see them?
Author: Wesley Felter Posted: 12/18/1999; 5:04:54 PM Topic: Can I copy your pages and then charge people to see them? Msg #: 13704 (In response to 13697) Prev/Next: 13703 / 13705
While it worries me, on the other hand I don't see anyone realistic way to stop the creation of such private databases. Yahoo! might have the wherewithall to sue over such copyright violations, but I know I don't.Dave is right (if a bit mystical). The only way to enforce copy protection is to have some sort of centralized control over all computer hardware, operating systems, applications, and development tools (especially those pesky debuggers). I hope this never happens!
I've done a lot of reading on Web content business models. One of the things that most micropayment systems talk about is that they cannot force absolutely every user to pay for content, but aim to provide content at a low enough price that it's not worth seeking out underground unauthorized copies. If anyone is foolish enough to set up an "aboveground" copyright-violation system (i.e. at a well-known domain name), then you can usually find them and sue them. The one wrinkle is new distributed underground systems like Napster and (to some extent) Hotline, where the illegal content itself is distributed, but an index of it is centralized, combining the efficiency of centralization (you can easliy find an MP3 of the latest Brittney Spears single) and the untraceability of a decentralized Internet (it was on a server identified by nothing but a dynamic IP address).
CatchTheWeb is going to be a lightning-rod for lawsuits; hopefully that will knock some sense into them.
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