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OP was talking about content that has not yet been delivered. Forbes is in fact refusing to serve him content (as is their inarguable right) and he's promising

by hsod 10y ago

OP was talking about content that has not yet been delivered. Forbes is in fact refusing to serve him content (as is their inarguable right) and he's promising to maliciously work around that and distribute it on his own. It's hard for me to imagine a legitimate defense of this that isn't a wholesale rejection of the concept of intellectual property.

shakna 10y ago
> Forbes is in fact refusing to serve him content Are they? A Google referrer gets you the content of the article at most, and at least it gets you some JavaScript. Which is executed client-side. Forbes serves up code, which the client should be able to parse, render and execute in any way they see fit, as it was served to their machine upon a simple GET request. The client is under no obligation to behave well, in a programmatic sense, because it is just handed markup and source code, with an expectation of parsing and rendering it in a way fit for the client's user, otherwise you may as well ban screen reader's for doing things in unexpected ways. > ... distribute it on his own We both agree here that it would be bad ethics to do this.
- hsod 10y ago
  I see your point, but I don't agree with it. I think it leans far too heavily on the specific technical details of the web while remaining blind to the higher level reality of the situation. Put another way, I don't believe the specifics of the way the web operates serve as a solid foundation for an ethical principle. Far better, I think, to look at the people involved and focus on treating them fairly and honestly, abstracting away the medium of communication as an implementation detail.
  - shakna 10y ago
    Whilst people and businesses matter, if you ignore how they do something entirely, it does become purely ethical. I use an adblocker only for malware protection, and pay many of the businesses I use online. But I will always defend someone's right to use the content as they were given it. If you give away data, don't be confused if someone uses it in a different way. Forbes appears to be finding a happy medium, or on their way. Such as disabling error logging caused by adblocking so that the user can have a decent experience. Edit: And I must say, despite our differing opinions, this has been an extremely pleasant exchange

by hsod 10y ago

shakna 10y ago

> Forbes is in fact refusing to serve him content Are they? A Google referrer gets you the content of the article at most, and at least it gets you some JavaScript. Which is executed client-side. Forbes serves up code, which the client should be able to parse, render and execute in any way they see fit, as it was served to their machine upon a simple GET request. The client is under no obligation to behave well, in a programmatic sense, because it is just handed markup and source code, with an expectation of parsing and rendering it in a way fit for the client's user, otherwise you may as well ban screen reader's for doing things in unexpected ways. > ... distribute it on his own We both agree here that it would be bad ethics to do this.

hsod 10y ago
I see your point, but I don't agree with it. I think it leans far too heavily on the specific technical details of the web while remaining blind to the higher level reality of the situation. Put another way, I don't believe the specifics of the way the web operates serve as a solid foundation for an ethical principle. Far better, I think, to look at the people involved and focus on treating them fairly and honestly, abstracting away the medium of communication as an implementation detail.
- shakna 10y ago
  Whilst people and businesses matter, if you ignore how they do something entirely, it does become purely ethical. I use an adblocker only for malware protection, and pay many of the businesses I use online. But I will always defend someone's right to use the content as they were given it. If you give away data, don't be confused if someone uses it in a different way. Forbes appears to be finding a happy medium, or on their way. Such as disabling error logging caused by adblocking so that the user can have a decent experience. Edit: And I must say, despite our differing opinions, this has been an extremely pleasant exchange