4 ms·
Legal issues. Who owns the content? There is no real legal basis for a right to mirror, despite how it feels from a techy point of view.
by zxcmx 8y ago
Legal issues. Who owns the content? There is no real legal basis for a right to mirror, despite how it feels from a techy point of view.
- amelius 8y agoRobots.txt now has legal status?
- SiempreViernes 8y agoIt undoubtedly communicates some intention by the site owner about how the work on the site can be used, so probably?
- amelius 8y agoIt only communicates the intention if the reader is actually obliged to read and interpret the file as a legal document. If I put a file named "legal.txt" in an online folder, is anyone required to read it and act upon it? It might as well be a file intended for some completely unrelated purpose; e.g. a lawyer that put some drafts online, or for all the reader knows, it might even be part of a movie script.
- pseudalopex 8y agorobots.txt has been a de facto standard for over 20 years. Someone might be able to claim ignorance, but the Internet Archive has shown that they know about it. It has a specific format; if it can be parsed, it's safe to assume that it isn't part of a movie script. In most cases, copyright law requires the reader of a document not to republish it, so the robots.txt standard is actually much more permissive.
- occamrazor 8y agoIt represents the expressed preferences of the website owner, so it is legally relevant.
- ashelmire 8y agoFair use. It’s for documentation, educational, and research purposes.
- JeremyBanks 8y agoThere are limits on the amount of content you can redistribute under "fair use" for a given purpose. I'm not sure if redistributing half of the internet would be legally justifiable.
- prepend 8y agoIt’s certainly a good Supreme Court case. EFF/ACLU should be able to cover this case. Google’s distributing more content than archive.is.
- dredmorbius 8y agoThat's technically an affirmative defense, rather than a right. Lawsuits are spendy. TIA have Streisanded the issue.