4 ms·

I love it! But it must be breaching copyright/terms etc...

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
It does, technically speaking, and if it's the whole article I don't think fair use applies, BUT the website is protected by the DMCA so the onus is on Nat Geo to issue a takedown request. Second, legality aside, it's morally unjustifiable to have so much cruft and trackers on a webpage. I mean it's loading 1 MB of Javascript for what looks like a fairly straightforward, static website. Even if it's loaded async / after the main content, it's still an unreasonable amount for a website like this; if anything they should use a proper bundler so it only loads what is necessary. (I've had great results for a site like this using Gatsby + Netlify)
- zaroth 7y ago
  What if it doesn’t cache the page on the server, and the service is essentially a cloud-based user agent? It can’t be legal to run a user-agent in your computer, and illegal to run a user agent in the cloud. The question becomes, what is the defining property of a user agent?
- capableweb 7y ago
  > morally unjustifiable to have so much cruft and trackers on a webpage I think the way to think about this is to compare it to magazines. While you can say that it's morally unjustifiable that magazines has ads and filler pages because it'll use more paper and we need to use less paper, the argument on the other side is that the business has to survive too so ads and trackers makes that more likely (from their perspective, I don't necessarily agree with that)
fnord123 7y ago
Maybe it fits under fair use as critique. It's a critique showing the bloatedness of the original article. And it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original to make its point.
- crispyporkbites 7y ago
  > it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original When you think about it this way it’s clearly fair use.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Usually copyright laws refer to a substantial part of a work, it maybe be 0.6% of the delivered web page, but it's 100% (presumably) of the article. The article counts separately as a work (and each image within an article could count as a separate work, there are conditions on that). But, in any case if all the textual context was copied that's still substantial. Interpreting things in a purely numerical way like that would be clearly ridiculous. Such gotchas don't work in law in general (in my very limited experience).
    - fnord123 7y ago
      Gotchas absolutely do work in this way in law. You just need to be willing to fight it in court.
- nightcracker 7y ago
  That's genius. I doubt a judge would accept this reasoning, but I love it.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    Indeed, as intent matters a lot. If the page didn't show the full article but rather just a snippet and then said "This page could have been X while it's actually X", then the intent is just to show the size difference. But in this case, the intent is to show the full article without anything else, so most likely copyright infringement.
- jerf 7y ago
  "Critique" isn't just a vague "something could be construed as critique if you squint hard enough", there needs to be an actual human critiquing something. I see no human here, nor any critiquing text. This would be more like meta-critique, which has no protection I've ever heard of. Stretching the definition of "fair use" is a favorite internet past time. People have gotten pretty good at it. It isn't anywhere near as flexible as people seem to think, and I mean, like, by a couple orders of magnitude. This particular example isn't even close, honestly.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I don't know why you're downvoted, you're right. AIUI USA's Fair Use is usually negated by selling the result of that use when it amounts to a derivative work (but some commercial use can be Fair Use). I think that the mention of DMCA [down thread] doesn't really work here, that's for sites with primarily legitimate use; if the site in question has a route for acquiring permissions, and has a system to check with users before they (the website service's commuters) download content - to check they have a license - then safe harbor provisions could apply. Even torrent sites, I gather, tell you not to put up copyright content before giving the opportunity to do so. All that aside, such sites are definitely copyright infringement in the UK (but I don't now how jurisdiction applies over the internet; I've yet to find good sources on that).

It does, technically speaking, and if it's the whole article I don't think fair use applies, BUT the website is protected by the DMCA so the onus is on Nat Geo to issue a takedown request. Second, legality aside, it's morally unjustifiable to have so much cruft and trackers on a webpage. I mean it's loading 1 MB of Javascript for what looks like a fairly straightforward, static website. Even if it's loaded async / after the main content, it's still an unreasonable amount for a website like this; if anything they should use a proper bundler so it only loads what is necessary. (I've had great results for a site like this using Gatsby + Netlify)

zaroth 7y ago
What if it doesn’t cache the page on the server, and the service is essentially a cloud-based user agent? It can’t be legal to run a user-agent in your computer, and illegal to run a user agent in the cloud. The question becomes, what is the defining property of a user agent?
capableweb 7y ago
> morally unjustifiable to have so much cruft and trackers on a webpage I think the way to think about this is to compare it to magazines. While you can say that it's morally unjustifiable that magazines has ads and filler pages because it'll use more paper and we need to use less paper, the argument on the other side is that the business has to survive too so ads and trackers makes that more likely (from their perspective, I don't necessarily agree with that)

fnord123 7y ago

Maybe it fits under fair use as critique. It's a critique showing the bloatedness of the original article. And it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original to make its point.

crispyporkbites 7y ago
> it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original When you think about it this way it’s clearly fair use.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Usually copyright laws refer to a substantial part of a work, it maybe be 0.6% of the delivered web page, but it's 100% (presumably) of the article. The article counts separately as a work (and each image within an article could count as a separate work, there are conditions on that). But, in any case if all the textual context was copied that's still substantial. Interpreting things in a purely numerical way like that would be clearly ridiculous. Such gotchas don't work in law in general (in my very limited experience).
  - fnord123 7y ago
    Gotchas absolutely do work in this way in law. You just need to be willing to fight it in court.
nightcracker 7y ago
That's genius. I doubt a judge would accept this reasoning, but I love it.
- capableweb 7y ago
  Indeed, as intent matters a lot. If the page didn't show the full article but rather just a snippet and then said "This page could have been X while it's actually X", then the intent is just to show the size difference. But in this case, the intent is to show the full article without anything else, so most likely copyright infringement.
jerf 7y ago
"Critique" isn't just a vague "something could be construed as critique if you squint hard enough", there needs to be an actual human critiquing something. I see no human here, nor any critiquing text. This would be more like meta-critique, which has no protection I've ever heard of. Stretching the definition of "fair use" is a favorite internet past time. People have gotten pretty good at it. It isn't anywhere near as flexible as people seem to think, and I mean, like, by a couple orders of magnitude. This particular example isn't even close, honestly.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

I don't know why you're downvoted, you're right. AIUI USA's Fair Use is usually negated by selling the result of that use when it amounts to a derivative work (but some commercial use can be Fair Use). I think that the mention of DMCA [down thread] doesn't really work here, that's for sites with primarily legitimate use; if the site in question has a route for acquiring permissions, and has a system to check with users before they (the website service's commuters) download content - to check they have a license - then safe harbor provisions could apply. Even torrent sites, I gather, tell you not to put up copyright content before giving the opportunity to do so. All that aside, such sites are definitely copyright infringement in the UK (but I don't now how jurisdiction applies over the internet; I've yet to find good sources on that).