David,

I would urge some caution here - I don't think the US courts view the topic
as simply as Doug suggests. I have not researched the law and don't purport
to provide any advice, but the following is my off-the-cuff understanding of
the law.

The problem with internet and copyright is that going to a web site in
itself could constitute an infringement because the material is copied to
the computer's memory, albeit without the user being conscious of this.

The commonsense view is that there is an implied license to read (although
not necessarily copy) the material on websites - otherwise, the internet
would be unworkable due to copyright law.

The issue under consideration is the hypertext linking. On one view this is
simply an electronic citation and there is nothing wrong with that. On
another view, especially where there is deep linking (ie. avoiding the
referred-to-website's home page and linking direct to the materials) I
believe that some courts have found an infringement. The reasoning is that
there is a wrong there because the advertising (usually) on the homepage has
been avoided. I am not sure that the doctrine of "fair use" is relevant in
cases where hypertext links are provided.

As an aside, the US law firm which sent you the cease and desist email owns
copyright in that text. You may have infringed their copyright by publishing
it on the list!

>From a non-legal viewpoint, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Doesn't
internet.com benefit from increased web traffic to their site?

Regards,
John



----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Robb <doug&#167;clarity.com.au>
To: <dns&#167;auda.org.au>
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2000 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: [DNS] FW: Violation of internet.com/domainnotes copyright


>
> On Sun, 10 Dec 2000 david.goldstein&#167;nic.at wrote:
>
> > Hi all
> >
> > I received the email below from an attorney from internet.com following
> > posting my Internet news I compile to the Domain Policy mailing list,
which
> > is rather amusing. They don't appear too happy with the free publicity I
> > give them!!!
> >
> > Cheers
> > David
>
> Hi David, some points for Internet.com to note.
> (they obvioulsy have someone on this list feeding
> them your posts - shame - thats reproduction in itself
> isn't it?).
>
> 1. You do yourselves a diservice as the only response
>    to Davids posts is to generate a hit back to Internet.com
>    to an item of interest.
>
> 2. Davids posting of an internet address (url) where an
>    article can be found is *not* an infringment of copyright
>    on that item.
>
> 3. In anycase when a particular use of a copyrighted item
>    comes within the legal definition of 'fair use' then
>    the copyright owners permission is not necessary -
>    although in this case where a reader is being directed
>    directly to the source copyright *is* being acknowledged.
>
>   Fair use includes:
>
>    "Quotations or excerpts in a review or criticism for
>     purposes of illustration or comment."
>
>     "Summary of an address or article, with brief
>      quotations, in a news report"
>
> (source congressional committe report that accompanied
> the US copyright act 1976).
>
>
> 4. Since cleary there is no breach on copyright involved
>    here, is your business going so well you can affort to
>    cut off valuable sources of referals? The service of
>    'infomediaries' such as David  (a free service I might
>    add) is valuable - so valuable in terms of my time that
>    I for one would rather keep getting his feeds minus
>    any items from Internet.com in preference to mindlessly
>    visiting your site each day. I can't believe someone
>    within your management group hasn't worked this out.
>
> (if its your business model then the model is flawed)
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Doug Robb
> Clarity Software Pty Ltd      http://clarity.com.au
> GPO Box 763                   Phone: 0403 02 2527
> Nedlands 6909                 Fax:   (618) 93867564
> Australia                     email: doug&#167;clarity.com.au
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
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