[thelist] Re: [site rippers? - conclusion]

Judah McAuley judah at alphashop.com
Tue Apr 10 19:42:02 CDT 2001


At 04:23 PM 4/10/01 -0800, David McCreath wrote:
> >From: matt newell
> >
> >one major reason is for archival purposes.
>[...]
> >another major reason (in my case right now):
> >we've ended a relationship with a current client, handed off the proper
> >items and generally washed our hands of them.
>
>Erm... Matt, isn't this a massive copyright violation? Does your contract
>with these clients allow you to load and run their entire site locally?
>Especially now that the contract has ended? As for former employers, I would
>think that you'd also want to check your contract for intellectual property
>clauses.
>
> >the portion of the site we developed was only a small piece of
> >the whole puzzle -- we wanted to show the whole puzzle, but didn't
> >have access to their servers to dl a whole copy easily.
>
>Do you have permission to copy the code that other contractors wrote?
<snip>

A site ripper does necessarily grab code per se, it grabs *rendered* 
code.  In order for a web site to be accessed with a web browser (or site 
ripper) it has to be made publicly available (excluding password protected 
sites).  This brings the content/design much closer to the public 
domain.  To my mind (insert standard Not A Lawyer disclaimer) it makes it 
very similar to a TV broadcast.  You can record it for private use and 
showings, but not rebroadcast it, make a public performance or derive 
profit from it without permission.  You are not "stealing" any intellectual 
property. They have made it publicly available.  You are simply archiving a 
private copy of publicly available material.  If that was an intellectual 
property violation, then Google would be out of business.

Judah





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