[thelist] How to prevent web site piracy & copyright infringement?

[Michael Kimsal]

I missed the beginning of this - hope I'm not repeating too much of
what's been said...

>
>
> > Web designers, editors, authors, publishers etc. should have the
> > ability to decide if they wish to protect their web site content.

They have the decision to put it on the web or not in the first place.

>
> > As the author and publisher of a web site. I wish to have the
> > possibility to include a meta-tag on my web pages for example which
> > prevents browsers to view the source code and the links on my web
> > pages. Web site visitors would only see the top level-domain of the
> > appropriate web site. This meta tag would make browsers a "read-only"
> > application such as the Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

This would simply make it easier for those who've stolen markup/layout
code from others line for line to hide that fact.

Also, reengineering browsers means reengineering servers too.  Unless
you're OK with people being able to telnet to port 80 and issue a GET or
POST directly (I suspect the original poster would be aghast at that notion
after having had everyone make 'copy safe' browsers).

>
> My guess is that anyone with determination could still edit a PDF file
> marked 'read only'

True.

>
> > I believe, web site authors and publishers should have the right to
> > decide weather they wish to keep their web pages "open-source" or not.

Again - they can put it on the web or not in the first place.  That's
the choice.

>
>
> > Some web site design and its development requires a notable amount of
> > time and know-how to be produced. This time and effort which has been
> > investigated belongs entirely to the intellectual property of the
> > designer, producer, editor, internet application developer, IT company
> > etc.

This is why 'server side' stuff is where the fun's at.  No one can steal
it (unless you're using ASP/NT4 and people hit you with aspsourcecode.com,
but that's another story!).  'Client side' stuff is just that - stuff
sent to
a client.  It's outside of your control.  Focus on providing the value
on the
server via an application.  Anyone can steal an interface.  No one can
steal the
direct logic of an app.

>
> Real question: shall we start to pay royalties to sendmail and Apache
> folks?
>
>
> > The current browser standards do not offer *any* security issues for
> > authors, publishers, artists and other companies to protect their
> > content in order to prevent web site piracy and copyright
> > infringements.

Uhoh - all the books at my local library don't have any form of copy
protection
either, and those books took some people years to write.  Anyone
can simply copy the book and say it's theirs!  I better ask book
publishers to work on 'copy protection' for books.  Oh wait - they already
are.  (and throwing people who demonstrate that their technology is
not secure in jail).

>
>
> True.
>
> > I would be interested to hear your opinions on this subject.
>
> I'm almost always in favor of choice.  However, I worry about what would
> happen with new ideas if they were all thought about as "capital".
>
> <hypothetical>
> If you need help with something on your site, and I give you a tip that
> helps make your site work better in Opera, will you share that part of
> the source code with others, or will it all be blocked?  What gives you
> the right to block others from seeing what was freely given to you?  How
> will you make the distinction?
> </hypothetical>

I guess the fact that it was free to you means it was free to anyone
in the first place and people can still go find the original source for
their own inspiration.  So 'blocking' it in one avenue doesn't block it
from
everyone.  But I tend to agree with your point.

>
> It has the possibility to squash a lot of what I love about the web.
>
> On the other hand, I agree with the fact that if you spend 10 weeks on a
> site design, it can suck that someone else comes along and steals it in
> 10 seconds.

Put the value of dealing with that website in serverside code,
not just in webpages themselves.  Sometimes this may be more
difficult than others, but it means your 'site' is more than just a
collection
of static data that can be taken in seconds.

Actually, I guess everyone is 'taking' it all the time -every time they hit
your website.  It's on their hard disk, in a browser cache, whatever.  It's
what they do with it after that which is the bigger question.



Michael Kimsal
http://www.logicreate.com