FC: Runner's World and LetsRun.com reply to Politech on deep linking

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue May 14 2002 - 20:24:12 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Internet firms say police search rules endanger privacy"

    A few observations:
    1. It is polite to link to the ad-bedecked version of the article if it is 
    stable and available.
    2. If a stable version of an ad-bedecked page is absent but an ad-free 
    version is available, it is reasonable to link to the ad-free version. (The 
    existence of a stable runnersworld.com ad-bedecked page, at least until 
    very recently, is in dispute here.)
    3. It is near-trivial to configure a modern web server to grep the Referer: 
    field and refuse deep links, even to the granularity of redirecting all 
    visitors from LetsRun.com to the runnersworld.com home page.
    4. Even if it is impolite to link to an ad-free version of a page, such 
    rudeness does not rise to the level of legal wrongdoing. It is 
    inappropriate for a publisher to threaten legal action against deep 
    linking; it is a mean and spurious threat.
    5. This case may be an example of a young, clue-impaired associate at a law 
    firm being too eager. Allen Tullar, esq. certainly didn't know what he was 
    talking about in his demand letters. 
    (http://www.letsrun.com/2002/legalletters.htm) If Runner's World were to 
    admit that Allen was far too hasty, I'm certain that LetsRun.com would be 
    gracious and link to an ad-replete version of the article in question.
    
    Previous Politech message:
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-03526.html
    
    Politech archive on deep linking:
    http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=linking
    
    -Declan
    
    ---
    
    From: "Burfoot, Amby" <Amby.Burfootat_private>
    To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private>
    Cc: "Tullar, Allen" <atullarat_private>
    Subject: Runner's World and Letsrun
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 16:52:13 -0400
    
    Declan: This may in fact be what the Johnsons told you--
    that we do not produce a stable, or archived link--but it's simply not true.
    
    Moreover, they know this, as they frequent our site,
    constantly barrage us for links and attention, etc, etc.
    
    We've asked for nothing but a link to our page with nav bars
    and advertising, same as their other links to pages of other
    sites with nav bars and advertising.
    
    So I ask you, who's not playing fair here?
    
    I have made a phone call to the Johnsons this morning.
    They have not returned my call. I have also emailed them.
    No return.
    
    We have no interest in threatening them or their site.
    It's the Internet after all. There's little we can do about
    their site, except insist that they not violate our rights
    by linking to pages that don't contain key business information.
    
    Amby Burfoot; amby.burfootat_private
    Editor, Runner's World Magazine
    ph: 610-967-8444; fax: 610-967-8883
    33 East Minor St., Emmaus, PA 18049
    Visit our Web site at <http://www.runnersworld.com>
    
    ---
    
    From: "Robert Johnson" <robertjohnsonat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>, <robinat_private>
    Subject: Re: deep linking/etiquette
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:15:08 -0700
    
    I am one of the co-founders of LetsRun.com and saw your comments on 
    http://www.politechbot.com. Declan spoke with my brother earlier today.  I 
    just wanted to clarify a point or two.
    
    We certainly would follow etiquette and would have been happy to link to a 
    page with ads on it. There's nothing wrong with trying to make the web 
    financially viable and we have ads on portions of our site.
    
    Declan is  correct in stating why we linked to the Printer Friendly version 
    of the website. We did so because in the past that was their only static IP 
    address (as things shifted when it went from daily news to archives).  As a 
    prominent webmaster of another well-funded website that also deep linked to 
    the Printer Friendly version (but didn't receive a threatening letter 
    perhaps becaue they have a financial relationship with eachother) wrote us 
    to privately voice support said:
    
    "If what they're upset about is your linking to the 'printer friendly' 
    version, I'm guilty too. The reason I've been doing it that way (but will 
    stop doing so immediately) is that 1) when they first did their redesign, a 
    lot of the anchor tags weren't working so even if you put in the #chat at 
    the end, it would just go to the top of the page and ) Linking to that 
    version was the best way I could think of to separate out the chats. I 
    wasn't doing it with malicious intent :-) "
    
    Same with us. We'd be happy to do it but now that this whole thing has been 
    blown up by their lawyer, we are torn as to what to do as their is an 
    important principle to stand for and that is of course deep-linking in 
    general which there lawyer seemingly claimed was illegal.
    
    -Robert Johnson
    LetsRun.com
    
    PS. RUnnersworld.com has evidently changed things (we're not sure when) so 
    that you now can link to the regular version of the article immediately. 
    They could have done this or just written a simple code (my brother did one 
    in 8 minutes today) preventing people from linking to the Printer Friendly 
    version instead of threatening to sue.
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 17:39:58 -0400
    To: declanat_private
    From: Dan Horn <danhornat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Slashdot's Robin Miller: Linking should be etiquette,
       not law
    
    Declan,
    
    Looking at the two letters that runnersworld.com's attorney sent, and their 
    failure to respond to letsrun.com's second email, it seems apparent that 
    the runnersworld.com folks made a mistake.  Looking at their second email 
    (when they specify their allegations), the attorneys say:
    
    "The hyperlink, when clicked on, produced a verbatim copy of an interview 
    with Peter Snell originally published on runnersworld.com.  That interview, 
    reproduced in its entirety, was stripped of all Rodale ads and navigational 
    information and aids.  Contrary to your assertion, to the extent that the 
    entire article was reproduced by letsrun.com, that republication hardly 
    constitutes fair use.
    [...]
    Letsrun.com has not created a hyperlink to Rodale's runnersworld.com website."
    
    It is pretty obvious that the runnersworld.com folks clicked on the link, 
    saw their article without the familiar runnersworld.com ads and other 
    visual garnish, failed to look at the location bar in their browser, and 
    assumed that letsrun.com was hosting the file.  My guess is that once 
    letsrun.com pointed this out (in their second letter), the red faced 
    runnersworld.com lawyer simply stopped responding.  While this doesn't 
    compare to the Dallas Morning News lawsuit, this is a prime example of what 
    can happen when copyright holders pursue infringements with unrestrained zeal.
    At the very least, the runnersworld.com lawyers owe letsrun.com an apology.
    
    
    Oh, and in response to Robin Miller's claim that slashdot never links to 
    printer-friendly pages, check out 
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/19/0020235&mode=nested . The 
    "spoke yesterday" link points to a (now nonexistent) printer-friendly page 
    at salon.com.
    
    Dan
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 18:03:28 -0400
    From: "James Maule" <mauleat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Slashdot's Robin Miller: Linking should be etiquette,
    	not law
    
    The "forced to listen to ads" already infects voicemail. When's the last
    time anyone activated a new, updated, or replacement credit card?
    
    "While we are updating your account, we have for you an offer blah blah
    blah [for what seems to be eternity]. If you want to take advantage of
    this great offer for [repeat it], press one. If you do not want to take
    advantage of this great offer [repeat it], press two."
    
    Press 2.
    
    "Are you sure that you really want to pass up an opportunity ......."
    
    These things must be written by the same people who don't take no for
    an answer until they're hauled into court for harassment.
    
    After all, if everyone played and worked by rules of (n)etiquette,
    lawyers would have far less work to do. It's a wonderful ideal to expect
    people to conform to etiquette, kindness, common sense, and integrity.
    Unlikely. Some people just need to be hit with the judge's gavel... and
    even then it can take several trips to the woodshed.....
    
    ---
    
    From: Amos Satterlee <asatterleeat_private>
    To: "'Declan McCullagh '" <declanat_private>
    Subject: RE: Slashdot's Robin Miller: Linking should be etiquette, not law
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 18:26:02 -0400
    
    Declan:
    
    While I can appreciate the reasoning behind the Slashdot linking policy, I
    find it to be significantly destructive of the hypertext raison d'etre when
    a site like Slashdot represents that a link will go to a particular article
    but instead goes to the homepage of a site. I find this not to be a question
    of ethics -- etiquette has nothing to do with ethics -- but a certain kind
    of economic back-scratching.
    
    Clearly there are competing trends. Clearly sites need to be able to pay for
    themselves. However, using inappropriate legal threats does no one any good.
    
    I would recommend that sites manipulate their servers so that a deep link
    first displays a pop-up advertisement. The benefits of this would be:
    
    -- it allows the proper use of the hyperlinking technology for content
    presentation, which benefits both the content-user and the content-provider.
    -- it allows for proper economic support of the content-provider. Such
    deep-link pop-ups should carry premium rates because they will be displayed
    in response to a high-incentive click.
    
    My 2 cents.
    
    Amos
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 19:25:30 -0400
    From: "J.D. Abolins" <jda-irat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Slashdot's Robin Miller: Linking should be etiquette, not law
    X-Sender: jda-irat_private
    To: declanat_private
    
    Although not a subject of lawsuits (yet) but what about "deep linking" in 
    the form of bibliographical references for articles and books?
    
    How long will it be before it will be argued that authors who try to help 
    the readers look up the sources of referenced materials by giving the most 
    direct link to the Web item should instead just give the URL for the site's 
    entrance page? Hey, why should the readers deprive the site of eyeballs for 
    the ads just because they want to check somebody else's references? What's 
    more important, that article or the ads that make it possible for the 
    article to be up on the Web? (Actually, this question raises interesting 
    debates if people get caught up in trying to choose one over the other 
    depending upon their view of commerce.<g>) The gall of some people! <g>
    
    Or, just as bad, there could be the argument that lynx and other 
    non-graphical browsers should banned (perhaps with an exemption for 
    visually handicapped users) because they strip out all those ad graphics.
    
    I agree, to a point, with Robin Miller that it is good to have an etiquette 
    of linking. Definitely, make sure that some attribution is made to the 
    other site so that people don't think it is one's own material. Also 
    considering context of the linkage. For example, I have used software 
    product box images on the Princeton PC Users Group site whenever were're 
    having a presentation by the vendor's reps. A link to the software 
    product's Web page is provided so the PPCUG site visitors can get more info 
    on the product being presented. In this case, there is a mutual benefit for 
    the group and the vendor. If, however, if I get into criticism of a vendor 
    on my Web site, I'd be more careful with how I link. Not only a matter of 
    etiquette; it's to protect my legal tuchus by not providing an easy target. 
    (E.g.; forgo the image but link to the vendor's entire page or photograph 
    the box of software which I had purchased.)
    
    But sometimes, the situations defy etiquette approaches. Sometimes, there 
    is no way to get a referenced Web article with its surrounding ads except 
    by giving the entrance URL and saying, "Select News link, then scroll down 
    for article title <insert name>. If it's not there, then use the site's 
    search function for this keyword....." The best one can do in that case is 
    to provide teh deep link and note the main entrance page's URL.
    
    There are some ways sites that are so upset about deep linking can help the 
    situation:
    
    1. There is coding that, in many browsers, can detect if a content frame 
    page is loaded without its surrounding frames and can load them 
    automatically. Therefore, the deep link surrounds the article with the 
    current set of ads. I know there is such code for JavaScript.
    
    2. If using frames with ads and navigations links surrounding articles' 
    frames, include a link to the site's entrance page, copyright notice, and 
    whatever else in the same frame as the articles. If the article is 
    deep-linked, the viewer will be able to navigate to the site's intended 
    page if she so desires. (If not, we hope there will be no law requiring a 
    quota of ads viewed for each person in the USA. <g>)
    
    3. If deep linking is really a big issue, it is possible to set up a Web 
    site so that people have to enter by an entrance page. Declan already 
    mentioned Wall Street Journal as a good example. Oh, the ROBOTS.TXT and 
    other methods for restricting well-behaved Web spiders are a big help.
    
    J.D. Abolins
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 16:39:43 -0700
    From: "Denise Howell" <DHowellat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Slashdot's Robin Miller: Linking should be etiquette,
    	not law
    
    Hi Declan,
    
    Very nice Wired News article and follow-up.  I blogged a bit more 
    here:  http://bgbg.blogspot.com/?/2002_05_12_bgbg_archive.html#85087943
    
    Denise M. Howell
    (blog) Bag and Baggage, http://bgbg.blogspot.com
    (firm) Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May, http://www.crosbyheafey.com
    355 South Grand Avenue, Suite 2900
    Los Angeles, CA  90071
    (213) 457-8090 (direct line)
    (213) 457-8080 (fax)
    
    ---
    
    
    
    
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