> The "position would be different" for links that bypass a paywall.
This is interesting. It seems there is a growing burden on consumers of information to understand the intent set up by website owners and technology maintainers: Aaron Schwartz died because his use of curl was deemed hacking. A judge here is making a distinction between linking and linking that bypasses a paywall.
I'm afraid that people will one day be required to divine whether or not a site was meant to be viewed by them: suppose page A displays links to a paywall-less version of page B when the user agent is "GoogleBot" in order to allow news to be indexed. Meanwhile, all other user agents see a link to a paywalled version of page B. Suppose a bug causes that page to display paywall-less links to all agents, and visitors to that page follow through to the non-paywall version of page B.
Under this interpretation, visitors to page B's non-paywall version could be exposed to allegations of unauthorized access to computer systems (or its EU equivalent) and be charged with hacking. What's worse, it seems the burden to prove that the link was shown to them in a legitimate fashion falls on the accused, and there's basically no way they can prove that.
I'm not a lawyer, so my interpretation could be way off, but this seems like a credible threat.
I came here with the same quote copied to my clipboard to say pretty much this.
The idea that the incompetence of paywall implementers should be patched up by the law and consideration of clients' intent is worrying at best and honestly closer to insane.
If paywalls are implemented by covering page content with a white rectangle, will viewing source be considered unauthorised access?
If they are implemented by putting a large notice prohibiting unauthorised users from scrolling down, will such a notice stand up?
In both of these cases, the intent of the user viewing the content is clearly to bypass protection mechanisms that were put in place, but if such protections are implemented so incompetently, the burden (as it seems to be in real life, w.r.t. trespassing and similar laws) could well fall upon the consumer.
My suggestions get closer and closer to hyperbole but from a technical standpoint some of these 'protections' are scarcely distinguishable from some of the simple, meaningless protection schemes that have already been enough to trigger unauthorised access laws. :/
I think there's a legal doctrine along the lines of "open door" or "unenforced property", wherein if a person does not put up a minimum standard of defense of their property, there are limitations to what legal protection they have against trespassing and theft.
For example, if I leave my house with the doors wide open, all the time, I think the doctrine means I can't accuse people of breaking in if they simply walk in ... especially if they do so repeatedly without me doing anything to stop it.
Similar if my property has no fence, gate, locks, etc and people are in the habit of walking across it - and I haven't taken ordinary measures to stop them - then I can't accuse people of trespassing.
The examples are not great, and I don't recall what it's called ... but I believe there's a legal doctrine along those lines.
In my mind, it should be very simple. If I supply a URL to a server, and it responds with "200, here's the contents", then that to me means that I have been authorised. Unfortunately the courts don't seem to be seeing it that way.
That's an entirely separate issue though. Copyright infringement cases are almost entirely civil, and result in monetary damages. CFAA cases are criminal, and get you put in jail for years.
It gets even messier than that. What happens to the intent if it is public knowledge that a paywall has been specifically designed by the owner to be easy to circumvent?
"We did create something purposely porous," Arthur Sulzberger said of the system being implemented by the Times to begin charging readers next week for full access to NYTimes.com.
"Can people go around the system?" Sulzberger asked during an appearance at The Paley Center for Media here. "The answer is yes. There are going to be ways.
Read on, I promise I raise a good point. As for losing credibility, I suggest you might find discussions more meaningful if you focus on the argument presented rather than an inferred standpoint of the author.
This is interesting. It seems there is a growing burden on consumers of information to understand the intent set up by website owners and technology maintainers: Aaron Schwartz died because his use of curl was deemed hacking. A judge here is making a distinction between linking and linking that bypasses a paywall.
I'm afraid that people will one day be required to divine whether or not a site was meant to be viewed by them: suppose page A displays links to a paywall-less version of page B when the user agent is "GoogleBot" in order to allow news to be indexed. Meanwhile, all other user agents see a link to a paywalled version of page B. Suppose a bug causes that page to display paywall-less links to all agents, and visitors to that page follow through to the non-paywall version of page B.
Under this interpretation, visitors to page B's non-paywall version could be exposed to allegations of unauthorized access to computer systems (or its EU equivalent) and be charged with hacking. What's worse, it seems the burden to prove that the link was shown to them in a legitimate fashion falls on the accused, and there's basically no way they can prove that.
I'm not a lawyer, so my interpretation could be way off, but this seems like a credible threat.