 Third Voice and Copyright- 15 June
1999
- Larry
Rosenstein
I received the following email
from Larry Rosenstein in response to
Hands
Off My Site. He raises
some good points which those interested in the
Third Wave debate should consider. The letter is printed as
received with no further editorial
comment. - >I don't like the idea
that anyone with the right software can come
>to my site and leave a note for anyone else
using Third Voice.
Phrased this way, it sounds as
if they are modifying your site or leaving
information on your server. But that's not the case
at all. All Third Voice does is change the way the
browser displays web pages, such that they include
annotations. - >stay away or create your
own counter-site, but don't vandalize my
pages.
How can you call it vandalize if
none of your data changes. Is it also vandalizing
if someone changes their browser to display text in
a strange font or turns off graphics? - >I hereby request that
Third Voice respect the copyright and
>integrity of my web site -- both the textual
content and visual
>appearance -- by blocking any Third Voice
user from posting notes
The problem with this is that
you are making your web pages freely available on
the internet. If I download one of your pages, I'm
free to do whatever I want with it on my computer.
In particular, I don't have to display it in any
particular format or even display it at
all. There are limitations of course.
I can't repost your content, which would be a
copyright violation. And I can't abuse your servers
(eg, making repeated requests), which would be a
theft of service. But Third Voice does neither of
these things. A good analogy is broadcast TV.
TV stations send out their content freely to anyone
who wants to receive it. But after having done so,
they cannot prevent someone from taping a show and
editing out the commercials when they watch the
show. Then can't even prevent someone from
archiving the edited shows and watching them over
and over. If you object to Third Voice
changing the way IE presents a web page, then do
you object to VCRs that can edit out commercials?
How about the ability browsers have to turn off
images (including banner ads)? How about a browser
for the visually impaired that reads the page. How
about a proxy server that summarizes a
user-requested page for display on a
PDA? (As an extreme case, consider
Virtual PC. It takes a copyrighted Windows program
and on the fly translates it into Power PC code. In
some sense this is exactly what Third Voice
does.) While I can understand why
webmasters would be against the Third Voice
technology, realistically I don't see how anyone
can argue against the technology on legal grounds.
Not only isn't there a copyright violation, but
there is also grounds under fair use for people to
produce commentary about copyrighted
material. I don't think the company has
any legal or moral obligations to install an
opt-out system, although it might be their best
interest to do so. Since they manage the storage of
annotations, they need to take care of things that
are inappropriate. And they should provide a way to
see what annotations are attached to a site for
people who can't use their plugin. (Of course the
next step is to allow webmaster to request that an
annotation be removed, but this raises other
issues.) This is just another example of
a brand new issue raised by a brand new technology.
And it won't be the last. Larry Rosenstein Recent Editorials- Thanks, many thanks,
Rodney O. Lain, Things Macintosh, 11/26.
- From Fat Mac to iMac, Wayne
Crannell, My First Mac, 11/26. "The 'e' stood for 'enhanced,'
which meant it could read both sides of a floppy."
- Should I buy a USB card?,
Charlie Ruggiero, 11/23. Any PCI Mac can take one, but is it for
you?
- Teacher Tools:
Gradebooks, Steve Wood, View From the Classroom, 11/22.
- Screen Size and
Resolution, Dan Knight, Online Tech Journal, 11/19
- Reassessment, Eric
DeStafano, Mac Metamorphosis, 11/18
- Macs for design, Lynn, My
First Mac, 11/18
- Apple will rule the computer
world, Rodney O. Lain, Things Macintosh, 11/17
- Online with a PowerBook
Duo, Julie Fugett, Mac Daniel, 11/17
- Free web access, even for older
Macs, Rob Myers, Mac Musings, 11/17
- New @ Low End Mac:
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