Re: Potential wild-card issue outside W3C: legality of deep linki ng

On Thursday 29 August 2002 01:19 pm, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> No they aren't.   A citation is not a hypertext link.

But some hypertext links are citations. <smile/> Besides, arguing about what 
is or is not a citation is not the point as I never used that term, I said 
it is a "reference."

> A hypertext link is a control with a dereference
> semantic.

And the policy to determine what is returned after dereferencing is a 
service decision based on such things as the referrer log, authentication, 
and such. The mechanism itself is not the problem, as some erringly think. 
Encouraging the public, or legal community, to understand that is a win-win 
for everyone.

>   It is possible for a local venue to
> outlaw linking without permission based on the
> nature of the control even though the enforcement
> of that is expensive.  That is what Lessig points
> out with regards to legislation or control
> through the architecture.  It is the same kind
> of law that puts seatbelts and airbags in cars.

IMHO, the most efficient, legally grounded, and technically neutral approach 
is to focus on fraudulent or abusive interaction with the mechanisms and 
their effects. I don't follow your argument at all. I'm not sure which 
Lessig argument you are trying to use and I don't see the relevance of this 
to any theories (public welfare, personal liberty, and strong/weak 
paternalism) typically associated with seatbelts and airbags.

> The W3C should restrict its official statements
> to the functionality of the architecture, not
> the legality of using it in any local venue.

I don't understand what you mean by a local venue. If the presumption is 
that permission must be sought before the mechanism of linking can be used, 
that has a massive and global implication. Instead, local policies should 
be specified locally (in the web service) and the law should address 
specific abuses.

> It is not an architectural issue.  You are
> overstepping your mandate and your authority
> if such statements extend beyond the use of
> W3C property rights, in effect, its website.

The Web architecture concerns more than just the W3C web site. Regardless, 
symmetry also permits one to argue that the Dutch court has overstepped its 
authority and should not be trying to control web architecture <smile/>.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Reagle [mailto:reagle@w3.org]
>
>
>   Of course. Links are merely references to other sites. You don't
>   have to ask permission to link to this site - or any other website.
>   See ("link myths" for more on this).

Received on Thursday, 29 August 2002 14:06:19 UTC