Re: Copy to Clipboard - ambush and abuse by javascript

Let me argue the other side.  If I make my living serving copyrighted 
content, allowing
unrestricted copy/paste is handing out a license to steal/plagiarize.  
So, how do I protect myself?
-- disallow copy? add a hidden watermark that can be used for legal 
prosecution?
All the best, Ashok


Noah Mendelsohn wrote:
> Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>
> > This I think seriously violates the function
> > of Copy, and the user's rights.
>
> Yes, I agree completely.  It's obnoxious, unhelpful, and contrary to 
> the spirit of the platform specifications for copy/paste.
>
> > Should browsers ensure that Copy is always a
> > read-only operation, unless they have INSTALLED code to do something
> > different?
>
> I agree with the spirit of what you're asking for, but I'm not sure 
> the words "read-only" capture the essence of what's needed.  Copy is, 
> of course, an operation that identifies data for transfer, and the 
> corresponding paste is necessarily an update operation on the target 
> document or system.
>
> My deeper concern is that in fact certain sorts of data manipulation 
> are expected and useful, particularly when doing format conversions as 
> part of copy/paste.  So, for example, if I am reading an HTML document 
> and I select multiple paragraphs of text, it might well be appropriate 
> for a copy operation to put at least two versions on the clipboard:
>
> HTML Clipboard format:
> <p>Text of para1</p>
> <p>Text of para2</p>
>
> Text Clipboard format:
> Text of Para 1\n
> \n\n
> Text of Para 2
>
> I think it's important that whatever rules we set for browsers not 
> prohibit such helpful re-expression of the same information using 
> different formats.  We need to find a formulation that encourages such 
> useful reformatting, but prohibits the sort of inappropriate updates 
> that are described in the Daring Fireball posting. In any case, it 
> doesn't seem to me that the term "read-only" quite captures what we 
> want.  Thank you.
>
> Noah
>
>
>
>
>
> Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>> Example on MSNBC:
>> http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29875493/ns/today-green/
>> Very frustrating -- but a violation of the user interface.
>>
>> It is discussed by John Gruber on:
>> http://daringfireball.net/2010/05/tynt_copy_paste_jerks
>>
>> "the site uses JavaScript to report what you’ve copied to an 
>> analytics server" when you perform a copy.
>> This I think seriously violates the function of Copy, and the user's 
>> rights.
>>
>> Should browsers ensure that Copy is always a read-only operation, 
>> unless they have INSTALLED code to do something different?
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 June 2010 21:54:35 UTC