Re: "Right to Link" In the News

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Charles McCathie Nevile
<chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:
> At first glance...
>
>
> On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:53:23 +0400, Appelquist Daniel (UK)
> <Daniel.Appelquist@telefonica.com> wrote:
>
>> Related to the TAG's work on publishing and linking on the Web, I read the
>> following with some alarm in this morning's paper:
>>
>> http://nyti.ms/17Qdf8H
>>
>> #RightToLink is trending on Twitter in relation to this.
>
>
> TwitterStorms and a newspaper article are interesting indicators of what
> people might talk about in the pub tonight, or around the coffee machine.
>
> Aside: As I interpret the legal issues (from a sketchy account in an article
> with an apparent goal of offering some defense and comfort to a Mr Brown - I
> have done no further research) the charge isn't that he linked to something,
> but that he spread information in an act that amounted to identify theft on
> a grand scale. The prosecution argument *seems* to be that each of the
> people whose data was compromised could be considered to have their identity
> "misappropriated, with an intent to unlawfully profit at their expense".
> Whatever the facts of the case, it doesn't *seem* to turn on linking since
> if he printed the things on paper and made them available the same argument
> would apply.

Chaals -

I have to disagree. IMHO, this is clearly a "right to link" case.

The actual credit card/identity information was part of a much, much
larger collection of data that Mr. Brown was trying to go through and
analyze (i.e. the Stratfor emails) - and there is no clear evidence I
can find that Mr. Brown was particularly interested or aware of the
identity information, much less used it to impersonate or profit. If
that was the case, those *actions* should be prosecuted - but not the
linking itself. Of course, that is for the court to investigate,
however, from the article it appears that the data was actually posted
on Wikileaks and Mr. Brown simply linked to it. However, it seems that
if anyone could be prosecuted here, it would be those that revealed
the data in the first place (Jeremy Hammond, who is prosecuted) or
hosted the data (Wikileaks).

If linking to data that may contain information that *may* be harmful
is illegal, we're in trouble.  Of course, people can link to data
without knowing its full content or endorsing the data. If the right
to link is stopped, there will be large amounts of "chilling effects"
as regards the ability of journalists and ordinary people to link to
content without knowing its full implications, which is  the going to
be in the case in the world of big data.


>
> To return to your direct topic:
>
>
>> Wendy – the TAG made an attempt to tackle this space in order to provide
>> fodder for a "friend of the court" document for cases such as this. The
>> result was the following:
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/publishing-linking/
>>
>> …which unfortunately did not go far enough (in my view) in articulating a
>> connection between linking and freedom of expression.
>
>
> There is a nexus here between freedom of expression, copyright, the moral
> right of an author to maintain the integrity of their work, the fair use
> rights that enable society (in the form of various types of individual) to
> benefit as the quid pro quo of granting copyright protection.
>
>
>> In this case reported in the NY Times, considering the "chilling effect"
>> of the legal restriction of linking, does it make sense for W3C to weigh
>> in,
>
>
> If I am vaguely on target that the issue in this case isn't linking but
> spreading credit card data, then I don't think W3C has a place weighing in -
> how societies treat such behaviour seems more a matter for each one to
> determine rather than a technical issue for W3C.
>
> cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> --
> Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
>       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com
>

Received on Tuesday, 10 September 2013 12:06:31 UTC