Law Firm Claims Copyright on View of HTML Source

An anonymous reader writes "A law firm with all sorts of interesting views on copyright has decided to go the extra mile. As reported on Tech Dirt, they've decided that viewing the HTML source of their site is a violation of copyright. From the site's EULA: 'We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so.'"

oblig.

[niteice]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

:o

Cache-Control: no-render

[jasonwea]

Frankly, I'm surprised they permit browsers to render their precious markup.

Authorize my foot in your asses.

[Spazntwich]

I just went and stoled me some of that there intellectual property.

Smells good.

they seem a bit stressed

[phrostie]

i think they just need to get laid REALLY bad.

I own this!

[nexxuz]

Every word that I type I own! If you are reading this then you are in violation! Please send all your money to my off-shore bank account now!

I'm 'wget' - come arrest me!

[TheGratefulNet]

% cd cybermorans
% while 1
while? wget -rm -np http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/ [cybertriallawyer.com]
while? sleep 10
while? rm -rf *
while? end

that'll keep 'em entertained. oh, and me, too.

Re:Useless

[nuzak]

Sure they do, paste it in. I think just for their legal reasons, posting wget or lynx -source output would be interpreted the same as well.

I was going to prove it by posting their HTML source here, but posting any significant chunk of it, just to show what I think of their precious copyright, triggered the lameness filter. How apropos.

In other words...

[kaan]

All our source are belong to us.

You're in violation

[Anonymous Coward]

...They also state that you shouldn't link to their site without permission.

Re:Suggested technical fix

[Feyr]

a simpler fix, that doesn't involve breaking any standards /etc/init.d/apache stop

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[bigstrat2003]

Thanks for the link. I just went and infringed on some intellectual property rights... who knew it could be so damn fun?

Bah!

[Greyfox]

That's what they get for not hiring an administrator for their web server who knows what they're doing. If they don't want people looking at their HTML source, they should just change the permissions to disallow it: "chmod -r 000 $WEBSITE_ROOT_DIR" This will also save them a ton of bandwidth! Anyone have a link to their site so we can critique their page layout and other IP?

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[nmb3000]

The name of the law firm in question is Dozier Internet Law. The link is to their web page. Enjoy!

"we also are intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry"

"We maintain records of IP addresses and other information contained in log files"

"We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission"

Well, you're screwed now. They're hackers, they have your IP, and you linked to their site.

"you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way"

Of course, I'm in trouble too because the every act of viewing their page required me to download a copy of it. I suppose they could put their website on a CD, then mail it to everybody who calls in and asks to visit their website.

Morons.

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[Joe Snipe]

why would a bad lay help?

RFC 1149 fetch needed

[RichMan]

This just cries out for someone to implement a page fetch of this using RFC 1149.
Then to archive the transmit and receive buffers in a book.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html [faqs.org]
--
Frame Format

      The IP datagram is printed, on a small scroll of paper, in
      hexadecimal, with each octet separated by whitestuff and blackstuff.
      The scroll of paper is wrapped around one leg of the avian carrier.
      A band of duct tape is used to secure the datagram's edges. The
      bandwidth is limited to the leg length. The MTU is variable, and
      paradoxically, generally increases with increased carrier age. A
      typical MTU is 256 milligrams. Some datagram padding may be needed.

      Upon receipt, the duct tape is removed and the paper copy of the
      datagram is optically scanned into a electronically transmittable
      form.
--

Re:Well then

[eosp]

So you're going to rewrite them in Perl?

Next website I do...

[Perseid]

"By viewing this HTML source you agree to send $100 to me. If you do no consent, too bad, you're already viewing the source now. And don't think I can't tell - *I* know JavaScript."

Their HTML code revealed

[Experiment 626]

Ha ha ha, not only can I view their precious HTML code, I'm posting it to Slashdot for all the world to see!

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://goatse.cx/">
<title>Attorneys at Law</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FF66FF">
<!-- If you can read this, we're going to sue you! --/>
<h1>The Law Offices of Moron, Idiot, and Dumbass</h1>
<img src="OMG_Ponies.gif"/>
<blink>Need an incompetent ambulance chaser with no understanding of the law to
represent you? You've come to the right place!</blink>
</body>
</html>

Re:Suggested technical fix

[rs79]

&;ltanalcopyright

I see you've read "HTML for lawyers".

Re:Content?

[orkysoft]

Now you're hacking their webserver too!

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[Shadowplay00]

Turns out the coder is just ashamed of his HTML coding skills.

Hmm...

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

Yep. Probably don't want anyone to know their intern has a bootleg copy of GoLive.

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[rich_r]

Like documentation, any lay is better than no lay...

Some of their code revealed!!!!one1

[noidentity]

Here is some of their super secret codes revealed:

<html>

<p>

And the most valuable, apparently:

<font>

(posted anonymous for obvious reasons)

Now sue me. Pls !

[Anonymous Coward]

<html>
<head>
<base href="http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/" />

<title>Internet Lawyer, Trademark Infringement Lawyer, Domain Name Dispute Specialist!</title>
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Dozier Internet Law and Dozier Intenet Law, PC are top rated Internet Lawyer Specialists representing business interests on the web as advocate and legal counsel.>

<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="dozier internet law, dozier internet law pc, dozier lawyer, dozier internet, internet lawyer, internet lawyers, interent attorney, internet attorneys, john dozier, john w dozier, john w dozier jr">
<META name="y_key" content="1dfad02220b8c67b" /> <!-- For Yahoo authentication -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="/imageswap_js"></script>
<csactions>

<csaction name="BF50B80B1" class="Open Popup Lite" type="onevent" val0="PopUp1" val1="680" val2="524" val3="true" val4="false" val5="false" val6="false" val7="false" val8="false" val9="false" val10="true" val11="" val12="" val13="#" val14="qtvr.html" val15="false" urlparams="14,15"></csaction>
</csactions>
<csscriptdict>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
function CSClickReturn () {
var bAgent = window.navigator.userAgent;
var bAppName = window.navigator.appName;
if ((bAppName.indexOf("Explorer") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mozilla/3") >= 0) && (bAgent.indexOf("Mac") >= 0))
return true; /* dont follow link */
else return false; /* dont follow link */
}
CSStopExecution=false;
function CSAction(array) {return CSAction2(CSAct, array);}
function CSAction2(fct, array) {
var result;
for (var i=0;i<array.length;i++) {
if(CSStopExecution) return false;
var aa = fct[array[i]];
if (aa == null) return false;
var ta = new Array;
for(var j=1;j<aa.length;j++) {
if((aa[j]!=null)&&(typeof(aa[j])=="object")&&(aa[j].length==2)){
if(aa[j][0]=="VAR"){ta[j]=CSStateArray[aa[j][1]];}
else{if(aa[j][0]=="ACT"){ta[j]=CSAction(new Array(new String(aa[j][1])));}
else ta[j]=aa[j];}
} else ta[j]=aa[j];
}
result=aa[0](ta);
}
return result;
}
CSAct = new Object;
// OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004
if (typeof MPStoreOpenWin2 == "undefined") MPStoreOpenWin2 = new Array();
function MPOpenPopupLite(action) {
var posX = 0;
var posY = 0;
if (action[4] == true) {
posX = Math.round((screen.availWidth/2)-(action[2]/2));
posY = Math.round((screen.availHeight/2)-(action[3]/2));
} else {
posX = action[12];
posY = action[13];
}
if (action[16] == true) {

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[ritalinvillain]

please tell me that 'we also are intimately familiar' is meant to construe 'we have carnal knowledge'.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[kennygraham]

No wonder they want to keep it hidden. No doctype! I'd be ashamed too.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Sneeka2]

Apparently GoLive was though.

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

[InvalidError]

Our firm has handled 252 legal matters in the past two years

Three more cases to go and they'll gain a temporary geek credebility booster.

Re:Generated by a Tool for Tools

[sgartner]

Generated by:

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive">

So can they even lay claim to something generated by a tool?

From the statements on the web site any reasonable person can conclude that the entire web site was generated by a "tool" (regardless of what software he/she used to build the web site)?

Re:I'm 'wget' - come arrest me!

[complete loony]

If you're going to fill their logs, the least you could do is add inappropriate referrer urls.

"Why are we getting hits from this .... tub ... girl. You'd better check out this site so we can send a cease and desist letter."

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[maevius]

I went too just to look at the code. I looked at it for about 5 secs.

<p cass="bodyB">By using our website, you agree to the following:</p>

cass? Yes what about it?

Wouldn't it be a hoot if their site got hacked?

[KWTm]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone pwned their site and replaced little things? Maybe something that they probably wouldn't notice but prospective customers would read carefully and realize how full of it this firm is? Something like

"we also are intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry. In fact, our website gets updated by the hacking industry from time to time."

"We maintain records of IP addresses and other information contained in log files. Soon we will figure out how to actually look at those log files to see what information is contained there."

"We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission. In fact, you are not allowed to look at our web site without our permission. Hey, are you looking at this site right now? Stop that! Fine, our lawyers will be contacting you shortly."

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[Demiansmark]

Great, now we're all going to be sued

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[raehl]

/* The following function takes a single integer input, x, and returns an integer output, x + 4 */

int addFour ( int x ) {

    return (x - 4);

}

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[Esion Modnar]

i think they just need to get laid REALLY bad.

Funny. I was thinking the same thing. Only I was thinking they need to go get FUCKED.

Re:Now sue me. Pls !

[koweja]

Important Stuff

• ...
• Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated...

Indeed. It just never mentioned what direction to mod you.

Well, that means that...

[coppro]

I'm in ur homepage reading ur source. _

Re:You're in violation.. not linking

[pbhj]

They should use the special protection facility in apache:

"# apachectl stop"

it prevents people from linking to your content (at least via port 80) and stops them from viewing your source code. As a bonus it also cuts bandwidth bills.

Use it today! A better internet experience for all.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[Nazlfrag]

It just appears that way because it's logarithmic. 100 lawyers will net you 2 good ones, 1000 lawyers 3 good ones and so forth.

Re:they seem a bit stressed

[budgenator]

/* The following function takes a single integer input, x, and returns an integer output, x + 4 */
 
int addFour ( int x )
{
    return (x - 4294967292);
}

this should actually work on some machines and not others.

Re:dynamic html

[Anonymous Coward]

Misinterpretation of a quote != misquote.

But congratulations on doing a google search and posting a paragraph from the first page you found.

Re:These lawyers ought to know better

[Crayon Kid]

Stockholm syndrome.

Re:Cache-Control: no-render

[alx5000]

When viewing source is outlawed, only outlaws will view source!