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.'"

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

[AceCaseOR]

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

Re:Content?

[Typoboy]

Sorry to bring logic into this, but I am really curious if they understand that their "HTML Source" has to be transferred to the user machine in order to display their page?

This is why law needs a "duh" clause

[CaptainPatent]

They have placed HTML (an interpreted language) in public space to be viewed by people visiting their site.
If this were source code of some sort where users were supposed to be separated from the code then they may have ground to stand on, but the point is the exact text of their web page must be read and interpreted and is granted freely as such.
Hopefully this will bring the judge to the final ruling of: "duh!"

Re:Apropo legal responce

[polymath69]

Can some one find the British legal responce that essentially equates to telling the other party to "Fuck off" in so many words?

"We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram" [wikipedia.org].

Re:If you don't want anyone to view

[radiumhahn]

I choose to use my first ammendment right.

To quote their internet publication:

"Instead of telling you that you cannot use someone else's trademark in website tags or content, we can explain how you can use it legitimately. Instead of using a contract that might overstate your results, we can help you draft agreements that will minimize the ability of unreasonable clients to get their money back (unless you want to offer a money back guarantee). "

- source link [cybertriallawyer.com]

I am inclined to think these lawyers are scumbags. Welcome to America asswipes!

some telltale phrases, eula by and for fanboys.

[clsours]

This EULA and website is by and for fanboys.
intimately familiar with the "hacking" industry
What hacking industry?
We make no representations, express or implied, concerning the functionality, security, or technical integrity of the button, and while the button is hosted by you and merely links to our site, we still provide the button solely on an "as is" basis.
The phrase "the button" is defined two paragraphs later, and poorly at that.
We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws.
Very very disingenuous. Copyright law protects against....COPYING! (not viewing; ever heard of this new technology called THE PRINTED WORD?). Also it is nearly universally refered to as copyright law, not "the copyright laws"
Dozier Internet Law, P.C. obviously has the capability to immediately react to such misappropriation,
The word obviously has no legal value, and is out of place in an EULA. The whole point of an EULA is to make an agreement explicit in every detail.
Of course, we do not sell any of the information collected on our website.
Again "Of course" has no place in an EULA
Businesses of the Internet, hear my cry: Do not use 15 year olds as your legal counsel!

Another thing: Trade Secret.

[clsours]

The only Intellectual Property law that would permit Dozier Internet law to keep their source secret is "Trade Secret" protection, and they explicitly remove themselves from this protection with this phrase: "We don't presently conduct e-commerce activities in the sense of accepting registrations or providing private access to a protected area of our website." Trade Secret protection explicitly requires access to such secrets to be limited, authorized, and secure. Dozier, you struck out.

Re:Another thing: Trade Secret.

[cpt kangarooski]

copyright could be used to prevent copying and distribution of the source, but viewing the source would not be protected by copyright.

Not directly, but it is possible to put conditions on the making of copies of the pages, and all people browsing the net necessarily make copies in order to do so. The issue would be whether they had managed to accomplish this and that they were even trying.

Copyright, Service Mark, Trademark, and Patent IP rights are secured by the US government. Securing your IP rights involves registering the content of your IP with the USPTO. The only copyright they cold claim on viewing the source of their code (even at the loosest reading of copyright law) would be any pages that are not in the first 10 or last 10 pages of code for each copyrighted work.

That's not really accurate.

There are federal and state copyrights; there are federal and state marks; there are federal patents (AFAIK no states offer state patents, though they could to the degree it wouldn't be preempted; probably not interesting to them, though). Registering copyrights involves the US Copyright Office, not the PTO, and the scope of protection really has nothing whatsoever to do with the amazingly stupid deposit rules they've set up of late.

Re:Content?

[StikyPad]

Maybe because they could never find out the results? There's no way for a server to distinguish whether a client is viewing the source or the rendered page.

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

[deniable]

Their robots.txt says something different:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Backup
Disallow: /Form
Disallow: /acl_users
Disallow: /MailHost
Disallow: /test
Disallow: /test1

Is this a shopping list or what?

Re:dynamic html

[olddaedalus]

Actually, an exceptional level of congratulations are in order, as this subthread's OP has neglected to actually *read* the page he has linked to. The page at spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html [spectacle.org]) that debrain cites as evidence instead contends that his interpretation is laughably incorrect, and the result of an attempt to turn a Shakespearean frown upside down. If you'll scroll down, the author later contends,

DICK.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

The audience must have doubled over in laughter at this. Far from "eliminating those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution" or portraying lawyers as "guardians of independent thinking", it's offered as the best feature imagined of yet for utopia. It's hilarious. A very rough and simplistic modern translation would be "When I'm the King, there'll be two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot" "AND NO LAWYERS". It's a clearly lawyer-bashing joke.

Now, I'm all for defending the lawyers and sophisters - I hope to become one, soon enough - but I had to laugh when I realized that debrain's argument of a misquote was "supported" by a misquote of its own.

Neat, how that works.

Re:Akin to leaving your front door unlocked?

[rtb61]

It is really annoying when people try to disable right click, some idiot message pops up on the screen, which you have to cancel prior to gaining the right click menu. Under firefox of course Tools, Options, 'Content tab', Enable Java Script(should be on but do use http://noscript.net/ [noscript.net]), Advanced, Diasble or Replace context menus (make sure it is un-ticked). My browser, not your browser, my browser ;).

Re:...and they are hosting p0rn!

[Anonymous Coward]

they finally figured out this was open and shut it off
dumbasses....