[VPM] link 'bot' protection

[Darren Duncan]

mock wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 04:57:39PM -0800, Jer A wrote:
> Watermarking - You can seed your data with unique fingerprints that can be
> identified by you.  Bonus points if you make the watermark findable using the
> Google bot so you can use Google to find your leeches and then sue them for
> copyright violation.  The flaws are that once people find out about your
> watermarks, they're always trivial to remove.  Depending on who is leeching 
> your data, copyright law might be useless anyway (good luck suing in China).
> 
> AUP - You can publish an acceptable use policy and threaten to sue anyone who
> breaks it.  This might work, assuming they're in a jurisdiction where you can
> enforce it, and you have deep enough pockets to make it stick.  And assuming
> you can identify who's doing it.  This works well for data you don't want
> republished (copyright law is fairly universal and well understood by
> providers) but sucks for things like white papers, where you're attempting to
> control exclusivity.

Jeremy, I don't know what the content of your website is, but copyright law may 
not necessarily protect it, depending on the content and how the robots' masters 
make use of what they pull.

Copyright law only protects creative expressions, such as the exact sentences 
you write in a description paragraph, or the visual arrangement of the 
information (if the latter isn't simple and obvious).

By contrast, if the content is simply data without creative expression, for 
example a phone book with names, addresses, and phone numbers, then anyone can 
take that and make their own phone book, and this is perfectly legal by 
copyright law (and by rationality).

You can't copyright facts, only creative expressions based on said facts.

So, say if you have a website with a catalog and written reviews of products or 
services, someone can copy the names and prices etc of the products, but you can 
only go after them on copyright if, say, they copy the written review paragraphs 
as well.

Also, while you can post a terms of services document, all those can do is 
communicate your desires but it doesn't give you a legal leg to stand on against 
people using facts from your site.  Simply using a website that one doesn't have 
to login to is not a contractual matter, and visitors are not bound by any 
contact as they haven't signed such.  A TOS is not a contract.  I think a TOS is 
only enforceable if people have to login to an account to get access to 
something, and that something isn't otherwise available to the public.  And even 
then, a TOS may be voided by other laws depending what it demands.

-- Darren Duncan