Lex 8256: The Law in Cyberspace
Seminar
Linking, framing and hosting: copyright and fair use on the Web
Start by reading Kelly
v. Arriba Soft Corp., 280 F.3d 934 (9th
Cir. 2002). (In order to understand the issues, you'll do well to review
sections 106
& 107
of the Copyright Act, which you read for last week's class. If you
want more copyright-law background, Terry Carroll's FAQ is a good resource.)
Now spend a little time at Google
Image Search. Can Google offer this service, consistently with
the Copyright Act as the Ninth Circuit understands it? Is it sufficient
that Google will remove
images from its database on demand? Read the Electronic Frontier Foundation's
amicus
brief on rehearing. Who has the better of the argument?
National Public Radio has its own issues with linking,
reported here
and here.
Does it have a point?
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine collects over 10
billion publicly available web pages dating from various moments from 1996
to the present. Read the press release here, and the
FAQ here.
Go to the Wayback Machine and play
around; see what various web pages looked like when they were younger.
Is this legal?
Optional: For more than you want to know about linking
and framing controversies, see Stephan Bechtold's Link Controversy
Page.