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Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

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Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if outline.com simply did a GET request on the source from the browser, stripped out paywalls and ads and served the content from the source server. Is that still copyright infringement?

That's basically what Brave does - web browser with a built-in adblocker. Or, for that matter, Chrome with any adblocking extension. It's not illegal, but it's not exactly popular with webmasters, and they're within their rights to block access to these browsers. In practice it tends to evolve into a cat-and-mouse game where adblockers block the ads, websites try to detect the adblockers and show you a pop-up encoura…

Brave does more than that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

Adblock Plus should fork its own web browser with built-in Acceptable Ads whitelisting. It'd be more honest than Brave.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#42

As others have said, the publishers opt in to it... but I wondert whether litigious photographers could argue that their contracts never indicated their photos could exist anywhere but on the specific domain in the contract.

In any case, that wouldn’t be google’s fault.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#43

One thing I've never seen addressed is the way AMP hijacks android Chrome behavior. It hides and then locks out the address/menu bar until the user scrolls all the way to the top of the page and then drags down again. If any other website is allowed to do this I haven't seen it and would love a way to disable it.

This one thing is the single biggest reason why I avoid AMP like plague. It's like this thing is designed with someone who does not know what tabbed browsing is in mind.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#44
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is disallowed by CORS/single origin policy

I think the OP stated a "what if", ie "What if CORS didn't exist?" I also think you could argue "What if outline loaded articles in an iframe?" (and at the same time "what if same-origin policy wasn't a thing?") If it was technologically possible, would it be infringing?

> If it was technologically possible

It's actually pretty easy, you can start chrome with --disable-web-security flag [1]

> I also think you could argue "What if outline loaded articles in an iframe?"

I'm sure this would be legal as it's equivalent to loading the site in a tab. The parent site wouldn't be able to manipulate any of the content/ads/paywalls/functionality, and the content site gets the full hit.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3102819/disable-same-ori...

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#45
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is disallowed by CORS/single origin policy

CORS is really just a security for embeded pages and elements. It's not intended and cannot enforce usage restrictions/rights since it requires the client (browesr) to honor the setting. If I wget a page and strip the text from it, I'm not embeding the page in any manner so CORS is irrelevant. The current 'aggrement' for respecting copyright (wether it would hold up in court even with a TOS is beyond my knowledge) is…

> If the request doesn't have the required cookie to access the full article, don't respond with the full page

The way outline.com works is by loading the article unsuspiciously once from their server, then serving it any number of times from their infrastructure. How would this stop that from happening?

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#46
post #3

Whether or not it is "technically" copyright infringement, it is going to be impossible for a publisher to argue that in court considering they themselves have to publish an AMP-compatible version of their page in the first place, and caching is sold as a core feature of AMP ( https://www.ampproject.org/learn/overview/ ).

Yup, feeding AMP to consumers is a lot different than, say, https://outline.com/ which is straight up copyright infringement.

Does anyone actually know who is running outline.com? Are they definitely infringing on copyrights or is that just a popular assumption?

I've been wondering for awhile, given how successful it is at navigating paywalls, if it might actually be run by the newspapers themselves as a way of attracting potential customers. Giving them content to keep them interested while guilting them into paying.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if outline.com simply did a GET request on the source from the browser, stripped out paywalls and ads and served the content from the source server. Is that still copyright infringement?

That's basically what Brave does - web browser with a built-in adblocker. Or, for that matter, Chrome with any adblocking extension. It's not illegal, but it's not exactly popular with webmasters, and they're within their rights to block access to these browsers. In practice it tends to evolve into a cat-and-mouse game where adblockers block the ads, websites try to detect the adblockers and show you a pop-up encoura…

Webmasters hate it when you do this but there’s nothing they can do to stop you

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#48
post #17
post #6

I think we are just all over thinking this stuff. The purpose of the web is to share things with other people.

> The purpose of the web is to share things with other people. How does that in any way remove the need for a sound legal framework defining the limits of IP rights for this use case? Do you think everything put on the web should be considered public domain?

> Do you think everything put on the web should be considered public domain?

In my personal opinion -- Emphatic yes. Copyright law is tyrannical and should be abolished.

If you don't want to serve the content then don't serve the content.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#49

Google also caches and serves everything else its robot finds, so if this was a problem it was already a problem long before AMP.

Caching can be disabled https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en

But per the wording "noarchive - Prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page" - and it seems likes it is technically just avoiding showing the cached link.

Re: Aren't AMP Caches committing copyright infringement?

#50
post #6

I think we are just all over thinking this stuff. The purpose of the web is to share things with other people.

Summer child, the web is to extract money from consumers for benefit of property owners. If it was about sharing copyright law would not apply.
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