[Upd-discuss] Re: Copyright when taking offline copies of websites.

[Andrius Kulikauskas]

Ricardo, This is an excellent idea and I will try to include it in our 
debates!  Andrius

ricardoolpc wrote:
> Andrius
>
> in recent messages, you mentioned working on Intellectual Property 
> Rights issues, Creative Commons, Public Domain, etc.
>
> I'd be interested to know what you think about IPR issues if we want 
> distribute complete copies of websites by Sneakernet, on CD, flash-
> drive, etc. 
>
> I think it would be useful if there was some clear way to identify 
> those websites where the owner/copyright holder has given permission 
> for people to take a complete copy of the website, using an offline-
> browser/copier program like HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/ ). 
>
> It could be indicated by some sort of 'Logo', such as 'OK to Copy 
> offline', perhaps with a clickable link to a full legal statement.
>
> Do you know what sort of copyright-license would be relevant to this? 
>
> Would it be all sorts of different licenses, not just one? 
>
> Is it unrelated to the type of license, just a question of the owner 
> giving written permission?
>
> Is it re-inventing the wheel, when an existing license or mechanism 
> already covers offline copying?
>
> This Logo mechanism would give anyone full permission to copy the site 
> to offline media, without each person having to apply separately to 
> the owner, to get written permission.
>
> The scheme would need a publicity-drive, to promote it.
>
>
> There are some issues that would need to be considered :-
>
> 1. An offline copy is just a snapshot at one point in time, so a CD 
> copy could become out-of-date. This is especially important if it's a 
> commercial website and contains adverts or price-lists for products, 
> time-limited special offers, etc. 
>
> 2. What happens about any pay-per-click adverts, such as Google 
> Adwords or Amazon Affiliates? If someone is using the CD copy on a PC 
> with no internet-access, then it can't report 'false clicks' for out-
> of-date adverts. However, if someone uses an old CD copy of a website 
> when they do have internet-access, it may register a click on an out-
> of-date advert and charge the website owner for the click, but take 
> the user to an expired offer page, or a product that is now at a 
> different price to the advert.
>
> It's tempting to take the easy way out and say "Well, we'll only 
> operate the offline website scheme for free public domain information 
> sites", but they aren't the most interesting sites, that people 
> actually want to look at. Many people would like to browse through 
> commercial sites offline, even if they are a few weeks old. We could 
> look at technical-means to deal with this pay-per-click problem.
>
> 3. For websites with multiple contributors, such as forums, the 
> website would have to say that ordinary users are either placing their 
> messages in the public domain, so that anyone can take a copy of their 
> contribution, or maintaining ownership under another license, but 
> giving their consent to copying their contributions. It may be 
> relevant to photo-sharing sites, shareware sites, etc.
>
> Anyway, I just wanted to float the idea of an 'OK to copy Offline' 
> Logo, to see what you think of the idea and how it relates to IPR and 
> different licences.
>
> Ricardo
>