NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Peter Bull's hypothetical
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Peter Bull's hypothetical
Peter Bull (peterb_at_dvp.com.au)
Thu, 27 Nov 1997 09:33:51 +1100
This response is directed mainly to Mark Welch, because I have been taken
to task by Mark and others who think that what I proposed earlier is highly
illegal and constitutes gross breaches of site owners copyrights.
Thank you for your comments Mark, but please don't think that it is my
intention to deliberately subvert the laws that protect intellectual
property rights or to encourage others to do so, by ripping off legitimate
revenue belonging to others through technically possible though illegal
means.
My intention was primarily to point out the inability of web "publishers"
(and I will persist in calling them that in inverted commas) to control the
reliable delivery of advertising messages that are inserted into content at
the site server end of the long chain of delivery to the end consumer. I
also intended to assert that because they have no direct relationship with
any of the consumers of their content, then most of them have no business
taking money off advertisers in the first place.
In my view content producers who make their content globally accessible to
all and sundry on the web have a very poor story to tell advertisers whose
money they want to take.
On the other hand, an ISP who has detailed knowledge of all the subscribers
in a local area and who can guarantee access to those subscribers every
time they log on, and can prove that the advertisements they have been paid
to display have actually been displayed, to those users and to no others,
and for measured and reported amounts of time, has a very convincing story
to tell.
I also find it hard to imagine why you would be so sure that what I
proposed is likely to be internationally illegal, when my legal advisers
have assured me that it most definitely is not.
Roughly, but not solely on these grounds:
1. Copyright certainly exists in the components that make up any web
page, including the banner or button ads.
2. Publishing a web page on an open server puts the content in the
public domain in terms of the right to view - ie the material is freely
available to any viewer who voluntarily chooses to access it and there is
no obligation on the part of the viewer to download any, or all of the
page, if they choose not to.
3. It is standard practice that a web browser allows the user a degree
of control over whether to display graphics or not when accessing a web
page - ie there is no obligation overt or implied to accept the page in its
entirety or not at all.
4. The size of the window and the screen resolution and the choice of
fonts and choice of palette which the user's browser is configured with can
dramatically alter the appearance of the web pages presentation on the
screen, thereby further compromising the integrity of the material as it
was ideally intended to be seen when first published.
5. All of the above compromises are accepted by web publishers and
they knowingly accept that they have no control over the particular browser
used by the viewer, or its configuration.
6. A browser may be legitimately configured to selectively display
certain types of graphic material and not others - for instance, to block
graphics above a certain size or of particular standard dimensions, or to
reject any page components including HTML text that may be judged to
contain offensive or inappropriate material. This is not a breach of
copyright.
7. Because a browser can display complete or partial web pages into a
frame, other material can be displayed on the same screen at the same time
and associated with that content, as long as there is no intent to mislead.
Similarly, selected elements of web pages can be addressed directly by
their URL and viewed in isolation of their normal context or in concert
with other material at the same time. None of these uses of publicly
accessible material are breaches of the copyright the publisher retains.
I am amused when you say that some web publishers might "allow" local
advertising to co-exist with their content in return for some appropriate
compensation. Your content is FREE already. You don't charge anyone for
access to it, you provide it on demand to anyone who requests it. Where is
the contract, where is the consideration, where are the conditions of use
that I have a priori agreed to that restrict me from displaying your free
content alongside my advertising? How can I be pirating something that you
are giving away for nothing, without viewing condition restrictions
attached? I have no responsibility to ensure you get a return for your
investment in content, that is your concern. Do I think that there might
be less content published if being supported through advertising was less
viable? Possibly, but that might force content producers to find a better
and more realistic way to make a profit on their activities, and that may
be no bad thing. Like making content that was valuable enough to be worth
paying for, or worth an ISP buying the republishing rights for.
You say you would not permit certain types of advertisements to be inserted
into your site. But they would not be inserted into your site, they would
be displayed on part of the end user's screen. It is only your site when
it is on your server. Once parts of it have been served up by you on
request, it is then only a series of media components which might or might
not ultimately be displayed in some form or other on somebody else's screen
over which you have absolutely no control. You can claim to be very
protective of the editorial integrity of your material, but you are not
able to deliver on that claim.
When you charge an advertiser for displaying their message, can you be sure
that it was in fact fully downloaded and displayed? No. Can you know if
your ad was in a part of the page that was scrolled off the screen and
therefore never seen by the viewer at all? No. Can you know how long the
ad was visible on the screen, or whether the viewer was active during that
time or not? No again.
All the above says web "publishers" have almost no control over how, when,
or in what context their material is viewed once they make it browser
accessible by anyone in the world. Admittedly, those viewers have no right
to republish it in the same or any other form, but they can look at it any
damn way they please. Which means that my customers don't have to see your
ads if they don't want to. And they can allow me to show them my ads and
put them on the same screen if they wish, and at the same time as your
material is being displayed in some form or other on the same screen,
because they own the screen. And no copyright breach occurs. And you
won't know when it happens, and you can't stop it if you do.
And that's not, as you implied, stealing a web site's profits, we are
talking about two separate transactions here. You charge someone a long
way away for a service you cannot deliver, and I charge someone else
entirely who is very much closer to my customer for a service that I can.
Oh, and thank you all for the free content that makes it all possible.
Peter Bull
Director, DVP Media Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Australia
peterb_at_dvp.com.au
For samples of DVP's most recent work, see:
The world's best online wine store - www.thegrape.com.au
Australian Provincial Newspapers Classifieds - www.checkoutclassifieds.com.au
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