Google AutoLink Controversy
The technology of Google’s AutoLink is dangerous no doubt, and the idea of inserting ads into someone’s content without their permission seems a bit dubious at first glance. Recently though, I hadn’t thought about AutoLink’s possible incompatibility with the non-commercial Creative Commons license I used to use, until Tim Bray pointed it out.
I thought this was a terrible legal fumble on behalf of Google, but then I realized that this isn’t Google pushing this type of behavior on people. Consumers are clicking a button that essentially asks Google to “add value” to the content that they are reading. Whether or not that value is indeed valuable to users remains to be seen, but that’s not the point.
An author’s right to control a work extends only as far the recipient’s right to consume, annotate, and discuss the work. You can’t enforce nor expect me to not highlight and annotate your work, yet. You can’t expect me to refrain from asking another person of their opinion. The only difference between my annotation and discussion of content with peers and AutoLink, is that AutoLink users are asking a commercial entity for annotations with the assistance of software.
I concede though, that I don’t know how AutoLink is implemented. If it’s storing these pages with added links and re-serving them to the client, I’d be inclined to say Google’s in the wrong because they’re actually redistributing this content. If they’re simply modifying the html on my screen, then I see no problems.
William Frantz Said,
March 4, 2005 @ 5:24 pm
“If they’re simply modifying the html on my screen, then I see no problems.”
How is there any difference? From an end-user perception the effects are indistinguishable. A judge wouldn’t let Google hide in a technical loophole by claiming they modified the content on the user’s PC rather than on their servers. Either way you cut it, Google is modifying the content. If this action is deemed legal it will be because of something like “at the user’s request” rather than due to technical issues like where the bits are stored.
Let me point out, that Google may in fact be luring the end user into violating the terms of the CC. When users hit the AutoLink button, a copy of the content is “distributed” to google.com where it is analyzed. Did the user adhere to the CC? Was attribution given? Was it for non-commercial purposes? I could argue that sending content to Google so they can insert advertising (even if I’m the only reader) is a commercial purpose.
James Said,
March 5, 2005 @ 6:04 pm
I am not a lawyer and this comment does not constitute legal advice; read it and apply information contained therein at your own risk.
William: as far as I know, no copy of the page is ever “distributed”; the page isn’t sent to Google and no extra copies are made, so I find it hard to make an argument that the CC license is violated. You might have an argument that the copy resident in the user’s computer’s memory after AutoLinking is an infringing derivative work, but such an argument would make most, if not all, popular Firefox extensions illegal and would, at the very least, outlaw any browser which costs money or displays ads to the user (good-bye, Opera).
Tor Said,
March 7, 2005 @ 1:00 am
William, I’m sorry that you disagree with me on whether or not modification of downloaded content is a technical loophole, but I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree and let the courts settle it.
You claim “Google is modifying the content” but I think there is a significant difference between modifying/redistributing and someone modifying content using a program Google wrote. If modifying someone’s content, for personal use, with a program without the copyright holder’s permission IS wrong, then I think a whole class of browser accesibilty and development tools are then made illegal. Things like the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox, screen readers for the blind, and client-side stylesheets all now become suspect under that interpretation.