Alan writes: >What legal basis could Apple have to prevent people posting LINKS to THEIR >OWN website?
This is one of the important undecided legal questions of the day. It goes hand-in-hand with the "deep linking" controversy. According to a piece in Wired <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51887,00.html> linking anywhere besides a site's home page may violate trademark and copyright law. May. Or may not. The courts haven't decided yet. I'm of the opinion that every page on the Web that's available to the public without using a password invites linking simply by being there, but I am not a lawyer. I think it's unethical for a site to say, "Please don't link to anything but our home page," or even worse, "You may not link to our site at all without explicit permission to do so." If the information is freely accessible to the public, I believe I am doing them a favor by providing a link to content on their site -- some of them apparently disagree. Is Apple within their rights to insist that FTP links to service docs not be published? Yes, and they are equally within their rights to move that proprietary, possibly confidential, and copyrighted information as necessary to protect it. Yes, they shouldn't put it on a server that allows anonymous FTP. That's just asking for trouble. Those service docs are invaluable, especially for those of us keeping old unsupported Macs up and running. But that's Apple's decision to make. Free speech may allow you to publish the links, but the law also makes you responsible if those links violate the rights of a person or corporation. One way we manage to avoid responsibility for such information, should it ever be posted on one of our lists, is by running an unmoderated list. That makes this a public forum, since messages are not read or approved before they are distributed to list subscribers. (If we had a screening process, this would be considered a private forum, and we would be liable along with the person posting such information.) As others have suggested, if you know where the manuals are, please don't post the information here. Apple will find out and move the files again. Nobody benefits when that happens. Dan Knight, president, Cobweb Publishing, Inc. <http://cobwebpublishing.com> <http://lowendmac.com> <http://digital-views.com> <http://digigraphica.com> <http://lowendpc.com> <http://reformed.net> Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -- Rich Cook -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
