The
act
of
viewing
a
web
page
is
a
complex
interaction
between
a
user's
browser
and
any
number
of
web
servers.
Unlike
reading
a
book,
viewing
a
web
page
involves
copying
the
data
held
on
the
servers
onto
the
user's
computer,
if
only
temporarily.
Logic
encoded
within
the
page
may
cause
more
copying
to
take
place
—
of
images,
videos
and
other
files,
place,
perhaps
from
other
servers,
that
are
servers.
The
combined
material
may
be
displayed
or
otherwise
used
within
the
original
page
—
often
without
the
user's
explicit
knowledge
or
consent.
For
an
end
user,
it
is
usually
impossible
to
tell
whether
a
given
image
or
video
displayed
within
a
page
originates
from
the
server
the
page
comes
from
or
from
some
other
location.
1.1
2.1
Background
Many
content
publishers
and
other
entities
have
sought
seek
to
control
the
use
of
their
content
on
the
Web.
In
some
cases,
they
have
employed
employ
means
that
do
not
take
into
account
the
Web's
true
architecture,
and
they
have
do
not
used
use
the
technical
mechanisms
available
to
them.
A
few
illustrative
examples
are
provided
as
background
below.
Licenses
that
describe
how
material
may
be
copied
and
altered
by
others
tend
not
to
distinguish
between
a
proxy
compressing
a
web
page
to
make
it
load
faster
and
someone
editing
and
republishing
the
page
on
their
own
website.
To
illustrate,
the
Creative
Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs
defines
the
terms
(emphasis
added):
-
Adaptation
-
means
a
work
based
upon
the
Work,
or
upon
the
Work
and
other
pre-existing
works,
such
as
a
translation,
adaptation,
derivative
work
,
arrangement
of
music
or
other
alterations
of
a
literary
or
artistic
work,
or
phonogram
or
performance
and
includes
cinematographic
adaptations
or
any
other
form
in
which
the
Work
may
be
recast,
transformed,
or
adapted
including
in
any
form
recognizably
derived
from
the
original,
except
that
a
work
that
constitutes
a
Collection
will
not
be
considered
an
Adaptation
for
the
purpose
of
this
License.
For
the
avoidance
of
doubt,
where
the
Work
is
a
musical
work,
performance
or
phonogram,
the
synchronization
of
the
Work
in
timed-relation
with
a
moving
image
("synching")
will
be
considered
an
Adaptation
for
the
purpose
of
this
License.
-
Distribute
-
means
to
make
available
to
the
public
the
original
and
copies
of
the
Work
through
sale
or
other
transfer
of
ownership
.
-
Reproduce
-
means
to
make
copies
of
the
Work
by
any
means
including
without
limitation
by
sound
or
visual
recordings
and
the
right
of
fixation
and
reproducing
fixations
of
the
Work,
including
storage
of
a
protected
performance
or
phonogram
in
digital
form
or
other
electronic
medium.
Consider
Consider,
now,
the
following
questions:
-
Does
using
the
automatic
Google
Translate
service
(which
can
be
invoked
automatically
within
Chrome)
count
as
an
"adaptation"
of
a
Work,
given
that
it's
a
translation,
or
is
it
only
non-automated
translations
that
would
count?
-
When
a
document
is
made
available
on
a
website,
the
original
owner
still
retains
their
copy
—
copy,
it
is
not
transferred
—
,
so
does
this
count
as
"distribution"?
-
If
someone
accesses
a
document
released
under
this
license
on
the
web,
it
has
to
be
copied
onto
their
machine
in
order
to
be
displayed;
does
this
mean
anyone
accessing
the
document
"reproduces"
it?
Terms
and
Conditions
statements
on
websites
also
list
acceptable
and
unacceptable
behaviour
behavior
on
a
site,
with
any
browsing
on
the
site
implicitly
indicating
acceptance
of
the
terms.
These
generally
do
not
take
into
account
the
behaviour
behavior
of
proxies.
For
instance,
one
standard
set
of
Terms
and
Conditions
includes:
You
may
view,
download
for
caching
purposes
only
,
and
print
pages
from
the
website
for
your
own
personal
use,
subject
to
the
restrictions
set
out
below
and
elsewhere
in
these
terms
of
use.
You
must
not:
(a)
republish
material
from
this
website
(including
republication
on
another
website);
(b)
sell,
rent
or
sub-license
material
from
the
website;
(c)
show
any
material
from
the
website
in
public;
(d)
reproduce,
duplicate,
copy
or
otherwise
exploit
material
on
our
website
for
a
commercial
purpose;
(e)
edit
or
otherwise
modify
any
material
on
the
website
;
or
(f)
redistribute
material
from
this
website
except
for
content
specifically
and
expressly
made
available
for
redistribution
(such
as
our
newsletter)
It
is
not
possible
to
view
material
on
the
web
without
it
being
downloaded
onto
your
computer,
so
forbidding
downloading
except
for
caching
purposes
essentially
means
that
people
cannot
view
the
page.
In
addition,
many
proxies
automatically
transform
the
documents
that
pass
through
them,
for
example
to
compress
them
so
that
they
take
up
less
bandwidth
for
mobile
consumption
or
to
introduce
advertisments
into
pages
that
are
accessed
free
of
charge.
Should
this
be
prohibited?
Limits
placed
on
the
use
of
a
website
often
include
limitations
on
automatic
indexing
of
the
website,
without
exceptions
for
search
engines
that
make
the
website
discoverable
or
archives
that
ensure
its
longevity.
For
example,
the
same
set
of
terms
and
conditions
as
described
quoted
above
includes:
goes
on
to
say:
You
must
not
conduct
any
systematic
or
automated
data
collection
activities
(including
without
limitation
scraping,
data
mining,
data
extraction
and
data
harvesting)
on
or
in
relation
to
our
website
without
our
express
written
consent.
Search
engines
rely
on
systematic
data
collection
from
websites
in
order
to
provide
users
with
accurate
search
results,
and
archives
do
so
in
order
to
retain
websites
for
posterity.
So,
these
terms
and
conditions,
if
adhered
to
strictly,
put
the
website
out
of
the
reach
of
search
engines
and
hence
makes
it
undiscoverable;
surely
this
is
not
in
the
best
interest
of
the
website.
Another
problem
is
that
automated
agents
—
webcrawlers,
spiders
and
robots
—
(webcrawlers,
spiders,
robots)
that
gather
information
from
the
web
are
unable
to
read
these
terms
and
conditions;
the
only
things
they
understand
are
the
technical
signals
that
a
website
provides
about
what
is
permitted.
See
more
on
this
below.
As
another
example,
the
terms
and
conditions
for
gsig.com
include:
Use
of
Materials:
Upon
your
agreement
to
the
Terms,
GSI
grants
you
the
right
to
view
the
site
and
to
download
materials
from
this
site
for
your
personal,
non-commercial
use.
You
are
not
authorized
to
use
the
materials
for
any
other
purpose.
If
you
do
download
or
otherwise
reproduce
the
materials
from
this
Site,
you
must
reproduce
all
of
GSI’s
GSI?s
proprietary
markings,
such
as
copyright
and
trademark
notices,
in
the
same
form
and
manner
as
the
original.
...
You
may
not
use
any
“deep-link”,
“page-scrape”,
“robot”,
“spider”
"deep-link",
"page-scrape"?,
"robot",
"spider"
or
any
other
automatic
device,
program,
algorithm
or
methodology
or
any
similar
or
equivalent
manual
process
to
access,
acquire,
copy
or
monitor
any
portion
of
the
Site
or
any
of
its
content,
or
in
any
way
reproduce
or
circumvent
the
navigational
structure
or
presentation
of
the
Site.
However,
It
would
be
simpler
and
more
effective
for
the
site
does
not
to
use
the
primary
technical
method
of
actually
means
for
controlling
what
webcrawlers,
spiders
or
robots
access
on
the
site,
namely
a
robots.txt
file
which
is
a
set
of
machine
processable
instructions
instructing
automated
web
agents
what
thay
can
and
cannot
do.
They
could
also
exempt
automated
web
agents
from
the
Terms
and
Conditions
as
discussed
below.
Many
sites
have
a
linking
policy
that
limits
what
links
can
be
made
to
the
site
from
other
sites.
These
conditions
are
not
backed
up
through
relatively
simple
technical
mechanisms
that
would
prevent
such
links
from
being
made.
For
example,
the
website
at
quotec.co.uk
has
a
linking
policy
that
includes:
Links
pointing
to
this
website
should
not
be
misleading.
Appropriate
link
text
should
be
always
be
used.
From
time
to
time
we
may
update
the
URL
structure
of
our
website,
and
unless
we
agree
in
writing
otherwise,
all
links
should
point
to
http://www.quotec.co.uk.
You
must
not
use
our
logo
to
link
to
this
website
(or
otherwise)
without
our
express
written
permission.
You
must
not
link
to
this
website
using
any
inline
linking
technique.
You
must
not
frame
the
content
of
this
website
or
use
any
similar
technology
in
relation
to
the
content
of
this
website.
Technically
it
is
straightforward
to
prevent
linking
to
pages
that
the
website
does
not
want
others
to
link
to:
you
simply
do
not
give
these
pages
URLs
or
make
the
URLs
undiscoverable.
This
is
likely
to
be
more
effective
than
asking
people
to
read
and
adhere
to
the
Terms
and
Conditions.
Section
4.
Techniques
discusses
several
Several
techniques
for
controlling
linking
and
inclusion.
inclusion
are
discussed
in
section
6.
Techniques
.
Legislation
that
governs
the
possession
and
distribution
of
unlawful
material
(such
as
child
pornography,
information
that
is
under
copyright
or
material
that
is
legally
suppressed
through
a
gag
order
)
often
needs
to
exempt
certain
types
of
services,
such
as
caching
or
hosting,
as
it
would
be
impractical
for
the
people
running
those
such
services
to
police
all
the
material
that
passes
through
their
servers.
This
does
not,
however,
always
happen
and
intermediaries
are
often
held
accountable
for
material
that
did
not
originate
with
them
and
have
no
control
over.
An
example
of
good
legislation
that
does
this
in
exempt
intermediaries
the
UK
is
the
Coroners
and
Justice
Act
2009
Schedule
13
;
from
the
Explanatory
Notes
(emphasis
added):
Paragraphs
3
to
5
of
[Schedule
13]
provide
exemptions
for
internet
service
providers
from
the
offence
of
possession
of
prohibited
images
of
children
in
limited
circumstances,
such
as
where
they
are
acting
as
mere
conduits
for
such
material
or
are
storing
it
as
caches
or
hosts
.
Examples
of
the
kind
of
legal
questions
that
have
arisen
with
respect
to
publishing
and
linking
on
the
Web
are:
Is
it
unlawful
to
link
to
a
page
that
contains
unlawful
material?
Is
it
unlawful
to
embed
unlawful
material
within
a
page?
See
http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/dhscomplaint/
.
Does
embedding
an
image
that
you
do
not
have
a
license
to
copy
within
a
web
page
constitute
a
copyright
infringement?
Does
creating
a
thumbnail
version
of
that
image
constitute
a
copyright
infringement?
Perfect
10,
Inc.
v.
Amazon.com,
Inc.
If
a
proxy
automatically
rewrites
scripts
to
combine
and
compress
them,
changes
markup
in
the
page
or
compresses
images,
are
these
classed
as
adaptations
of
the
original
material?
If
a
browser
uses
an
online
service
to
translate
the
text
of
a
web
page,
is
this
classed
as
an
adaptation
of
that
web
page?
Can
linking
to
a
page
that
contains
defamatory
material
constitute
libel?
See
Canada
Supreme
Court:
Hyperlinks
cannot
libel
(BBC)
.
The
Wikipedia
page
on
Copyright
aspects
of
hyperlinking
and
framing
discusses
these
and
several
other
examples.
1.2
Scope
of
this
Document
This
document
does
not
aim
to
address
whether
particular
activities
on
the
web
are
illegal
or
legal;
this
is
outside
the
scope
of
the
TAG.
Instead,
it
aims
to:
provide
an
explanation
of
the
way
that
material
is
published
on
the
web
to
help
inform
people
writing
licenses
and
legislation
provide
definitions
of
terms
related
to
web
publishing
and
linking
that
may
be
useful
within
licenses
and
legislation
describe
the
technical
measures
that
websites
can
take
to
reinforce
any
restrictions
that
they
place
on
the
use
of
content
they
make
available
on
the
web
describe
the
mechanisms
by
which
websites
that
reuse
material
can
ensure
they
meet
known
restrictions
on
the
use
of
that
material,
for
example
through
attribution
