Law Firm Uses Copyright Claim To Say You Can't View Its Website's HTML

[Anolonda]

Looks like it's time to update the privacy policy on my clients' sites.

[techdirt.com...]

[Marshall]

Well, I've looked at the markup for the front page.

I'm gonna tell! ;)

Marshall

[Lipik]

Is there a sign at the entrance of their office :
"Close your eyes before entering"?

[abbeyvet]

So, it's now pretty certain that vastly more people have now looked at the source of their pages than normally would. I looked at the code of dozens of them - come on, come get me! Nothing worth protecting there, certainly a lot in need of a tidy up, to put it mildly.

I'm no lawyer and I bow to their superior knowledge of the law, but it seems to me that putting silly stuff like this into the T&C dilutes the value of the entire thing.

[Brett_Tabke]

> silly

Pull out your copy of any microsoft software terms/license and have a read. Similar language has been in there since the 70's.

[Demaestro]

Brett you need to stop referencing a markup language as code... it is not.

Bold is a style of text... it is not code.

Table is a format.... it is not code.

Also text/html is a document type... again you incorrectly identify it as code. There is a huge difference.

I don't care what you say about soft agreements... that isn't what this is...

This is an implicit agreement.

It is pretty well known that implicit agreements don't work...

I am not a lawyer and I know that with great certainty. You would think they would know it as well.

They don't require you to review and agree to the terms before they present you with a page.

If I don't agree then it isn't legally binding.

[edited by: Demaestro at 5:47 pm (utc) on Oct. 23, 2007]