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Links: How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks?
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Sunday, October 26 @ 15:00:08 EST Copyright
Diebold, that notorious manufacturer of dodgy electronic-voting machines and of dodgy cease-and-desist letters, is making trouble for academics again. After the leak of some internal memos, they started firing off cease-and-desist letters, claiming it was copyright infringement to make available copies of the memos.

Students at Swarthmore College, offended by Diebold's censorious tactics, decided to engage in an "electronic civil disobedience" by hosting the files and by linking to sites hosting the files. Swarthmore has responded by shutting off the Internet access of any student linking to the site with the leaked memos as part of the disobedience. (Never mind the strong public-interest fair use reply; why should we expect a college to stand up for the public interest or for open discussion?)

Let's see. Can't host the files. Can't link to the files. Can't link to a site with the files. Where will the madness end? This is the Internet. Hyperlinking doesn't supply easy dividing lines, and when you start telling people what they can and can't link, you start murderizing the Web.

More inside, including a BANNED hyperlink . . .

Here's a link to a site with the memos. At Swarthmore, posting that link would be enough for me to have my internet access revoked.

Here's a link to a site that links to a site with the memos. Is that wrong? We're talking one mouse click and a few seconds reading more than just linking straight to the Why War site. Would Swarthmore boot me for that?

Here's a link to a site that links to a site that links to a site with the memos. Is three hops enough for you?

Here's a link to a site that links to a site that links to a site that links to a site with the memos. Far enough? I don't know. I mean, with some searching and clicking, you could still retrace your way through the above trail.

Here's a link to a site that links to a site that links to a site that links to a site that links to a site with the memos. Whoops, that's the Diebold home page.

 
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Re: How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Sunday, October 26 @ 15:51:02 EST
When is a rock heavy? I don't know, but a 100 pound boulder clearly is, for most purposes. Just because the five-link example is absurd does not mean the one-link example is.


[ Reply to This ]


Re: How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, October 27 @ 18:49:09 EST
Universities need to be a little careful about this type of response.

I am Class of 65, University of California at Berkeley, and believe me I know how fast a war can start over nothing.

A couple of students set up a bridge table at Sather Gate to hand out brochures (I do not think anyone today remembers what was in the brochures or why some bureaucrat did not like them).


Somebody pushed, someone else shoved, and the nest thing you know you have national headlines and a reputation that may last a century.

Students have a great deal of energy offset by a proportionate amount of poor judgement. Unite that combination with a preceived just cause and that school could be in for an administration change.

I saw it happen. Ask Clark Kerr about censorship.

Tom


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Re: How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 29 @ 10:33:20 EST
Isn't linking, in this case, analogous to talking about something that is allegedly 'illegal'?

There are limitation to the freedom of speech, but whether I recite these memos verbatum (yes, I have a great memory) to someone, or putting them on a website, where is the difference? The thoughts and ideas are still being passed along, but one doesn't suffer from the whisper done the lane effect.

I see little difference from people talking about this subject in person and talking about this on the 'net. Unless it's simply because on the 'net it's easier to track down who's saying things you don't like.


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Try this :) (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 29 @ 11:45:06 EST
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/mrk6/disobey/

(includes a nice little recursiveness when posted to LawMeme).

If you buy into the whole 6-degrees thing, then I suspect that banning links the same length as mine (which is could easily be up to 9 or 10 hops, depending on what you pick from here) would effectively lop off a huge portion of the internet.

--Matt Krause



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Re: How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, November 12 @ 00:08:33 EST
Here's a head scratcher. If I plug "diebold memos" into Google, the first twenty or so results are links either directly to the memos, or to websites that refence the memos.

So, is any search engine by definition in violation of the law?


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