Another fun DMCA case [LWN.net]

Another fun DMCA case

Posted Jul 13, 2005 5:42 UTC (Wed) by ksmathers (guest, #2353)
In reply to: Another fun DMCA case by JoeF
Parent article: Another fun DMCA case

Not reading the robots.txt would be hard to show to be a violation, since you can't circumvent something you don't recognize in the first place. If on the other hand my web log indicates that you pulled down robots.txt and then proceeded to access locations that were restricted for your client then that be like accessing any computer or site without authorization. Copies obtained under those circumstances would probably be considered unlicensed and if in discovery I could show that you had source code for a hacked version of 'wget' to ignore the results of the robots.txt file, then I could probably get you for the DMCA violation as you have taken affirmative steps to bypass an effective technological copy prevention mechanism in order to copy my site.

Reading through the complaint, I'm guessing that the company in question somehow thought that the change to their robots.txt file would be instantaneous and were surprised when the content was still available from archive.org the next day. There is a way to push a request for deletion to Archive, but it is by e-mail request, not by use of the robots.txt file.

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Another fun DMCA case

Posted Jul 13, 2005 17:04 UTC (Wed) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

> If on the other hand my web log indicates that you pulled down robots.txt
> and then proceeded to access locations that were restricted for your client
> then that be like accessing any computer or site without authorization.

Nonsense. robots.txt doesn't imply authorization. It has nothing to do with access controls. If you don't want pages on your site read then put access controls in place or remove the content.