<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/11/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Gabe Rubin</b> <<a href="mailto:gaberubin@gmail.com">gaberubin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 9/11/07, Richard Freeman <<a href="mailto:r-mythtv@thefreemanclan.net">r-mythtv@thefreemanclan.net</a>> wrote:<br>> Chris Petersen wrote:<br>> ><br>> > The website owners, copyright owners and copyright licensees have the
<br>> > right to restrict the methods by which people access the information<br>> > they're providing.<br>><br>> Only within the limits of copyright law. NFL broadcasts include a<br>> "terms of use" statement preventing many activities that mythtv probably
<br>> violates. However, this does not make recording them illegal.<br>><br><br>Chris' statement should probably be understood that website owners,<br>et. al., can use contractual restrictions to do what copyright law,
<br>itself, may not provide. The issue with a lot of these terms of<br>service are not that copyright law is what makes them meaningful (and<br>potentially enforceable) but rather common law contract principles.<br></blockquote>
</div><br>TBH, I'm not convinced they're supportable by contract law, either. In order for a contract to be enforceable, both parties must agree to it. What you're suggesting is that, by simply visiting a website, I am agreeing to a contact, and that seems dubious at best.
<br><br>Oh, and BTW, by reading this email, you agree to send me $20. ;)<br><br>Of course, I'm not aware of any TOS being tested in court (I'd love to hear of any case law to the contrary), and I will freely admit IANAL, so this is all just speculation on my part. My own guess is that, if screen scraping were found illegal in a court of law, it would be because it runs afoul of other laws (eg, theft or denial of service, etc).
<br><br>Brett.<br>