In the past several years, the World Wide Web has seen two significant changes: (1) its popularity and use have exploded, and (2) it has become a place of substantial commercial activity. These two characteristics have made the Web a place of increasing legal turmoil. Certain practices by authors of Web sites and pages have been attacked as violative of others' intellectual property rights or other entitlements. These practices, which are the topic of this unit, include "linking," "framing," meta tag use, and "caching". "Linking" allows a Web site user to visit another location on the Internet. By simply clicking on a "live" word or image in one Web page, the user can view another Web page elsewhere in the world, or simply elsewhere on the same server as the original page. This technique is what gives the Web its unique communicative power. At the same time, however, linking may undermine the rights or interests of the owner of the page that is linked to. Suppose, for example, that X sets up a homepage for her site. On the homepage she places some advertisements, from which she hopes to make some money. The homepage also contains links to various subordinate pages, which contain content that X believes consumers wish to see. Y then creates his own Web site, which contains links to X's subordinate pages. The net result is that visitors to Y's site will be able to gain access to X's material, without ever seeing X's advertisements. This type of activity is called "deep linking." Other problems arise when one site contains links to copyrighted materials contained in another site against the wishes of the copyright owner. Though the person who provides the link may not be making copies himself or herself, some courts have recently found the link provider partially responsible for ensuing copyright infringement. The related practice of "framing" may also serve to undermine the rights of Web site owners. The use of "frames" allows a Web page creator to divide the Web browser window into several separate areas. (Click here to see a page employing frames) The programmer of the Web page can dictate what goes into each frame. Commonly, a Web site designer creates a page that at all times displays one frame containing the name of the Web site and other identifying information. The other frames are then controlled by the user. For example, a Web site employing frames might always show the original Web site's graphic logo on the top of the page while allowing the user to view the NPR Web site in a different frame. (To see this example in use, click here, then click "NPR" to see the NPR Web site "framed.") The legal implications of this are complex. In the example just given, a Web surfer might easily be confused concerning the relationship between NPR and the framing site. Moreover, the framing site might be unfairly deriving traffic from NPR's legally protected work. Meta tag misuse, the third component of this module, may generate less obvious but equally serious problems. Web sites are written in the HTML language. This language is nothing more than a list of "tags" that can be used to format and arrange text, images, and other multimedia files. "Meta tags" are tags that have no visible effect on the Web page. Instead, they exist in the source code for a Web page to assist search engines in ascertaining the content of the page. Problems arise when companies include in their own Web sites meta tags containing the names or descriptions of other companies. Suppose, for example, that Coca Cola used the keyword "Pepsi" in its meta tags. Web surfers who used search engines to obtain information about "Pepsi" would then be directed to Coca Cola's Web site. (An illustration of how meta tags work can be found by clicking here. As an example of a site that uses trademarked words in its meta tags, see http://macos.about.com. When you visit that site, select "Page Source" under the "View" menu in your browser.) Finally, we will also take a brief look at the activity of "caching." Caching involves the storing of Web pages either in your computer's local RAM, or at the server level. Caching Web pages on your computer's local memory allows you to navigate back and forth through pages you've visited in the past without having to download the pages each time you return to them. Caching at the server level, also known as "proxy caching," is used by several of the more popular Internet service providers such as AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve. The advantages and disadvantages of both types of caching will be explored further in this week's readings.
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