Every Site on the Web Illegal

Some people annoy the hell out of me because they are stupid. Some people annoy the hell out of me because the are obnoxious. Then there are those who do both.

I read about this law firm that specializes in internet law in a brief post at Overlawyered. These guys really annoyed me. They hold a copyright on the internet. Here's a little snippet (copied under Fair Use) from their "User Agreement."

Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the “look and feel” of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so. In addition, you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way since we do not want anyone copying us. We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission, except that you must maintain the link in our Copyright Infringement Warning Button as it is designed. The name “Dozier Internet Law, P.C.", and similar derivatives of it, constitute our trademark and servicemark, and should not be used in any manner without our permission.

Let's have a little fun breaking that down shall we. (Please keep in mind that I am not a lawyer and anyone who takes anything written here as legal advice is the subject in the first sentence of this post.)

Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the “look and feel” of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content.

First follow the link and take a peak at the "look and feel" of their site. This is just my opinion, as a professional designer, but I don't think they have to worry too much about people copying that. It looks like they bought some html editor and picked the ugliest template available, changes the colors an called it their own. Though I suppose it is possible that they sat down with a text editor and hand coded something that awful.

They get into there area of grandiose hubris with their claim that they "own all of the code, including the HTML code." (emphasis addeed)

Without their express permission and in violation of the User Agreement, I viewed the source code for their site and was alarmed to discover that I was apparently using some of their code on my site. In fact, aside from their site specific content, I have probably used a substantial portion of the html that they own.

I'm not suggesting that you go to Dozier Internet Law, P.C. and view their source code without permission, but you should consider your own liability. If your site uses HTML you are probably using code that they own.

I'm going to start doing a little research to see if I can find an alternate coding language to build my site with. One that does not violate the intellectual property rights of Dozier Internet Law, P.C.. I think if I can show in court that I did not know that I was using html that Dozier Internet Law, P.C. owns and that I have been trying to learn, or if necessary create, another language to code my web page I may be able to avoid liability.

Something tells me that I might need a good lawyer.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 09:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment