Interesting. At Google.com top 10 results for the search terms "brutally stupid" all link to stories about National Public Radio. The whole WWW has judged this "brutally stupid"!!!

A proposal: as it is, NPR is going to have to look at their referrer logs to identify linkers who skipped their form. Alternatively, and more simply, they could just allow people to link whenever they want. They can look at their referrer logs to watch for undersirable referrers ("teensluts.com", Zooey?) or bandwidth abusers. It shouldn't be a lot of trouble to block these referrers. Innocent users browsing from teensluts.com to npr.org could be shown a message page explaining why the link has been forbidden. This would work in a frame as well. And even better, the message page could include a link to the desired resource in its natural habitat.

Guys, guys...frames suck. Why would you WANT to "frame" a web site? The effect frames have on usability is catastrophic. When you frame a web site, you effectively embed one site into another, which breaks the ability to bookmark, which can cause all kinds of annoyances with the web's forward/backward navigation, it confuses users, it can be used to make other's work appear as someone elses...

Ugh. I'm all for raising the pitchforks and torches to support deep linking, but I'm rather shocked that somebody who is usually as smart as Cory would WANT Boingboing to be framed.

I don't quite understand why this is such a big deal. I mean, the people with cause to link to the site need to fill out a form, just like I had to fill out a form to post my comment. If you don't want to fill out the form, don't post the link. Personally, I can't see that many untoward orgs wanting to link to NPR. They get most of their operating money from individual donors; it seems to be they are just trying to keep track of who is using their web site and why so that, should someone ask about why teensluts.com is linking to NPR, they can say, we didn't authorize it, they are breaking our policy. It simply seems to be a way to cover themselves since every last tote-carrying listener who donates can write or call or email and complain about what they hear, read, etc. Why is this such a big deal?

Edited by author 06-20-2002 12:14 PM
Hi!

  Of course, the best response is for *EVERYONE* to link to NPR, and fill out the form. Put up a page of Links, write a perl script to fill out their form with your information automatically, and watch see how long their permission form lasts...

ttyl
     Farrell McGovern

Edited by author 06-20-2002 09:04 AM
"Cory, perhaps I posted in haste at first. I do think we can work issues like this out without the courts. However, I don't think the countermeasures you refer to as "trivial" are so easy. Try running a high traffic Real Media server and then see how you like other people linking into the streams. "

Actually, your friend in the biz is wrong. You can obscure streams in such a way that direct linking won't work without a lot of client side fu. You can set cookie requirements and have intervening pages that use server-side redirects that basically make viewing content a required two page process. And that is a clunky solution, I am sure others could offer up something more elegant.

Here's what a frame looks like in a text-based browser:

http://www.craphound.com/images/iframelynx.jpg

Tell me again that a frame isn't a link?

"I just don't get it. What's to stop someone from just recording the entire This American Life archives and burning them to a cd? No linking involved?"

If you do Torey Malatia will come to your house every week and say inappropriate, slightly disturbing and self-revealing things to you every week in the form of an out-of-context quote of someone else.

framing is different from linking: it loads the page into your browser

To clarify, "framing" is a complicated dance.
<ol>

The browser asks the server for a document.

The server may return a document.

The document may contain a frameset

The browser may request the document(s) referenced by that frameset from their respective server(s)

The server(s) may return those documents.

The browser may display them.

At each step of this process, there are free choices made. Some people use browsers that don't do frames. Some servers won't return a document referred from another server. But the act of constructing a frameset does not load anything into anyone's browser.<p>
When you decide you want a page on the World Wide Web, you are implicitly agreeing that, in general, linking is a Good Thing. That's what makes it a Web. Exceptions to the rule are the burden of those who wish them. If you don't want to be linked to, then don't be linked to. <p>

I just don't get it. What's to stop someone from just recording the entire This American Life archives and burning them to a cd? No linking involved?

What if regular contributors get a barcode tattoo, and only they are allowed to link?

Reading everything that's been posted so far in one swoop ...

I agree with the comment that framing is different from linking: it loads the page into your browser, as the poster observed, which linking doesn't; and it provides the material in a different form and context. I've seen frames which made it look as if the inner frame material belonged to the outer-frame owner. That last, I think, goes beyond the permissible. (The more polite people using framing to box off-site material will provide a link reading "If you wish to see this material without frames, click here.")

But though framing is different from linking, should it be treated different legally? I think not: Cory points out how it can be useful.

And it absolutely should be legal to provide deep linking. That too provides material out of context, to be true, but it's the author of the material who chose to present it that way. The best defense against that is to provide a home page link on every page.

Another interesting point that came up in this topic: what about linking increasing the bandwidth costs of the person linked to? I've noticed this happening a lot. 1) Popular blog gives a link to some obscure but interesting personal site. 2) Site gets a lot of hits. 3) Site owner's ISP takes the site down for exceeding its bandwidth quota for the month.

Whose fault is this, and what should be done about it? I think I'd favor a technical solution that would deliberately clog requests if they exceeded the quota, but wouldn't actually take the site down. IOW, pretty much what happens when the web is being slow anyway, only with a clear error message saying that was the reason: you could try again later when traffic was slower.

Yeah, well, I usually hate frames anyway. And I doubly hate the thinly veiled pro-corporate spin at National Pentagon Radio, too. I do believe that they have put this policy in place to make it more difficult to discuss and dissect the corporate product announcements and war ads that npr passes off as news these days.

And, just to split a different technological hair here, what if I just use a form with the window.location method in Javascript to send a user to the content?! No href tag, no link, right? Heh, just like NPR can find ways to keep people from framing/linking their bullshit propaganda, it's possible for the 31337 h4x0r in you to design around their legal bullshit, too.

Edited by author 06-19-2002 11:13 AM
I came into this thinking the framing ruling wasn't so bad, but it seems to me now that framing falls under fair use, provided that you cite the page you're linking to and/or provide an obvious link to the content in its original form. I regularly quote text and images on my own site (usually from wire services, press releases, et sim.). but I always cite the authors and link back. I'm not making money off of my site, and I'm not taking money away from content creators. In most cases, I'm trying to drive people to their sites, because I like what they're doing. But maybe that's just me.

But the good folks at NPR have definitely been listening to the wrong people. Linking isn't bad. Linking is good. Hell, look at a typical NPR piece - quoted content, offsite links, the works. I suppose they got permission for each and every one, but why on earth would they want to require that?

"Now that's a story I'd like to hear, as I'm sure would Wired News. Was he framing the site in ads like the court case? Or was he simply linking to a page? There is a difference."
I believe he was linking to the streams.

"Cory, perhaps I posted in haste at first. I do think we can work issues like this out without the courts."

I'm glad to hear it.

'However, I don't think the countermeasures you refer to as "trivial" are so easy. Try running a high traffic Real Media server and then see how you like other people linking into the streams.'

It's not as though NPR has ads on the pages that link to its Real streams, the revenue from which direct-linkers deprive it of -- NPR has put the streams online for one purpose, to encourage people to listen to them.

It's also worth noting that NPR has many other remedies available to it if it wishes to offset bandwidth costs, including replacing its streams with downloadables and inviting others to mirror them.

"(And that's not Apache, so no clever workarounds. I have a friend in the biz who says there's no way to prevent someone from linking to a Real Audio stream on your server. When enough people do that, it gets expensive fast. That's probably why NPR has that form in the first place.)"

Hardly a ringing endorsement of Real's technology; reason enough to damn Real for creating and deploying a technology that begs for legal remedies that distort the link-without-permission nature of the Internet.

"Or try running a multi-thousand page site with no CMS. You want me to ad de-framing javascript to every page? Sure it's optional, but it's hardly trivial."

If you've got apache-fu, it's still straightforward to parse every outbound page to insert the javascript at serve-time. If you know a little perl or python, you can bulk-insert an ssi directive or the javascript itself.

Both of these are still trivial procedures relative to, say, requiring every person who wishes to deploy a framing service to seek permission from every page that he might someday frame (imagine if Google Images or About had to do this -- securing permission for every document in a multi-billion-document-Internet makes inserting a few thousand SSI directives seem trivial indeed.)

"The word "prohibited," in conjunction with the DMCA, isn't an expression of desire or a request, it's a threat."

Maybe so, but it's a threat without teeth. It seems clear to me that the law is up in the air on this one.


"In fact, I got email from a reader shortly after posting this story. He had been nastygrammed by NPR's lawyers and threatened with DMCA prosecution if he didn't take down his site. I think he's likely reading this thread, so I leave it to him to post the details if he cares to."

Now that's a story I'd like to hear, as I'm sure would Wired News. Was he framing the site in ads like the court case? Or was he simply linking to a page? There is a difference.


Cory, perhaps I posted in haste at first. I do think we can work issues like this out without the courts. However, I don't think the countermeasures you refer to as "trivial" are so easy. Try running a high traffic Real Media server and then see how you like other people linking into the streams. (And that's not Apache, so no clever workarounds. I have a friend in the biz who says there's no way to prevent someone from linking to a Real Audio stream on your server. When enough people do that, it gets expensive fast. That's probably why NPR has that form in the first place.) Or try running a multi-thousand page site with no CMS. You want me to ad de-framing javascript to every page? Sure it's optional, but it's hardly trivial.

I'm just saying that there are shades of grey in this conversation. It's not just big companies that don't get the web. As always, it depends.

"But can we at least allow the artist to ask? ... And, again, isn't that what NPR is doing?"

No. NPR says: "Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited."

The word "prohibited," in conjunction with the DMCA, isn't an expression of desire or a request, it's a threat.

"Have they sent out lawyers? Are they clamping down on anyone's free speech? Let me know when they do. I'll save my outrage for that."

In fact, I got email from a reader shortly after posting this story. He had been nastygrammed by NPR's lawyers and threatened with DMCA prosecution if he didn't take down his site. I think he's likely reading this thread, so I leave it to him to post the details if he cares to.

Cory, of course I get your point. You made the same point over burritos not very long ago. I'm just trying to make a more nuanced statement that your black and white rhetoric keeps missing. (Is that expressing disagreement or am I now being bombastic?) ;-)

I find nothing inherently outrageous in asking your readers to respect your work and not frame it on another site. As an artist, I work very hard to create web experiences at sites like fray.com. So, yes, I employ some simple javascript to de-frame, and some less simple server-side stuff to prevent my images from being sourced on other sites, but that's not the point. The point is, it's the artist's right to ask.

So we have a noisy, ill-mannered, tragedy-of-the-commons, "marketplace of ideas" that won't respect the request? Ok, fine. But can we at least allow the artist to ask? And, again, isn't that what Crative Commons is all about - letting the artist set the terms? And, again, isn't that what NPR is doing?

So why all the sound and fury?

Cory, you keep accusing me of "imposing" something on the system. I'm not. I'm just trying to interject a little balance into the conversation. Actually, when you look at it, you're the one imposing a drama on an small request that NPR has had in place for months, and the web has quietly ignored.

Have they sent out lawyers? Are they clamping down on anyone's free speech? Let me know when they do. I'll save my outrage for that.

I'm not sure where you're seeing flame in that post, BTW. I'm certainly not describing your words as "bombastic," for example.

There's a difference between thoroughly expressing disagreement and flaming (attacking a person instead of his ideas, or saying things for the sake of antagonizing someone). If I'm flaming you, I apologize, but I think you're mistaken.

It's not a molehill, is what I'm trying to say. The freedom to be ill-mannered in your fair use of others' intellectual property is as fundamental to free expression as freedom to link to any URL is to the orderly functioning of the Internet.

"YOU want Boing Boing to be framed? Good for you. I don't want my sites to be framed. So what does that tell you? Perhaps it should be up to the creator of the work to decide? Isn't that what the Creative Commons is all about? And isn't that EXACTLY what NPR is doing?"

You're still not getting my point. There is NO technical means for me to express my desire to be framed. There is a trivial technical means for you to express your desire not to be framed.

By changing the default behavior of the Internet (anything may be freely linked) with legal code, you make it impossible for me to enjoy the services that the Internet's default assumption of permission permits.

"is there no place for a smidge of etiquette? Are we able to admit that, sometimes, putting someone else's had work in a frame on your site is, if not illegal, at least not nice? With all the artistic work on the internet that we're all so hell bent on protecting, isn't a small measure of respect might in order?"

There is no moral right in American copyright, not as a nicety of law but because of the value of an ill-mannered marketplace for ideas.

Being nice is nice. But if I want to frame your site in order to reference it in a criticism, I will be, by default, not nice.

Imposing "niceness" on the acceptable practice of framing frustrates the fundamental purpose of fair use: to carve out a limitation on an author's copyright monopoly that permits a range of unauthorized uses to the public.

If a site can inhibit linking by making a server change, that is its right to do.

But this form is an insult and, I predict, will be roundly and soundly ignored.

It stuns me that after all the money and the begging and the phony "match" games played by these stations,not to mention the endless cost-cutting and consolidations that we've seen that NPR actually thinks it has the money to spend of 1) Handling and processing these "requests" in a timely manner (items decay quickly in this medium) 2) Policing the matter. Are they going to have swarms of bots out crawling around the web on a 24 hour basis and making reports? 3) Paying lawyers to enforce this sort of thing. And with what? Lawsuit threats against sites in Australia?

These people need to seriously regroup on their thinking about this. All the form shows me is a bunch of half-assed underpayed NPR lifers wanking at some useless meeting to come up with the very best way of pissing off people who actually like what they are putting out onto the Net.

Unless, of course, they don't enjoy the prospect of seeing some of their stories linked to by sites critical of their message and their programming.

First of all, making money off of someone else's intellectual property is not in and of itself inconsistent with copyright law. Every search engine makes money off of other people's intellectual property (some of them, like Google, do so with frames), as do movie critics and university professors.

Second of all, the NPR policy does not distinguish between framing for commercial gain and for other purposes. Mozilla uses iframes to render its tabs and sidebar -- every page you see in Moz has been framed.

Finally, if NPR wishes to prevent its streams from being directly linked to, it is trivial to make this a technical impossibility with a little server-fu; there is no need for this policy.

Edited by author 06-19-2002 12:38 AM
Dude. Cory. Step back from the flame. When did this become mine?

We all agree NPR is going over the top, and I think I had a good point up there about treating links as content.

And sorry if I relied on the idea of case law too heavily. That's not the point.

YOU want Boing Boing to be framed? Good for you. I don't want my sites to be framed. So what does that tell you? Perhaps it should be up to the creator of the work to decide? Isn't that what the Creative Commons is all about? And isn't that EXACTLY what NPR is doing?

In all this talk of technical realities and the "spirit of the internet," is there no place for a smidge of etiquette? Are we able to admit that, sometimes, putting someone else's had work in a frame on your site is, if not illegal, at least not nice? With all the artistic work on the internet that we're all so hell bent on protecting, might a small measure of respect be in order?

In other words, mountain out of a mole hill much?

I think the framing thing makes sense, for the same reason someone else mentioned - that someone else might be making money on someone else's content.
But then, there's always that javascript that causes "frame breaking"... I use it.
As for a law about it... I don't care about that one way or another... though I'd prefer to see the money spent go to chasing down those damn beastiality spammers & jailing them for pestering me. heh.
The linking thing, I agree, is just TOTALLY A BUNCH OF NONSENSE. Linking is not content so far as I can see. You'd think they'd like more publicity... being public rather than commercial...
The thing is, I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER why NPR (heh) would be so worried about a link to their site. EXCEPT that they may have posted that so as to include linking to their sound streaming. Now that I can understand, not wanting someone else to be linking directly to their sound stream within a non-NPR web page which could be misleading. Though I don't understand why they don't just spell that out, and leave the linking to their pages okay.

You're describing the behavior of one set of browser-agents. The Internet is loosely joined. Framing is another way of indicating a link to an agent on the Internet. In programmatic and text-based browser-agent, a frame is just a link. That's not bombast, it's technical accuracy.

The framing case-law you're glad of endangers things like about.com's and Google's search-results and sets a precedent for the arbitrary enjoinder of linking online, and as I say, it has not been upheld by the supremes.

The existence of case-law in favor of a principle is hardly an endorsement of that principle. We can all cite a dozen disgusting DMCA outcomes that have made it into law -- they indicate bad rulings, not good principles.

Let's examine the policy outcomes instead. When copyright asserts a moral right to control the context of the display of lawfully acquired/lawfully accessed/lawfully transferred material you open up the gates to the whole flood of droit moral restrictions on speech, fair use and innovation.

Creating liability for framers chills those who would join the Internet's many pieces for good ends (viz. Google Images). There are simple and sufficient technical means for those who would estop framing -- adding a single line to httpd config -- but the case law you laud creates a presumption that anyone who does not grant permission does not want her material to be framed.

I want BoingBoing to be framed. To quote Mr. Guthrie:

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

Your case law will limit my freedom to be framed -- to have my work form part of the intellectual commons of which the Internet is the sweetest fruit -- because it requires anyone who would frame me to seek out my explicit permission, something with does not scale.

On the other hand, absent this case, you could still take simple and straightforward technical measures to express your will with respect to framing. There is no such programmatic measure available to me.

Your measure makes the default Internet assumption that all works may not be joined to other works without express permission. This is opposite to the spirit and the technical reality of the Internet.

Here's the thing I don't understand about the NPR form: They want me to tell them where the "NPR content" would appear. When does a link become content?

Faming is not just linking, Cory. Don't be bombastic. One loads a page into your browser and one doesn't. And one has case law on it and one doesn't. You may not like the ruling, but it's there, and, frankly, I'm glad it is.

Ever use Google Image Search? The framing it does of its detailed search results are a perfect example of the kind of unauthorized framing that is both useful and important.

Framing is JUST LINKING. Inline linking, but linking nonetheless.

If NPR -- or you -- want to keep your material from being framed, you have three choices:

* Don't put it on the Internet

* Reconfigure your httpd to block offsite referrers

* Run frame-busting javascript in your pages

The case-law has not been upheld by the supremes, and the case you refer to is rotten precedent for a free and open Internet.

Uh - excuse me! NPR. National PUBLIC Radio. I believe my taxes as well as yours and their constant begging for money indicates that we are all at liberty to do with NPR as we please.

Oh come on Cory, there's case law on this and you know it. Framing is illegal for good reason - I wouldn't want someone framing my site with their ads and making money off my hard work (which is exactly what the case was about).

The linking thing is silly, but I agree with the framing decision - and so do the courts.

When coupled with the travesty of their opposition to low power FM this is strong evidence of a total sellout on the part of NPR.

Next thing you know, we'll have to fill out a permission form if we want to give somebody our newspaper. I can't wait until these things are seriously challenged in the courts.

Looks like that's been their policy for at least 6 months. I sorta understand the part about frames, but, leaving the stupidity of the linking policy aside, look at the # of fields in the form—why would they want to be saddled with reading, evaluating and storing all that information?

If I hear an interesting piece on an NPR radio station, do I have to get their permission before I call a friend and tell him to turn on his radio?

NPR's done dumb things before, such as when they fought against low-power FM.