The (Other) End of the Internet

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve heard about some utterly asinine court cases before, but this one takes the cake.

The Associated Press is suing news-aggregation site Moreover and its parent company VeriSign for copyright infringement for snippeting and linking to its news. This harkens back to the early days of the Internet when news aggregators were routinely legally hassled for linking.

If the AP wins this case, then you could be slapped with a lawsuit if you quote anything on this blog and I could be sued if I link to another blog’s post or a news story I read (like the one above).

Isn’t half the POINT of blogging to provide links to sites or articles you find relevant to what you’re talking about? To me, a blog with no links is rather dull.

I’m utterly dumbfounded by this. The whole concept of how the internet works is based on linking. Search Engine Optimization is all about linking and keywords.

This lawsuit says, essentially, that even SEARCH ENGINES like google and yahoo are violating copyright laws.

I can lie down and die now. I have officially heard everything.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!