[rsj_hn]

The implication is that the company that serves public data could impose conditions on the use of that data, for example they could:

  1. ban the use of ad blockers when accessing the data
  2. ban users making an offline copy to view later
  3. ban users from disabling auto play or other features
  4. otherwise control what you do with data once you get it, which is *huge*. 
     E.g. what if they want a 1% share of any revenue you get by using the data, etc.

I think this really restricts freedom and has some scary implications for the future of the web.

Of course now, they have a technological option to try to force each of the above, but users also have a technological option to try to outsmart them. But I wouldn't want to give them a legal right to force the above.

[Buge]

Companies already do all those through technical means. In fact they have the full force of the law behind their efforts because they simply put some DRM on it and now it's illegal to try to circumvent.

I would LOVE it if the courts would remove the legal protections of DRM. It seems so strange that this court has gone so far in the viewer-rights direction, but hasn't bothered taking the baby steps to remove the legal protection of DRM.

Hmm, now I'm hoping LinkedIn implements some DRM so this fight can get truly interesting and maybe make some positive difference.

[rsj_hn]

I'm not sure whether data like this can be copyrighted or is considered a creative work. The creative work would be things like the LinkedIn logo or graphics, and these fall under IP protections that limit what you can do with them even if they are freely available.