[lugg]

If that is copyright infringement then so is Google Chrome.

Outline is a browser in a browser.

If it were accessing unauthorised content in a shady way I would say they have a leg to stand on, but serving up content to Google different from what it serves to the user is already borderline illegal for a variety of reasons. (It's a misrepresentation) I don't think anyone is wanting to go down that road.

Remember with the law intent is usually what matters most.

The technical stance that outline is serving up content that the user requests from another site is by design not redistribution.

The funny part is that the argument that allows this is the same stupid argument that permits copyright to exist in a world where everytime you open or read a file you are technically copying it.

[paulgb]

> serving up content to Google different from what it serves to the user is already borderline illegal for a variety of reasons

This is called spoofing. Google doesn’t like it because it makes for a bad user experience, but it is certainly not illegal (or even borderline).

I think the legal argument you’re trying to make died with the Aereo supreme court decision. The ”outline is a browser in a browser” statement is cute but it doesn’t pass the duck test.

[blablabla123]

> I think the legal argument you’re trying to make died with the Aereo supreme court decision. The ”outline is a browser in a browser” statement is cute but it doesn’t pass the duck test.

About Aereo, could you elaborate more on that? I never heard of it, checking the Wikipedia article, I cannot find the word browser inside.

I'm seriously interested in that argument because years ago I was considering an idea to do exactly that. I mean look at Rubinius (Ruby in Ruby) or PyPy (Python in Python). Those are actually serious projects that are more than just research - as far as I know some thing can be even done faster that way and gave inspiration for the reference implementation.

Speaking about JS, React is basically re-implementation of the DOM in JS with an XML like language.

Nobody minds if Chrome and Firefox include Translations that transforms websites, that people use screen readers etc. I think there are limits of reason of what a content providers can restrict.

[icebraining]

Outline is doing a transformation and then serving a copy of it, not just doing it in place with the copy that the user lawfully obtained.

Aereo tried to do the same for TV broadcasting (they were claiming they didn't copy, just digitalize and transmit on behalf of the user), and the courts struck that down.

[paulgb]

Right. In Aereo's case they even went as far as to nominally "rent" the colocated hardware to the user such that it was the user who was receiving the broadcast and transmitting it to themself for personal use. Which is clever, but the court ultimately decided that it doesn't work that way.

[lugg]

How is this different from what the web archive does?