[torme]

Ok... again, not trying to be combative but:

a) This still doesn't really answer my question.

b) Would it be illegal to put up a website and say that essentially no one can use it? Aside from some exceptions like discrimination, ToS's define how you can use a tool, which is exactly what they were doing. Is there some law stating that if you host a website, you must allow users to link to it in any way they like?

[mcherm]

There is a serious legal question about whether or not a ToS for a website is enforceable. Probably, if ANY ToS is enforceable then this one is. But it's an open question. The argument against enforceability goes something like this:

TOS enforcement stems from contract law. A principle of contract law says that a contract is binding on both parties if they agreed to it, but there must be SOME benefit to each party. A TOS between a website and its users clearly meets this threshold, but in this case agiletortoise didn't gain any benefit from the website -- he simply wrote a program that directed the user's browser to go there.

That being said, the best solution is the one that agiletortoise used: simply direct people to someplace less hostile, like Google, Bing, or Wikipedia, instead of Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha loses, everyone else wins.

[kenjackson]

but in this case agiletortoise didn't gain any benefit from the website -- he simply wrote a program that directed the user's browser to go there.

I don't get that. Doesn't agiletortoise get benefit when their users get benefit?

[agiletortoise]

Yes, I got a benefit. There were users that like the Wolfram links and will be sorry they are gone.

As I said in my post, I'm fine with it. I think Wolfram's Terms are OK. I think it's a bit tenuous only in that if they were really serious about it, they could enforce that requirement in their code. They are not doing that, because it's to their benefit to allow some linking -- they are just reserving the right to selective enforce those terms, which seems a bit sleazy to me.

- agiletortoise

[mcherm]

I think there is a very plausible argument to be made that it was your CUSTOMERS who benefited, not you.

In other words, I think that if Wolfram chose to sue you for thousands of dollars plus court costs because you violated your contract with them that you would be able to say, in defense, "I never agreed to anything." Since Wolfram delivered the goods (some answers, in this case) to the USERS of your application, not to you, I think this might be a valid defense.

Of course, the strictures of polite behavior extend further than the iron force of the law. Polite behavior suggests that when they ask you not to link to them you shouldn't... which is exactly what you did.

[kenjackson]

I don't know your product, but if your link takes them to the actual Alpha page, and they can interact with the Alpha page, you should make the argument that you're bringing them customers. I think if they're reasonable, they may actually appreciate the traffic in that case.

[TillE]

> Would it be illegal to put up a website

> Is there some law stating that if you host a website

You're looking at this backwards.

The TOS is not a contract that automatically applies to everyone; I don't have to agree to it if I link to your site.

Generally, if you want to prevent people from using your website in a certain way (that's not blatant abuse/hacking/etc), you're going to have to resort to technical solutions, because your only legal recourse is copyright law, which may or may not apply.

[pbhjpbhj]

>Is there some law stating that if you host a website, you must allow users to link to it in any way they like?

None that I know of specifically - however putting a website up is an implicit contract allowing normal web usage (for credits: now define normal and enforce that contract).

[kragen]

I don't think you have to bring implicit contracts into it. If I walk down the street and someone's shadow falls on me, I simply don't have a cause of action against them. If someone looks at me, I don't have a cause of action against them. If someone calls my name on the street, I don't have a cause of action against them. (Barring extraordinary circumstances, of course.) You don't need to invent theories about how I'm entering into an implicit contract with the whole world by going out on the street, among whose terms are that people may allow their shadows to fall on me and look at me. It's simply that no tort is created by looking at a person or linking to a web page.

There's no law granting exclusive rights in URLs unless they're copyrightable.

[pbhjpbhj]

I like your example but I don't think that a web page is like a person in public space. As you say their is no tort generally in approaching someone in the street but it is possible that a legal barrier has been erected and so an uninformed observer can't assume that no infringing/illegal activity is being undertaken (think exclusion orders, stalker laws, anti-social behaviour orders and the like; I think these are reasonably common across jurisdictions).

In the case of a website a copyright to that site is automatically created when the work itself is created - this is true in the vast majority of countries at least. Being able to view the site by making a temporary copy in your computer's cache is not clearly non-infringing. Someone aiding the creation of an infringing work can be acting tortuously in "contributory infringement" and hence linking to a website could, strictly, be tortuous. Applying common sense by assuming an implicit contract avoids the need to concern oneself with such apparent infringing actions.

[kragen]

> Being able to view the site by making a temporary copy in your computer's cache is not clearly non-infringing. Someone aiding the creation of an infringing work can be acting tortuously in "contributory infringement" and hence linking to a website could, strictly, be tortuous.

Hmm, I hadn't thought about it from that point of view, but I think you're right. It seems like clear evidence that your copyright law (I assume you're in the US) has gone mad and needs to be put to sleep.

[pbhjpbhj]

>"I assume you're in the US"

UK actually at present - US has some things better than us and some worse. It all could do with a good going over though!