[4chan4ever]

It strips content down to plain text, removing any advertising, promotional links, social networking buttons, etc., and it does so without the permission of the originating site. Digg tried to pull something similar when they introduced the Digg toolbar (embedding original content in a frame) and people got hopping mad. But I guess on the iPhone anything goes, since Apple owns the copyright for rounded rectangles.

[Zev]

Think about Instapaper's use case: Offline or slow connection. On iPhones or iPod touches.

There's no point in having a social network button when you can't reach Digg or Reddit to submit or to vote. There's no point in having a blank space for an ad, if the user doesn't have a persistent internet connection that can be used to retrieve the ad to show on your page.

And because this is an iPhone or an iPod touch, the screen space is still limited. This means: Only having the text of the site - the essential content - is the goal for the end user. For the end user, this is very much preferred to displaying the entire webpage and zooming back and forth (while ignoring ugly empty spaces for ads that didn't load). Or maybe your ads are in flash and just won't load at all, because they can't be displayed.

I can't disagree with your right to make money from ads. I can only point out my right to not want to waste bandwidth (which can be expensive if going over the limits with the iPhone, on AT&T at least) in order to display useless content that does't contribute anything to the item I wish to read. And I can ask you to revisit your stance on Instapaper. Because as a consumer of content, presumably someone who you may potentially target, your stance seems irrational.

[jmackinn]

Sorry, but I don't see where you are getting the idea that you have a 'right to not want to waste bandwidth'. That is your choice, not a right, so if you don't want to waste bandwidth then don't use high bandwidth sites.

While I can certainly see why someone would want to use Instapaper and that it clearly has a lot of benefits for the user, that doesn't change the fact that their app operates in a grey area of copyright infringement.

Just because something is practical does not mean that it is therefore legal.

[makecheck]

And content providers have a choice, too. No one is forcing them to put their stuff out on the Internet, in a wide open format, where anyone can just take it.

But ad-supported pages are equivalent to selling newspapers in giant heavy boxes, where you can't just get the newspaper, you have to take all the crap in its box. Well what if you don't want to carry a whole box? What if it would take you 10 times as long to bring the newspaper home by carrying the box? Would you not be tempted to rip open the box and just take the paper? Or, tempted to just go away, and not take the box or the stupid paper? At some point, the obnoxious mechanism outweighs the value of the content.

Instead, there could be a stack of papers on a table, with a cup and a sign "please deposit 50 cents". Some people will take a paper and leave nothing. Others will leave 50 cents. Still others will leave a buck or two, because they want to. You might even see people drop off a new stack of papers for you, and not care if you get the cash. Maybe somebody else sees your stuff (because it's not locked in boxes), and that leads to other opportunities. So maybe it isn't "fair" that some people pay more than others, but this is certainly does not spell doom for the content provider.

[Zev]

...that doesn't change the fact that their app operates in a grey area of copyright infringement.

Like I mentioned earlier: I'm not as informed in copyright law as I would like. Would you mind pointing out to me where this is a grey area? Since I'm personally an American citizen, where - in the US Code, the DMCA, or some other law that we have - is this a grey area?

[jrockway]

It's not a grey area. Buying a book and skimming the boring parts is not illegal.

[natrius]

Making a copy of the book without the boring parts is illegal. This is what I think Instapaper does.

[jrockway]

It's perfectly legal if you do it for your own personal use.

[Zev]

Thats basically what I thought. Perhaps I should have said "Where you think this is this a grey area."

[sp332]

Um, I don't need your permission to not download something ("advertising, promotional links, social networking buttons, etc.") from your site.

[natrius]

You do need permission to make a derivative work, especially one that directly competes with the original, unlike Google's cached pages.

[jherdman]

I think you're missing the point. The people that are likely to use this application for articles are likely the kind of people that either (a) regularly visit your site, (b) are new to your site but presently don't have time to read the content, or (c) the kind of people that would say "tl;dr" and have moved on.

By encouraging use of InstaPaper (or its ilk) with longer articles on your site you may just find that it improves your readership.

[brandnewlow]

Do you have data to prove these claims? My original comment was trying to point out that many "hot application" get hot because they enable theft or copyright circumvention in some way. Publishers continue to grumble about putting their stuff behind paywalls because offering it up for free offers very little protection.

[nkurz]

By encouraging use of InstaPaper (or its ilk) with longer articles on your site you may just find that it improves your readership.

Yes, and by allowing users to share MP3's of your songs you may find that over the long run your listenership is improved.

Nonetheless, under current (US?) copyright code, reformatting documents by stripping out 'extraneous' advertising and saving them in a different format for later use is flat-out illegal. This may not make it 'wrong', and certainly does not make the app any less useful, but I think the OP's point stands.

[Zev]

Nonetheless, under current (US?) copyright code, reformatting documents by stripping out 'extraneous' advertising and saving them in a different format for later use is flat-out illegal.

Really? Would you mind pointing out where in the US Code or the DMCA (or whatever else you're referring to) that says this? I'm not as knowledgeable on copyright as I'd like to be; need to start learning more somewhere, and this seems like a good place.

[nkurz]

It's possible that 'flat-out illegal' is too strong of a statement, although upon reflection I'll still stand by 'almost certainly illegal'. Here's a law review paper with lots of background and references:

The TiVo Question: Does Skipping Commercials Violate Copyright Law? http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901062

Please don't mistake my opinion here on what the law is for my feelings on what the law should be. It sounds like a great app. I'd be very happy to proven wrong, and to find that the copyright law regarding such matters is more user friendly than I've been led to believe.

[jrockway]

This is wrong. Distributing that stripped-down version (or a non-stripped-down version) would be illegal. But writing a program that lets you do it for personal use is perfectly legal.

Consider ripping your CDs so you can play them on your MP3 player. Legal. Selling those MP3s? Not legal.

[natrius]

Does the Instapaper iPhone app do the stripping, or does Instapaper serve the stripped version? I'd say the former is illegal, and the latter is legal, though it'd be nice if a publisher could opt out and/or provide their own stripped down version that the app would use.

[nkurz]

It's possible that I'm wrong, but I'd appreciate if you could point to the legal precedent that establishes this. The general rule is that making a copy of any copyright work is forbidden, unless you have a license or it's fair use.

You are right that ripping a CD (that you own?) to MP3 for personal use is covered as fair use. This was established relatively recently in RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia[1], a case that primarily decided that the Rio was legal because it _wasn't_ a digital music recorder. But it also stated "the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose -- the facilitation of personal use" and that "Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act".

But simply transforming a musical recording into a different format isn't quite a parallel example, as the goal is usually to make a complete copy. I think a closer parallel would be recording a television show with the ads clipped out. While 'time-shifting' is held to be legal (under Sony vs Universal), if you save a version with advertisements removed, you may well have created a derivative work.

I think Tivo is probably a pretty close example. While I don't think there has been a precedent setting case yet, it's probably worth noting that Tivo does not allow its users to automatically skip advertisements in the shows it records, despite the fact that this would be a popular feature with users. They no longer even have a button on the remote to allow the ads to be skipped easily.

For example, a law review article[2] titled "The TiVo Question: Does Skipping Commercials Violate Copyright Law?" reaches this simple conclusion: "Using a DVR to skip television advertisements violates copyright law, and DVR manufacturers should be contributorily liable. By providing a means for television viewers to skip advertisements, DVR manufacturers deny television networks the intended incentive for their creative expression--advertising revenues."

I've only skimmed it, but the article provides a lot of useful background on the relevant arguments and case law.

[1] http://www.virtualrecordings.com/diamond.htm

[2] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901062

[blrgeek]

Do you know how html works? Normal browser * Have link to content, say blah.html * Download blah.html * Parse blah.html, * extract links to css, js, images, flash ... * Download from extracted links * Display

Instapaper * Have link blah.html * Download blah.html * Don't parse, don't worry about any built-in links * Display

Now realize this has NOTHING to do with a derived work or copyright infringement. I'm merely choosing not to download and display some parts of published content, saving bandwidth which I'm paying for!