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Copyright Law and the Non-Exclusive Rights to 'Link' and 'Crawl'
One of the most important issues faced by commercial purveyors of content on the Internet is how to protect their content. Much coffee and ink have been spilled over the question of how copyright, contract and tort law may be marshaled to maximize protection (or may be circumvented to minimize it).
In a short but wide-ranging decision, the Central District of California has commented directly on this issue in Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com, a case challenging Tickets.com's practices of 'crawling' Ticketmaster's Web site and deep linking to some of its specific sites. Granting Tickets.com's summary judgment motion in part, the court dismissed Ticketmaster's copyright and trespass to chattels claims, but declined to rule on its breach of contract claim. The court had hinted it would so rule in its initial denial of Ticketmaster's preliminary injunction in 2000. Nevertheless, this decision is significant to those who wish to protect and those who wish to use content for at least three reasons.
First, the court held that two activities essential to the Internet ' crawling and linking ' did not offend copyright law, at least as Tickets.com performed them. Second, it decisively ruled on the copyright protectability of URLs, holding them uncopyrightable due to their lack of originality. Finally, by leaving the contract claim unresolved, it highlighted the importance of browse-wrap and other licenses to protect Internet content, whether copyrightable or not.
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