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Comment by dcow | Hacker News Reader

> I'm genuinely thrilled that someone at Apple deemed my chord calculator technology worthy of inclusion in the iOS shortcuts gallery. If anyone from Apple is reading this, please reach out using JGuitar.com's contact form. We can work together to make this experience even better. I can provide high quality SVG images of all chord diagrams, support alternate tunings, instruments and more.

Is everyone missing the fact that the author seems quite happy about the exposure and reaches out to Apple at the bottom of the post offering collaboration? I'm sure they can handle themselves. It feels borderline patronizing to read all the comments about involving lawyers because Apple is being so abusive. When you publish something on the internet, people can link to it. That's how the internet works.

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The reason everyone is reacting the way they are is because this news really isn't about this particular website. It's about the fact that the largest corporation on earth has decided it can freeboot everyone else's content. It's part of a trend too. Google a topic and on the right hand side of the page you'll see the first paragraph from Wikipedia. How exactly do you expect wikipedia to survive if no one ever has to actually go there to get the information it publishes? Not only is it an unethical way of presenting content - providing information without referencing the source, but it's actively damaging the source of the information by intercepting users who would otherwise use the service.

The fact that "Oh well, it was fine this time" isn't a valid justification for why they decided to do it in the first place.

> How exactly do you expect wikipedia to survive if no one ever has to actually go there

Did they start running ads or something?

They've been requesting for donations on their website, the main source of their income.

That doesn't mean you can't use Wikipedia's content in other ways, nor does it make it immoral to do so.

I found this page which gives an overview of what's ok to do with their content. Mirroring is literally the first example they give.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

It doesn't mean that everyone that visits Wikipedia is going to donate.

It means that they save a TON of bandwidth from people that would access Wikipedia for a specific information and bounce, it doesn't alienate the important part of Wikipedia's maintenance: editors and collaborators.

So all-in-all the lost revenue from donations is more than covered by the savings in bandwidth.

If we extrapolate what you're saying, no one visiting their website would mean all the bandwidth saving, but no income at all. So it doesn't hold good.

Yes, they essentially run ads asking for donations. Sometimes entire above-the-fold ads. They can get pretty hardcore like those personal appeals from Jimmy Wales.

Pretty much what it takes to get people to donate money to one of the most important and popular websites online.

Wikipedia's content license allows that and probably saves them a bunch of bandwidth costs to boot.

Again, this is not Apple using his work in their own software. This is Apple providing the downloadable source code (because a workflow inside Shortcuts is exactly that) to a program that accesses an image URL from his site. Most people complaining about those "evil large corps" probably don't want this to be illegal (neither for Apple nor for anyone else)!

But the "downloadable source code" is written by Apple, so that workflow _is_ software by Apple that takes an image from his website and displays it without attribution.

Well, not really:

> When I clicked "show actions" it revealed the "actions" that make up the shortcut and I could finally see the JGuitar.com link in the URL section.

I mean, that's not exactly a proper attribution notice, I'll give you that... but it's not just straight hot-linking without any visible attribution at all.

(edit2: I mean, they are sending thousands of visitors to the OP's image service, it is hot-linking, which is legal but very improper without notice; you'd think these were some teenage hackers that never heard of "netiquette" before – it would have been pretty stand-up of them to give him a heads-up so he could be sure he had some proper CDNs set up in front of them, rather than sending his bandwidth bills through the ceiling with no notice... that's not really cool, and it puts them at risk too.

If I was the author and I wasn't happy about this, my next step would be to update my website and then replace all of the hot-linked image URLs with something like a big FU to Apple, and it would take Apple some time to react to that and get the egg off their faces after their customers started calling to ask why the Shortcuts app is giving them the middle-finger. It would also ensure that they don't do this again, at least not with JGuitar.com – and I don't think the author wants that.)

That's the thing, it seems likely that this content could change it they could get some hostile website owner that changes some pictures to porn or whatever. Kind of risky for an Apple app.

To be clear, I don't think Apple is wrong, just a bit risky.

Google does reference the Wikipedia source, in fact the right hand box is the #1 way I end up on Wikipedia, I see a a summary, and click the Wikipedia link to read the full article.

Wikipedia is the worse example you could have picked, because forking their content is encouraged.

Much of the time I don't see a link to Wikipedia.

If I Google "Malta" there is a paragraph on the right and no link to Wikipedia. This also happens in Google Maps, when you click on a city and they have the blurb, much of the time there is no link, so you have to leave the page to Wikipedia the name of the city.

Actually having just tried a few different queries, it seems to be inconsistent. I'm not sure why they'd show the link sometimes and not every time, but definitely Malta doesn't show a link for me.

I don't know for geography, but for other things e.g. movies, the short plot description they put out now is Not from wikipedia. Hence no link. I've wondered what the source is for a while now, but if you go on the wikipedia page, that sentence is not from there

I've assumed since there is no link that the content is something that Google has been adding.

Those Maps blurbs, like for Malta, do not come from Wikipedia.

But they all used to, which means functionally the only difference is now there isn't a link so I have to make an additional request, in a new tab, directly to Wikipedia for more information (Demographics, Economics, Government, etc).

Except the top result for "malta" on google is the wikipedia page. I know you're trying to make it sound it's very taxing ("I have to make an additional request, in a new tab...") but it really isn't.

So, just to be clear:

1. Google Maps used to include a blurb about Malta from Wikipedia, and a link to the Wikipedia page about Malta. 2. They now include a blurb about Malta which is not from Wikipedia, and do not link to the Wikipedia page about Malta. 3. You are upset that they no longer include a link to the Wikipedia page about Malta.

Is this correct? If so, it seems like your frustration is about Google choosing not to include & link to information from Wikipedia, rather than them displaying content from Wikipedia.

The text, which starts with "Malta is an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. It's a nation known for historic sites related..."

is on a million web sites. I thought maybe it was from CIA World Fact Book or some other free source, but it's used so often by so many shady sites, it's hard to know where it originated.

In this case, it's a question of who is scraping whom.

It's from Michelin.

* https://travel.michelin.co.uk/malta-national-map-801/

The internet is about freebooting until you hit a paywall.

Wikipedia is a very bad example, they literally put a free to copy license on their content.

> The internet is about freebooting until you hit a paywall.

Just because something doesn't have a paywall doesn't mean the content creator intends for you to take his/her work with zero attribution. That's why those "Buy me a coffee"/"Donate to my Patreon" buttons exist. It's a way for the user to consume the information for free up front but have the option to support the creator.

The web was literally built do be usable this way. I know people have started to believe that the only allowable way to view "content" is in the way the website builders decided, but your browser is allowed to display the content it downloaded in any way it wants to you.

You're right and I'm totally on board with that. But that doesn't seem to be how Apple works, if they freely share everything they put on line then, for sure, have at it.

If they expect people to pay to access their IPR then they should, without prompting, pay others when they want access to their's.

You're right, the big companies are the biggest offenders against this intended use of the web. And that's bad.

And they aren't accessing others intellectual property with this. They are building custom tools to display other's intellectual property. Very different.

So Google, Microsoft and Apple who fund and build the web browser you are currently using are against the intended use of the web.

I wish more companies would "offend" then.

browser have very explicit rules against this very action by apple.

in your browser, apple.com cannot access the content from jguitar.com

That is not true in several ways. Iframes and cdns work. There are security measures that prevent https connections from embedding http and other content restrictions, but those are for security reasons. People hotlink images, it's a wild web out there

For everything you described there is a tag or http header i can set on my own content to prevent a browser on another domain from 'hotlinking'. If you are the 'browser' as this IOS feature is, there is none. I hope it at least respect the robots.txt rules.

Whats the legal precident for cases like this? A C&D is not the law and just because big-corp has lawyers doesn't mean bullying people who don't access their public resources in exactly the way they want is legal...

I'm confused. Does Apple prevent you from linking to their website ?

Because that's the point here. That the web was built to allow anyone to link to anyone without asking permission.

From the article: "In a nutshell, the shortcut uses the user's input (a chord symbol) to construct a url to a chord search result page on JGuitar.com and then looks for 200x200px chord diagram images on that page and shows them to the user. The rest of the web page isn't shown."

This is different from linking. With links you see the whole web page. I haven't used the shortcuts app and don't know how obvious the source of the info is. It seems the article author had to dig into the shortcut configuration to find a reference to his site.

I understand the point but: a link is a link is a link.

They're framing (as we used to call it back in the good old geocities days!). If I wrap Apple's stuff in my livery, leeching their content, I guarantee there will be legal action (C&D).

Also, see up thread where they disclaim right to do the same to them.

Wikipedia should be allowed to ask for donations inside of the little Google snippets. Doesn't that sound fair?

Wikipedia is released under creative commons. That is literally the worst example you could have picked.

It isn't, though. The Creative Commons license says "you can use this content", it doesn't say "you are forbidden from assisting the creator of this content in any way".

Creative Commons is great because it allows everyone to use it. But a company the size and stature of Google should consider it a bare minimum, not a target.

If you search for questions like "how long should I bake a frozen chicken thigh?" you'll get chunks of text from Web pages which are not CC-licensed.

This might not be a great example, either.

Most cooking web sites tag their HTML with things like itemprop="recipeIngredient", and itemprop="recipeInstructions", hoping to get featured by Google in this way.

Well, what you can do and what's fair and friendly are not always the same thing. For example, although I have to pay taxes to the government but not to charities, I may use a charity as an example of somewhere to give money to.

And the content author doesn't have any copyright say over his content?

Don't confuse redistribution and how you display something.

I thought that if I put up a web page with a copyright notice on it, the only way someone can use a portion of that page is if they provide attribution.

>The web was literally built do be usable this way.

Sure, the technology was built to be used in certain ways, which might not be ethical or legal, depending on a particular instance of usage.

Because one can do something, obviously doesn't mean one should. I can't chop your furniture just because I have an axe that was literally built for chopping.

>your browser is allowed to display the content it downloaded in any way it wants to you.

Indeed, but that doesn't mean someone is allowed to send arbitrary content to that browser. The fault is not with the browser.

If I put an image on Flickr, you can hotlink to that image in your web article, print it on your printer, and distribute. The technology was literally built to be usable that way.

However, it is neither legal nor ethical to do that.

The web wasn’t built for massive corporations to profit off the work of others.

I expect wikipedia to survive just fine. Wikipedia is explicitly made for that.

That said, google does recognize that a healthy web (and therefore google) benefits a lot from wikipedia and other wikimedia projects. They often donate to the wikimedia foundation, and sometimes do collaborations as well.

+ source: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google#Donations

Google scrapes a lot more content than that. They're practically doing the Cpedia thing, except coherent.

isn't this the impetus for the UK's "link tax" proposal?

How is this freebooting? Apple isn't rehosting the data from the website.

It's not freebooting, it's more akin to hotlinking. Which is arguably worse - they're using the author's IP and hosting infrastructure without offering sufficient credit or so much as a heads-up.

This could quickly make a side project unsustainable, if the owner of a (hypothetical, not this specific) project has limited $ for hosting costs. The author of the project can't make use of the obvious strategy of dropping in an ad or two to defray hosting costs because the images are being hotlinked. This kind of behavior would be a violation of the ToS on almost any site that has one; it would certainly be a violation of Apple's own ToS. But beyond that, it's just thoughtless and rude.

Hotlink sounds a lot like hyperlink. Really it just sounds like people need to protect their content with licenses and "website experiences" with terms if they want to enforce restrictions on how things they host publicly are used. I agree it seems rude that they didnt give the owner any warning, but meh.

Seems like you're just ignoring all his points because you don't care about the consequences. Plenty of us do happen to care.

> When you publish something on the internet, people can link to it. That's how the internet works.

I think one issue is that Apple themselves prohibit it. From their App Store Review Guidelines, section 5.2.2 [1]:

"5.2.2 Third Party Sites/Services: If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use. Authorization must be provided upon request."

And Apple also prohibit you from doing so on parts of their website, from 4.5.1:

"4.5.1 Apps may use approved Apple RSS feeds such as the iTunes Store RSS feed, but may not scrape any information from Apple sites (e.g. apple.com, the iTunes Store, App Store, App Store Connect, developer portal, etc.) or create rankings using this information."

[1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int...

Being a little disingenuous there. Scraping != Linking.

Scraping involves stealing and reusing content from another party. Linking does not.

This shortcut could be seen as scraping the website, since it's just pulling out one image

Scraping = save a local copy of the image Linking = point to source image

If they are referring to jguitar.com each time then this is linking.

I had an app in the AppStore for years that scraped Vonage’s web site and neither them nor Apple seemed to care. There is nothing innately immoral about downloading a web page and parsing it in ways the web site operator did not consider.

Again, this. When you publish work on the Internet, others can link and use it, no problem. For best results, have clear attribution (which they clearly show the link).

I think people are too quick to anger here. This guy was already providing all this information and content. Looking at the site, I don't see advertising, so it's not like Apple is going around that.

This guy is happy and with a quick addition of a JGuitar logo or copyright (if he wants) on those images then everyone is happy.

In this case the author is happy, but the point stands that he wasn't asked. And most people would be angry at receiving no attribution or warning.

Not to mention the huge spike in hosting costs due to the upsurge of new visitors.

For which you many not be receiving any ad revenue...

Any data to suggest a “huge spike in hosting costs?”

Oh no. Whenever a corporate is trying to make 'bulk requests' to your website, primarily so that the users don't have to visit your site, it totally warrants for at least a permission (separate licensing, to be more fair). It's called freeloading otherwise.

Is a “corporation” making bulk requests? Or are users of shortcuts making requests?

The corporation is allowing it to happen. Users won't do it otherwise.

Hm – Linking is one thing, displaying another one.

Notably, we had (I don't know about all countries) rulings regarding displaying 3rd party content in frames, and then there's the EU copyright legislation, currently discussed. It's not the author's obligation to embed copyright and source information in any resource. This is not how it works.

Are you sure you don't have an adblocker? There's ad over JGuitar, 2 of them actually. I hope he didn't have to add theses ads because of the increase of request.

If I build a chart generator for use in one of my sites, hosted on that domain, with no published API whatsoever, it would be odd to see some random productivity app using that straight from peoples phones to chart their stuff.

Not illegal, Apple or the developer isn’t claiming that my API is theirs. And maybe it’s open on my robots.txt and maybe my terms of service say nothing about it.

But it’s weird. You just pushed an app out to a billion devices allows users to hit my chart generator directly. That’s plain weird.

I recently found out that a contractor that won a tender with a government used my website without my consent. They were given my details and asked to reach out to me. They didn't, and instead linked to my website without any attribution.

Should I be happy that the government is gaining a benefit from my work, something with commercial value, while I'm not benefiting?

If my website was explicitly GNU or licensed under something that gives another person permission, then sure. Otherwise it's unfair for someone to make something out of my labour without reaching out to me and asking for at least permission.

If you put a website online you're explicitly giving the right to link to it. If the government are not allowing use of their IPR then I think you have an argument, unless they're trying to stop linking to their stuff then I don't see the problem.

In South Africa, if you put your website online, you're automatically protected by our Intellectual Property Act under copyright protection. Unless I waive that copyright (which I haven't waived per my TOS on the website), whoever hotlinks to my website or derives financial gain without my consent is violating my rights per my country's Constitution.

I don't see any "explicitly giving the right ..." there. In fact, I explicitly did the opposite.

You realise the internet is global? You put up a "free food" sign, put chicken on the brai and now you want to stop people from helping themselves to the chicken.

Take the website off the internet if you don't want to share it.

/Charlie-bit-my-finger

I’ve never understood this mentality. Why publish content on the Internet without access control if you don’t want people reading the content?

And that's an ignorant law, since all a link is, is a way to say, 'hey, go to this machine and ask for this resource.' If you, the owner of the machine, wish not to give it to people who ask for it … don't.

It's very likely that it is a violation of one or another contracting rule. If you wanted to, you could get in touch with the government agency's contract management and complain.

I don't get it either... It's like calling a lawyer because Google links to your page.

This is more than just straight linking though, this is pulling content without attribution nor financial remuneration. To use the Google example, it would be like a 3rd party YouTube app that bypassed Google's advertising while still streaming content from YouTube's servers. Which is something Google have clamped down on in the past.

This isn't linking, this is hotlinking: taking unattributed images. If you had some nice images on your site that I'd put on mine, presenting them as my own, while still using your bandwidth to serve them to my users how would you feel about it? What about if I was the richest company on the planet already?

So all this is about is bandwidth and attribution?!? I mean aren't they sending their users to your web page? Other people would be glad if they would just have to pay the hosting costs for an image to get people on their page.

Sounds to me like theft.

You mean like stealing someone's business cards in order to promote his company?

No, like stealing bandwidth and services.

If you're taking the business cards and cutting the contact information off them and then handing them out, that's theft.

> mean aren't they sending their users to your web page?

No, in this specific case, they are sending images from the page to users, bypassing the actual page.

For a site where the user value was in the image and the monetization was elsewhere on the page, it's capturing the value of your work and bypassing the mechanism which pays you for that work. It may be legal, but even if so it is not sustainable.

This “linking vs hotlinking” distinction is pointless. It’s an image sitting at a URL. A browser can request that image and display it. If you don’t want people to view images you publish publicly, then don’t publish them or require authentication in order to request them.

They are showing the image. Did you read the post? There's no attribution, you wouldn't know at first glance it came from his website. Even the shortcut is only called "Guitar Chord Finder" and never mentions his website. You need to edit the shortcut to find it.

Would there be a difference, if Apple had downloaded the content and was serving it from its own hosts? (As far as an app user is concerned, there isn't much of a difference.) Now add to this the hosting fees / resources used…

This would actually cross the line. Right now there's a strong argument that Shortcuts is just acting as an images-only web browser, (like Lynx, but the opposite). If Apple actually copied the images to their own servers then they're copying the author's work without his authorization.

> That's how the internet works.

Not if the EU has anything to say about it!

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