Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Web Site Sued For Controversial Trip into Internet Past (06 Oct 2005) According to the lawsuit against Wayback, Healthcare Advocates had protected the pages in question with robots.txt, only to have several hundred rapid-fire access requests made within minutes for the blocked pages through the Wayback Machine from the Harding, Earley, Follmer & Frailey firm. In most of the instances, the tag blocked the requests, but due to a bug in the system, a few got through, allowing the firm to access protected content via the Wayback Machine. The DMCA prohibits circumvention of protective technological measures. While robots.txt isn't legally binding, the legal question here appears to be one of intention: Did the Wayback Machine intentionally ignore the robots.txt file and allow unauthorized access to copyrighted material? Or did the lawyers at Harding, Earley, Follmer & Frailey know the system well enough to circumvent it? Article URL: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=14182&IssueId=221 Read 7 more articles from Econtent sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Digital Divisions          Books about Usability | Information Architecture | Information Visualisation | Technology History This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy