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I am not sure if this is the right form to ask this question, so please tell me if I should post this somewhere else.

There are some websites (like this) that have part of the page free to view, and the rest of the page is locked behind a paywall/subscription/trial/registration.

Now, these websites send over all all the content, even content that is supposed to be behind a paywall, and just hide the content with a CSS class. This means that the page contains all the content, but some of it is hidden by the browser on my end. So, this means that if the CSS engine of my browser breaks, or the stylesheet is not received properly, or I analyze the source of the website, I can read the whole content, without any sort of payment. The whole content is buried in the source of the page, I am not accessing URLs that I am not supposed to.

Now, I know that no website is going to care about this, but I am curious, am I breaking any terms and conditions/laws by doing this. On one hand, I am entirely within my rights to see the content that the website is sending in any form I see fit. On the other hand, I am not viewing the content in the way the original authors envisioned.

Note: I am in India, and most sites are based in the US or EU. So, I am interested in whichever countries' jurisdiction will apply.

Kartik Soneji
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A web site that is serious on protecting some content behind a paywall will put the protected content, or a version of the page with both protected and unprotected content, on separate page or pages, so arranged that a user will not be able to follow the link until that user has signed in and been accepted as an authorized user. A site that merely uses CSS to hide "protected" content is not really protecting it. CSS is designed to be modified by the ultimate user -- that is part of its function.

If the site chooses to send you content, you are entitled to read it. Even if some of the content has a CSS tag attached which suppresses or obscures the display of that content, they know perfectly well that any user can supersede this with local CSS, and so I don't see how they have any legal claim, nor any way of knowing if you have accessed the "hidden" content or not.

If you attempt to bypass or hack a login screen, that might be circumvention under the US DMCA, or "Unauthorized computer access" under any of several laws.

Kartik Soneji
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David Siegel
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It depends on your intent.

If you take actions specifically aimed to freely access content for which the website is expecting you to pay, you at least break the site's terms. This is equivalent to sneaking into a venue and seeing the performance without buying a ticket: although you cause no damage that the venue/site could claim through the court, you violate any applicable laws about unauthorised access — tresspassing/hacking. The fact that the content is already on your computer does not change this: think of a meal at a restaurant that is already in your stomach but you haven't paid the bill yet.

If you were simply investigating what is wrong with the website ("CSS engine of my browser breaks, or the stylesheet is not received properly") then there is nothing illegal if this accidentally makes you see the paid content.

Greendrake
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I'll tackle the jurisdiction part of your question since none of the other answers here address it.

You are within India's jurisdiction, so India's law would apply to you regardless of where the site(s) are hosted from. If what you're doing were illegal in India (and the company who owns the copyright were aggrieved enough to make a case out of it), they would have to ask your government for permission to sue you, which isn't going to happen for something like what you described.

Now, regarding the technicals...

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms to access information for which you do not have a license would fall under anti-curcumvention laws. In the US, that would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Copyright Directive in the EU.

Anti-curcumvention laws make it illegal to circumvent any "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Those laws are highly controversial because "any technological measure" is vague and overly broad in scope. Obviously, cracking an encryption key or exploiting an authentication bug qualifies. But removing a simple CSS tag?? That'd be like holding an envelope up to a light bulb and calling it mail fraud. It's the digital equivalent of removing a piece of masking tape.

It's hard to see how that could be considered a technological measure under the law. It certainly does not fit within the additional language those laws use to describe examples of technological measures.

Also an interesting footnote...

Both the US and EU laws are implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. India is NOT a signatory to that treaty.

Wes Sayeed
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