they have granted a licence to HN (and YC-affiliated companies), not anyone else. It's that licence that permits HN, and HN only, to send users' content to your browser

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xigoi 4 hours ago | parent [-]

So if someone uses a VPN to access Hacker News, the VPN is infringing copyright?

	▲	GeoAtreides 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Transient copies of user data, in traffic, memory or caches, are protected by the copyright law, so there is no infringing.