I just saw a webpage my sister had printed out which gave explicit permission for the page to be printed. Is this redundant, or am I violating copyright law every time I print a webpage which does not contain permission for me to do so?
No case has come to court on this, so there’s no formal ruling.
However, the page would fall under general copyright protection as soon as its put online. In theory, the copyright owner could take you to court for printing out anything on the Internet. If the copyright was registered, they could hit you for damages (if not registered, it would be hardly worth their time and court costs).
My guess is that if you print out a copy for your own use, then it’d be very unlikely that any infringement action would succeed, or that anyone would bother with it. If you start reprinting it, then things would be different.
From a technical point of view, printing out a copy is a violation, but one so trivial that no one will bother with it.