Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Wired News May 14 article by Declan McCullagh mentions several professional publishers of newspapers and magazines seeking to block deep links by non-commercial hobbyist websites, even though a US Federal Judge ruled in 2000 that hyperlinking is not a violation of copyright.  It is analogous to using a library's card index to faster and more efficiently reference particular items.  The library is not violating the copyright of the books that are being linked to, by using the card index.  According to Wired, The Judge said that deep linking is not illegal (in the USA) as long as it's clear whom the linked page belongs to. Wired News Dec 6 last year by Fargad Manjoo explains KPMG's opposition to hyperlinking to their site without their permission, much like the NPR situation. 1:06:05 PM

July 16 issue of Search Day has more on the Deep Linking controversy out of Denmark, which I introduced 2002-07-10 Wednesday.  Two lawyers get into a debate over what is becoming more obvious to me is related to copyright fair use. When do we need explicit permission to link to someone's web site? Is "Don't link without our express permission." legally binding? Is linking an implicit agreement to a contract with "terms of permission"? For the answers to these questions, read the latest Search Day debate.  Not as clear as I would like it to be.  Additional relevant links include: Controversy over the linking policy of National Public Radio. 11:58:14 AM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.