Is It Legal to put Link to other site on your own?

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

02/13/2007 05:14:03 PM · #26

Originally posted by RainMotorsports:

Okay MK google was only sued over it!

Can you provide some links to this case? I'm interested in reading about it.

Originally posted by Dr.Confuser:

While you have a valid point, I disagree to a degree. When you deep link, or hot link, and massive numbers of folks follow the link, you are stealing bandwidth the linked-to site has paid for. At the extreme, you may be guilty of a denial of service attack. I don't know the law but I can imagine a site litigating to recover damages if the hot link shut them down (denial of service) or caused substantial monetary damage (paying for substantial bandwidth consumed).

I am sure there are other issues ... porn, IP infringement, defamation and so on. Those issues aside, you can cause substantial unintended harm. So beware, and be kind.

Yes, I do think we disagree on several points. However, for the common user, I don't think this is an issue, the way either of us choose to define it. If you're going to create an enormously popular site, along the lines of Ticketmaster, etc., then yes, you may have a problem. If you're making Joe Dinkum's Homepage to post a bunch of your photos and link to a few sites you like, you probably won't. But, like other people have mentioned, you can always ask if it bothers you.

02/13/2007 05:51:17 PM · #27

Originally posted by theSaj:

IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE CRITICAL OF MY POSTS MATTHEW, PLEASE, DO NOT SIMPLY SAY THEY'RE FLAWED. PROVIDE THE REASONS WHY. THAT WAY THE READERS BENEFIT FROM CORRECTED INFORMATION. OTHERWISE, YOUR COMMENTS COME ACROSS MERELY AS AN ATTEMPT AT DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER OR ANTAGONISM.[/B]

Sorry - I was busy, and did not have time to respond in full. I'll respond briefly below, given the obvious upset that I have caused you from your post and e-mail.

There are a number of cases concerning linking of various types.

The issue is not illegality, but unlawfulness.

There are a number of other issues - the matter is not a purely copyright issue.

DeCSS was not purely developed to enable playing of DVDs on Linux systems. The copyright issues involved relate to ancillary legislation on mechanical protection, not the principle of copyright that you went on to attack. An aggressive attack on the general implementation of copyright law was off topic.

The analogy would be better expressed as a right to build a factory for anyone to use to knock off copy GM engines, because you own a GM car and feel that you are entitled to build replica GM engines for your own purposes.

Originally posted by theSaj:

Yes, you're a lawyer and might feel that you are the best qualified to answer such questions and feel that I am unqualified to do so, not being a lawyer. As a professional web developer I believe my statements to have equivalent validity. And I believe if Thomas Jefferson was alive today, he would say the courts should take the opinion of 12 web developers over 12 lawyers for a jury any day.

I do have some experience - as I said, I have written a few reference sources for other lawyers on the subject. I was not pretending to be a juror - I was giving some free legal advice, generally trying to be helpful, even if written informally and in a rush. I was careful to avoid inaccuracies. In respect of legal issues, in the past, web developers have tended to consult me, rather than the other way around.
My apologies if I offend you on this ocassion by not deferring to you.

02/13/2007 06:01:33 PM · #28

Originally posted by mk:

Originally posted by RainMotorsports:
Okay MK google was only sued over it!

Can you provide some links to this case? I'm interested in reading about it.

Here are some of the recent Google/linking cases decided in the US:

Government Employees v. Google, 2005

Blake Field v. Google, 2005

Perfect 10 v. Google, 2006

Bradley v. Google, 2006

Person v. Google, 2006

Here is a very recent US case on deep linking where it was considered to be unlawful (this is also an example of a judge failing to understand the technology): Live Nation Motor Sports, Inc. v. Davis, 2006 WL 361983 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 12, 2006).

Message edited by author 2007-02-13 18:08:17.

theSaj

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

02/13/2007 06:39:32 PM · #29

The issue is not illegality, but unlawfulness. There are a number of other "issues - the matter is not a purely copyright issue."

Not the matter is not a purely copyright issue. And I never stated it was. In fact, I mentioned linking out to child pornography being an example of linking that can result in legal issues.

"DeCSS was not purely developed to enable playing of DVDs on Linux systems. The copyright issues involved relate to ancillary legislation on mechanical protection, not the principle of copyright that you went on to attack. An aggressive attack on the general implementation of copyright law was off topic."

DeCSS allowed a number of actions. One of the leading motivations at the time was to enable a free DVD player for Linux based systems. There were a number of fair use applications for DeCSS (ie: playback, backing up your media, etc) and there were potentially illegal uses. This is what the courts and MPAA siezed upon.

The underlying issue was that it opened up access to the DVD's content.

"The licensing restrictions on CSS (DVD content protection) make it impossible to create an open source implementation through official channels, and closed source drivers are unavailable for some operating systems, so some users need DeCSS to watch movies." *

DeCSS code & similar CSS decrypting code was essentially prohibited on a broad spectrum (linking to, printing, even educational scenarios of discussing the code encountered legal ramifications and challenges).

The chief complaints against DeCSS (and similar programs) is that once the unencrypted source video is available in digital form, it can be copied without degradation, so DeCSS is associated with mass copyright infringement and a culture of sharing and distributing copyrighted information. However, lossless digital image copying of DVDs without decrypting them was already widespread before DeCSS, especially in East Asia. Furthermore, various DVD backup utilities that made use of "licensed" CSS decoding routines were also widely available.*

So the real issue at hand was having such access available on such operating systems as Linux under a totally free distribution. That said, all of that is a digression of the fact that in certain cases just "linking to" something can cause legal woes. And other than a few issues such as child porn, national security type stuff, most of those issues derive from copyright laws. The fact that I am not partial to copyright laws, having lost quite a bit of $$$ and faced a fair number of headaches thanks to them will leave me with a rather biased slant. My apologies.

****

As for the intent of my posts. Mine is real world your is legal. You even pointed to a recent case of deep linking and a controversial interpetation by the judge.

My point was to point out instances and occurrences of linking that have in the past created issues. Whether those the particular cases are won or in courts is dubious to the average Joe. The mere fact that they have led to people having to go to court is a concern to us. Few average hard working people in the U.S. want to have the headache of having to go to court...even if the end result is that they are declared legally to not have infringed. The headache, time lost, etc. Is of concern to most of us.

By providing examples that have resulted in such headaches it allows people to evaluate their own actions. As new technologies and methods develop the law will always be ambiguous in nature. Until such "newness" arrives in the courts to be decided. Thus the best hope the common man has against the lawyer and his whiles is to look at the past and try to avoid that which looks like a similar pitfall. Or, recognizing it does look similar but believing it's different - take a knowing risk.

Few of us have the time, money, or resources to spend 2-4 yrs involved in a court case.

theSaj

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

02/13/2007 06:47:58 PM · #30

That said, regarding the business of photography and whether it's legal to link to another site. This is generally accepted when linking out to the originating site.

Some content itself may be under legal scrutiny thus linking to it can create legal problems but not for the action of linking out but rather linking to.

The direct linking is one I'd be cautious with because there is a lot of gray regarding the issue. Some feel their copyright is being violated (ie: if I deeplinked Star Wars music into my own website). There is also the issue of drawing upon another's bandwidth.

If you direct linked an image from another's website (ie: a photo on DPC) and incorporated it into your own site. Then say you got national media attention and your page got 10,000,000 visitors in one hour. (ie: your Superbowl ad was a success). That deep linked image from the DPC servers would also receive 10 million draws and could potentially consume all of DPC's available bandwidth either crashing the site or racking up immense bandwith overage charges for Drew & Langdon.

Thus there is some abiguity. Most web-masters advise against direct-linking unless given permission prior. Furthermore, it is recommended not to do so because if said site goes down or disappears the content will disappear from your site as well.

Some exception on this best practice is made when one is using a frame or linking environment to load full content into a sub area. (ie: a directory of photographers that allows you to click a list on the left and see the web site appear in a frame to the right and then has a bar on top to report on whether the site loads or to rate a site so that it can update information in the database.)

Message edited by author 2007-02-13 20:53:07.

02/13/2007 07:24:28 PM · #31

I don't have time to respond to Jason's various allegations and statements.

In short, as was stated far earlier in the thread, hyperlinks are usually fine without taking further steps - but take care if you deep link or link to dubious materials, and you should probably avoid hot linking.

theSaj

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

02/13/2007 09:42:42 PM · #32

Originally posted by Matthew:

In short, as was stated far earlier in the thread, hyperlinks are usually fine without taking further steps - but take care if you deep link or link to dubious materials, and you should probably avoid hot linking.

Nicely put...