Re: Legality of Linking

At 17:31 6/08/99 -0500, Jason Schupp wrote:
[lots of good stuff - snipped for the sake of brevity]
>Big sites like
>CNN, c|net, Wired,  the television networks, etc. have this statement,
>and usually provide graphics that you can use to link to them. Whether
>or not this supplements or supercedes being able to use a plain old
>simple text hyperlink, I don't know.

I basically agree with all of Jason's points.  The one above is a really
problem legally though!

Basically what it gets down to is "what constitutes a link?"

Should I:
a) use a key word as a hyperlink back to the article
e.g. The <.A HREF="http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-basics/">HWG Basics List
Charter</A>

b) use the address of the page as the text inside the hyperlink back to the
article
e.g. The HWG Basics charter can be found at <.A
HREF="http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-basics/">http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-bas
ics/</A>

c) using the reference as plain text, not as a link:
eg.  The HWG Basics charter can be found at
http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-basics/

I would suggest that both (b) and (c) serve the same function.

I find it extremely hard for anyone to state that (c) is illegal - *tongue
in cheek* unless the authors of that site would prefer us to simpy
reproduce sections of their work without any acknowledgement of the source :-)

In terms of the "appropriateness" of making links, I think the real problem
comes if you are providing a service in opposition to the sites you link
to.  Anything that could be construed as a conflict of interest would
certainly  require permission.


Chris Higgs <c.higgs(at)landfood.unimelb.edu.au>
Institute of Land and Food Resources
University of Melbourne
http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au

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