Should Linking Be Illegal?

[Steve_A]

Hi peaceandlove,

To a certain degree the guy is right, but not totally.

The law states that you can use parts of text, images, short pieces of music or film for educational or journalistic purposes.

However, using complete works infringes the copyright law.

If owners want to receive links to their website from their articles they usually put a disclaimer on the foot of their articles saying that they may be copied, as I have on my site: http://www.marketingyourmusic.net/mat128.htm

"You may copy this article and post it in your site, without onus, as long as you keep the due credits for the author and source intact, with an active visible link, below the text to the url:..."

Bloomberg, however, has a different take, "All individual articles, columns and other elements making up the Service are also copyrighted works. You agree to abide by all applicable copyright and other laws, as well as any additional copyright notices or restrictions contained in the Service"

In other words, don't copy (or use for your ends without asking permission first).

The question though is, "Is a link to a webpage an infringement of copyright?"

I think the answer to that is "No". When we make a link to a website we are leading people to certain information which has been made public. It's a bit like indicating a book to someone in the real world. The indicated would see th book cover, would even read the synopse, they might even flick through a page or two, but they don't read the whole content, they buy the book first.

If someone indicated Bloomberg to me, I wouldn't copy every piece of information, I would read the information that interested me, and perhaps other info which caught my eye which they published for a visitor to read.

One could be forgiven, if they were conspiracy theory buffs, in thinking that the judge wants to kill the links, to try and stem the flow of information that is being passed around on the internet.

Prison Planet, as indeed here, has eyes everywhere and brings to the forefront information and newspaper articles that would be missed in the real world. An article in a Punjabi newspaper here, or a story in a Chinese newspaper there, often give more informaion as to what is happening in the US than the proper US newspapers who have their political bias in the country.

But even if the law is made so that linking is illegal, dont forget we can use the same method as some use for e-mail addresses. In the case of my website it would be marketingyourmusicdotnet.

Best regards,

Steve

Originally Posted by peaceandlove

Should Linking Be Illegal?

In a misguided attempt to aid newspapers, one of America's most influential judges is suggesting a new copyright law

Dan Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 July 2009 14.00 BST

Those who wish to keep the internet free and open had best dust off their legal arguments. One of America's most influential conservative judges, Richard Posner, has proposed a ban on linking to online content without permission. The idea, he said in a blog post last week, is to prevent aggregators and bloggers from linking to newspaper websites without paying:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

Posner's notion set off an eruption from the likes of Jeff Jarvis, Matt Welch and Erick Schonfeld, among others. And they are right to be furious. Not only would Posner stop online media dead in their tracks, but he would also overturn long-established rules of fair use, which, among others things, allow for the reproduction of short excerpts of copyrighted material for the purposes of commentary, parody and the like – precisely what bloggers and aggregators do all the time.

And Posner, who sits on the seventh circuit court of appeals in Chicago, has a way of getting his way. A brilliant, provocative thinker and a frighteningly prolific writer, he was described in a 2001 New Yorker profile as "the most mercilessly seditious legal theorist of his generation". And if, at 70, Posner and his generation are not quite so influential as they once were, he is still a formidable presence on the legal scene.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ing-newspapers

SOURCE: http://www.gcnlive.com/