Terms and Conditions of Use

One of the central features of the Web is the ability for each Web page to offer quick connections to other Web pages in the click of a button. There are a few different ways that websites connect with one another, each with different legal implications in the permissions context. This section discusses the issues raised when your site includes connections to other websites, and includes a sample linking agreement.

1. Linking and Framing

Two common ways websites connect to other sites are linking and framing.

a. Linking

Most often, a website will connect to another in the form of a link (also known as a "hypertext" link). A link is simply a specially coded word or image that when clicked upon, will take a Web user to another webpage. A link can take the user to another page within the same site (an "internal link"), or to another site altogether (an "external link").

EXAMPLE: At the Nolo.com website, each page offers several links to other areas of the site. For example, from Nolo's Legal Encyclopedia area on Small Business information, you can link to Nolo's bookstore. These are internal links. Nolo.com also includes links to other sites and the Small Business Administration's websites. These are external links.

Permission is not needed for a regular word link to another website's home page (however, see the warning about "deep linking" below). Even if your link appears perfectly legal, it is considered good online etiquette ("netiquette") to obtain consent for all links. Most linking issues can be squared away by having the linked site sign a linking agreement giving permission for the link as provided in Section C2.

Linking to a page other than a website's home page sometimes angers Web owners.
The reason Web owners dislike this practice, known as deep linking, is that it allows users to bypass the home page, which often contains information the Web owner wants its users to see. Advertisements, for instance, are usually placed on a home page, and the fewer viewers that see it, the less the Web can charge for advertising space. In 1997, the Ticketmaster company sued Microsoft over deep links to Ticketmaster's ordering forms, and the case eventually settled. In another case involving Ticketmaster and Tickets.com a federal court ruled that deep linking by itself did not constitute a violation of law, but that other conduct in connection with the deep linking -- for example, an implication that the two sites were associated with each other --could result in a valid claim. Ticketmaster vs. Tickets.com, 54 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1344 (C.D. Cal. 2000). In other words, the law regarding deep linking remains unsettled.

b. Framing Besides external links, another way to access other sites is by framing. Framing is a lot like linking in that you code a word or image so that it will connect to another Web page when the user clicks on it. What makes framing different is that instead of taking the user to the next page, the information from that page is imported into the original page and displayed in a special "frame." Technically, when you're viewing framed information your computer is connected to the site doing the framing -- not the site appearing in the frame.

EXAMPLE: John starts a site devoted to auto racing news called John's RacingVision. He offers a number of links to racing industry Web magazines like Autosport, and displays their content within a frame at his site. When users click on "Read Autosport News," for example, the content from the Autosport site is displayed within John's RacingVision website, in a frame. When the user reads the Autosport news, their computer is still connected to John's website, not Autosport's.

Framing is generally unpopular with websites whose content is framed at another site (unless they have agreed to it). Websites who frame the content of other sites are often seen as stealing the other site's content. One court found framing to be a copyright infringement because the process resulted in an unauthorized modification of the linked site. (Futuredontics Inc. v. Applied Anagramic Inc., 45 U.S.P.Q. 2d 2005 (C.D. Cal. 1998).) In another case, The Washington Post , CNN and several other news companies sued a website, TotalNews, which framed news content. Under the terms of a settlement agreement, TotalNews agreed to stop framing and agreed to only use text-only links.

While case law hasn't developed definitive rules on the issue, a framer is more likely to be found liable for copyright (or trademark) infringement if copyrighted material is modified without authorization or if customers are confused as to the association between the two sites or the source of a product or service. For more information on trademark infringement, see Chapter 10, "Getting Permission to Use Trademarks."

Also beware of inlining content. Inlining (sometimes referred to as "mirroring"), which is similar to framing, involves the process of incorporating a graphic file from one website onto another website. As with framing, the site whose graphic is being used is likely to object. For example, United Media, the copyright owner of the "Dilbert" comic strip, pressured a computer user into halting daily inlining of daily comic strips taken from the United Media website. In other case involving inlining of photographs, a search engine created small reproductions (“thumbnailsâ€) of images and placed them on its own website. A court ruled that this practice was a fair use and not an infringement because the thumbnails were much smaller and of much poorer quality than the original photos and served to index the images and help the public access them. The court did not rule on whether the reproduction of the full sized image, not the thumbnail, was a fair use. (Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 03 C.D.O.S. 5888 (9th Cir. 2003).)

Keep in mind that some forms of framing are perfectly legal. For instance, many sites use frames as a way of organizing their own content. When framing the content of another site, however, you are entering hazardous territory. Unless you know a site won't object (and preferably have their agreement in writing), you should proceed very carefully if you want to frame other websites' content.  to read more about these type thing go to. http://fairuse.stanford.edu/index.html