Copyright and Fair Use: An Issue of Ethics in a Changing Learning Environment
Web Linking
The definition of web linking is providing a direct hyperlink to another website. The law currently states "one can link to the front of a Web site, with several caveats. Commercial outfits need a cross link license" (Hillis, 1998, p. 2). Another type of web linking is deep linking, which is "linking to a page of another site other than the other's home page" (Kubiszyn, 2000a, p.2). Deep linking has become quite controversial. The first major case about deep linking was Ticketmaster v. Microsoft. Without consent or a linking agreement from Ticketmaster, they deep linked on their "Sidewalk" web guide to information on specific events on interior pages of the Ticketmaster web site. In turn, Ticketmaster filed suit for illegal use of their website and bypassing its homepage, and Microsoft consequently agreed to remove the deep link and link only to Ticketmaster's home page (Kubiszyn, 2000a).
In another case, Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com, Ticketmaster stated that Tickets.com was deep linking to their site, similar to the Microsoft case, and "copying material from the Ticketmaster site and posting false information about the availability of tickets from Ticketmaster" (Kubiszyn, 2000a, p. 4). In October, 1999, Ticketmaster placed a linking statement on their website declaring that users "agree not to deep-link to the site for any purpose, unless specifically authorized by Ticketmaster to do so" or linking "for distinctly commercial reasons" similar to the previous two cases (http://www.ticketmaster.com/h/terms.html). In March 27, 2000, U.S. Judge District Judge Harry Hupp dismissed the four counts of Ticketmaster's complaint and stated, "Hyper linking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying is involved. The customer is automatically transferred to the particular genuine web page of the original author. There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently" (Kubiszyn, p. 4-5, 2000a).
Some web pages are constructed using frames. Generally, one frame provides the table of contents for the site and a second frame displays the results of selecting a link. When a link causes a web page authored by another organization to display, a copyright protected image is being displayed. This process is known as "framing."