LAW: Legality of deep linking to Web sites

From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 13:31:40 MST


Does anyone know what the law says about "deep linking". Say you write some
comments on an article appearing on a magazine's Web page, and you link
directly to the article. (The article appears in a new browser, exactly as
it would appear if the viewer had gone there directly.)

What if the magazine sent you a Cease and Desist letter, and told you that
it did not permitting linking to its content (which is freely open to the
public), only to its main page?

This sounds ridiculous to me. The magazine would be turning away freely
given traffic that it would otherwise not receive. What I'm really
interested in is not so much the silliness of such a policy, but whether an
online magazine can legally enforce such a claim. I would think the law
does *not* support this, but sometimes "the law is an ass", so I'm asking
the many-brained List if it knows the law in this area.

I can't imagine telling someone, "No, no, I don't permit you to link to The
Extropian Principles. You may only link to my home page."

Thanks,

Max
--------------------

Max More,
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
www.maxmore.com
President, Extropy Institute. www.extropy.org
Senior Content Architect, ManyWorlds Inc.: www.manyworlds.com



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