[thelist] Linking license?

[Julian Rickards]

2008/11/27 FayeC <ftarzwell at fayec.com>

> Hi,
>
> At my day job I have been asked to place a link to an online newspaper
> article on our public site.
> My question is regarding the licensing. I read the information on the
> newspaper site and they require payment if one wants a pdf version of the
> article for posting or if one would like the html version for hosting on
> one's site.
> No mention to licensing requirements for just linking.
> Is it still necessary (I remember that in the past some companies wouldn't
> allow others to link to their pages but I am not sure if this has changed)
> to require permission to link to a page on another site or cross linking
> doesn't require that?
>
> What is the consensus on this matter?


>From what you have said, the newspaper doesn't seem to want a fee for
linking to their site, or perhaps even linking to the PDF (although your
visitors would be asked for a fee to download the PDF).

As a general rule, there are no fees or restrictions with linking to a site
or a resource on a site, even if the resource comes with a price tag (eg.
linking to an iTunes song or a Dell computer). The only "restriction", if
you can say that, would be that you need to be clear that the content
belongs to the other site which is really only an issue if you trap another
site within your site's framed layout or similar using iframe.

My 2¢,

Jules