Another Publisher Challenges Legality of Links

NewtonsLaw writes: "It seems that the legality of hypertext linkiing has once a gain been called into question according to this story running on Wired.com. As the former online publisher of 7am.com, I was once threatened by the Nando Times in a similar manner when I was linking to their stories. Local TV broadcaster TVNZ also made all sorts of noise about the illegality of linking to their content back in 1966 but have since come to their senses. Over the years I've had similar bitchy complaints from a number of online publishers who simply haven't worked out that links from other sites are something to be encouraged because the drive traffic and boost search-engine ratings. A great resource for those interested in the history, opinions and law on the matter of the legality of linking is the Link Controversy page created and maintained by Stefan Bechtold. Most publishers eventually realize that trying to block linking through the courts is a really dumb thing to do -- but there's always someone who simply doesn't get it."

Comments

Can't fucking take this anymore

[DivideX0]

Please preview your fucking submissions, it should be:

"It seems that the legality of hypertext linking has once again been called into question according to this story running on Wired.com."

"As the former online publisher of 7am.com", as opposed to the offline publisher of 7am.com.

"Local TV broadcaster TVNZ also made all sorts of noise about the illegality of linking to their content back in 1966 but have since come to their senses" Should be legality, and lets make it 1996 instead of a couple decades before the web.

. . . be encouraged because they drive traffic . . .

Editors, would it kill you to at least check the submissions and fix the obvious errors in the stories in which you post?

ITS OUR INTERNET

[dh003i]

The internet was created with OUR TAX DOLLARS.

The internet was created by OUR researchers.

Who were paid with OUR money.

SORRY, you lame entreprenuing lazy fucks, if you don't like linking, get the fuck off the web.

Internet. World Wide Web. Net. Web. Network.

Do those words mean anything to you cheap entrepreneuing fucks? To me, they mean INTER-CONNECTED, like a spider web. If you don't like it, pack up your silk and get off our web.

Deep linking is one of the things that defines the web. Its a great benefit, which saves bandwidth and server space. Why should the same information be replicated elsewhere many times (I'm not talking about the typical 3 mirrors that exist), when it already exists on one site? Why should users have to use globs of bandwidth going through your 10MB front cover web page, when all they want is a 1KB file in your site?

The internet should be architectured to maximize the overall net performance, not to benefit an exclusive -- who are bandwagon parasites to the internet -- and small group, at the expense of the community -- who created, supported, and nurtured the internet.

The intenet is OURS. It doesn't belong to corporations. It is, and should be kept as, a complete commons. It is a utopia of information. The ideal of the internet is that some day, eventually, you would be able to find any information instantaneously. The goal is to make the internet into a giant perfect brain, in essence, a neural network so to speak. Its goal is to be a place where I can go and retrieve information almost as quickly as if I'd had that information memorized and locked away in my brain.

Anything which detracts from that goal is anti-internet and should be shunned.