Comments on: No Direct Links To Webcasts If Owner Objects: Texas Federal Court

By: Colette

Colette — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:41:29 +0000

There's a lengthy debate about this from December (an earlier ruling in the same case) on the Patry Copyright blog at http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/12/gentlemen-stop-your-linking.html. I worry that because of this case, there will be unwarranted fear about linking to other sites. Courts have generally held linking to be non-infringing (of copyright) so it's unclear to me (from the opinions issued by this court) why this court came out differently. I've blogged my opinion about it here: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5077… I also understand that the defendant has appealed the opinion.

By: Billy Dennis

Billy Dennis — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 20:48:05 +0000

I agree. This isn't deep linking. It's hotlinking. And can't the victim in the case solve the problem by adding some code to their site?

By: James Quintana Pearce

James Quintana Pearce — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 02:54:51 +0000

I'm not sure this is the same as deeplinking. When a hyperlink points to a web page, that page is opened when someone clicks on the link. In this case the page didn't open, only the webcast. In that sense it's like someone writing a program that displays content from other people's sites on their own site, and I think it's more like RSS scraping than deeplinking (although with RSS scraping the offending site does host the content).
If internet content is going to be free there is going to need to be other business models to fund it — and if those business models aren't protected the content will disappear.