** Reply to note from Gary Martin <[log in to unmask]> Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:46:46 +0100
> Sorry to bring this subject up again...
>
> What policies do institutions have in place to guard against possible
> copyright actions arising from links being made from framed html pages on
> your web sites?
>
> Here at Sheffield Hallam we discourage the use of frames in our WWW
> provision, as I'm sure many of you do. We have implemented a VLE which uses
> frames throughout though (Blackboard) and this is widely used here. There
> is a concern that links from the VLE pages to external sites could be
> construed as passing off the external site's content as our own and risk a
> copyright legal action.
>
> I realise the law is unclear on this topic still. Has any institution been
> asked to remove any such links or been required to sign any agreement by a
> commercial company limiting their use? We are reaching an impass here as we
> cannot easily pop open new windows to break the frames from the VLE but are
> obliged to respond to a large commercial organisation who have asked us not
> to link to their site (deep or otherwise) from within a frame.
Morning :-)
I am not picking on you but this is so typical University stuff. See what others
are doing ... strength in numbers. What if all others are wrong or noone replies?
You know you (I mean your uni) are doing wrong and expect (hope) others are doing
wrong too.
If there is a link to an outside site wouldn't a target="top" in the <a href...>
do the trick (or something like that). If it cannot be done then complain to the
Blackboard makers (that is where you need strength in numbers from other HEIs).
--------------
If it does break copyright laws (and it does ... whetever the story of the two
newspapers in the North of Scotland was) you should not wait to asked not to break
the law ... you should expect the worse that you will be prosecuted and may have
to pay damages.
Half a penny of thought (too early for me).
Charles
==============================================
Charles Christacopoulos, Management Information Officer,
Planning & Information Group, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN,
Scotland, United Kingdom.
Tel: 44(0)1382-344891. Fax: 44(0)1382-201604.
http://www.somis.dundee.ac.uk/ http://somis2.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
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