Print

Print


Emma Blagg's email asked about the *legal* position on deep-linking.  "AFAIKs" and "IMHOs" are fine for a discussion but Charles Oppenheim summed up what I think is understood to be the legal position.

The Shetland Times dispute, and the Stepstone and Haymarket disputes in December/January showed that there is commercial sensitivity about this.  It seems to me that "commercial" is the key word here.  Possibly many companies will not object to - for example - academic institutions deep-linking or possibly even embedding content.  Many of the cases on this subject (in the US, Germany, Netherlands etc.) relate to commercial competition.

Having said that, cavalier attitudes to what is or is not permissible could lead to a case which could make "bad law", which then affects everybody.  Oppenheim is, therefore, right to encourage everyone to think about what they are linking to and why, and certainly permission should be sought in some circumstances.

The increasing availability of sites to use programs to audit who is linking to their sites will be used by many companies precisely because they *are* bothered about deep linking.  A major case is only a matter of time.

Laurence




Laurence W. Bebbington
Law Librarian (Hallward Library)
The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD

Tel:  0115 95 14568