Re: using web page icons as hot links

On 02/14/97, Greg Broiles wrote:
>
> On 2/12/97, Karen Coyle <kec[_at_]dla.ucop.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On 2/11/97, Jamie Powers <jamie[_at_]srgpe.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Second, you can use anyone's plain http formatted URL without
> > > consent.
> >
> > Are there court decisions to support this? I thought that this was
> > still an open question.
>
> I think an easy analogy here is to names, slogans, titles, and short
> phrases which are unprotected by copyright, per 37 CFR 202.1(a).

Sorry, the answer is too cute. While it is true that short phrases and the like are unprotected by copyright, this does not mean that use of a URL to set up a link is automatically okay.

When we say that short phrases are not protected by copyright, what that gets us is that we can place a URL on a piece of paper, and put the paper in a photocopier, and create as many copies as we wish and hand them out to the public. And what it gets us is that you could place the URL as an item of text in your web page and let everyone see it.

But while those things are true, they are also boring. Nobody cares if you place a URL as a text item on your screen, and nobody cares if you hand out slips of paper with URLs on them.

What people do care about (and what started this thread) is whether there *are* things that a web site owner can stop others from doing. And the answer is clearly yes. A web site owner can stop others from creating composite pages that incorporate (via IMG or frame links) one's copyrighted subject matter into the composite page; it's an unauthorized derivative work. A web site owner can stop others from passing off another's work as one's own, and can stop others from libelling by means of a link. ("Click here for a web site created by a chronic liar.")

See <http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht> for more discussion of this point, including:

     May I use images from the Web sites of others? 
     May I freely link to the Web sites of others? 
     Someone has set up a link to my Web site without my permission -- 
       what can I do? 

Carl Oppedahl
<carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> Received on Mon Feb 17 1997 - 14:12:39 GMT