Re: Web link copyright

On 5/6/99, Stanley M. Morris <smmorris[_at_]rmii.com> wrote:
>
> Are URL's subject to copyright? Specifically, may an alphabetical
> list of URL's incorpoated in a web page be subject to copyright?
> The pages in question appear to be similar to a telephone book or
> a city directory. I think not. Is there a case on point? Thanks.

For one point of view, see http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht#lo which says in part:

The question seems easy enough to state: is there any legal or ethical impediment to setting up a link to someone else's web site?

A first difficulty comes if one succumbs to the temptation to rephrase the question as "is a URL copyrightable?" The person who phrases the question this way triumphantly states that the answer is "no" and thus that anyone who wishes may place any URL into any web site without having to answer to anyone else. A URL is rather like a telephone number or a street address. Arguably it is no more protectable by copyright than a telephone number, due to its primarily functional quality. So indeed the answer to the question "is a URL copyrightable?" is "no". But the world is filled with legal constraints on behavior in addition to those that come from the copyright laws. If you post a sign saying "call this telephone number to reach a chronic liar", then unless the person at that telephone number is indeed a chronic liar, you will be subject to legal liability for libel. And it will be no defense at all that the telephone number was uncopyrightable.

Having discerned that the question "is a URL copyrightable?" is irrelevant, how can we arrive at an answer to the original question? An important step is to figure out what kind of link we are talking about.

Carl Oppedahl
<carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> Received on Sat May 08 1999 - 12:51:58 GMT