Re: Linking to other sites

From: Charlie Martin <CMartin_at_shopexpert.com>
Date: Tue 13 Jun 2000 13:03:28 -0700

ANDREW GROSSET <agrosset_at_telusplanet.net> WROTE:
> Could someone comment on the legality of linking to
> News Stories on for example Yahoo? They typically use
> Reuters and there general disclaimer at the bottom is:
>
> "Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is
> expressly prohibited...."

Andrew ... I did a lot of content licensing in my
previous professional incarnation and while I can't
provide you with a definitive legal answer, here is
what I can tell you from seeing many things that didn't
fly and caused legal problems versus ones that did fly.

To maximize the chances that the link won't come back
to haunt you in some legal sense:

* Make the daughter window a fully functional
   IEexplorer (or netscape) browser window. That is,
   don't drop the menus and tool bar b/c you are sending
   traffic to a website based on their content and they
   want that person to turn pages, be able to navigate
   around (forward / backward), bookmark pages, etc.
* Do NOT frame the content around your frame (thereby,
   blocking out some ads that would have appeared). Based
   on what you say, I think you are fine.
* Do not pull more than the headline (e.g., first 5
   sentences) ... again, seems like implementation you
   suggest is fine per below.
  
You might look at what iSyndicate (www.isyndicate.com)
does in this space for 3 reasons:

a) they allow people to place free headlines on their
   webpages with CTRs that take the browser to the actual
   content site. They have a tool that will auto update
   the headlines. ISyndicate gets paid on the CTRs (paid
   by the content destination site)
b) b/c of their model and business, if you implement
   your headlines in the same way they do, you'll almost
   certainly be in the clear and not have problems
c) iSyndicate has lots of publishers so if the ones you
   want headlines for are listed with iSyndicate (for
   iSyndicate's free headlines product offering) you can
   feel even more rest assured that these particular
   publishers will not only be OK with what you are doing,
   but they will be very happy b/c they don't have to pay
   the middleman (iSyndicate in this case) for the CTRs
   you drive to their content destination site.

good luck and happy linking,

Charlie

Charlie Martin, Director of Business Development
ShopExpert.com
Email: charlie.martin_at_shopexpert.com
URL: www.shopexpert.com




Received on Tue Jun 13 2000 - 15:03:28 CDT