Legal Issues:

Hyperlinking has been called "the very essence of the Internet," and it is unarguably what
makes the World Wide Web unique in its exchange of information. The idea that Web site
information is public leads to the belief by many that no one should interfere with the Web's
free flow of information. Microsoft even used this concept in their defense in a recent lawsuit,
claiming that the plaintiff "breached an unwritten Internet code in which any Web site operator
has the right to link to anyone else's site."

There is no decided case law in the area of deep linking, although there have been several high
profile cases settled out of court and a recent partial decision in one large case. The legal
implications of court rulings could be enormous. Even search engines could be affected, as
nearly all of them, such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos, etc., base their operations on a form of
deep linking. Their function could be severely restricted by blanket legislation (some of which
has been proposed by the current Congress) or bad litigation results in deep linking cases.

Shetland Times vs. Shetland News

The first deep linking case was filed in 1996 in Scotland, involving The Shetland Times ,  a
newspaper and The Shetland News, a news delivery Web site. The News posted headlines from
the Times, using actual Times headlines as the text of the hypertext link. For example, one
such link on the Shetland News home page was "New Prime Minister Elected," which linked
directly to a story in the Shetland Times with the exact same headline. This 3was not the only
complaint. The links also bypassed the Shetland Times home page which carried large volumes
of advertising.

Status: In October, 1996, Scotland's Court of Session banned the links, "finding it plausible
that a headline is a literary work and that the News's practice of incorporating the Times's
headlines verbatim in its link lines violated the latter's copyright" (Kaplan). The Scottish Court
did not rule on the matter of deep linking.

Ticketmaster vs. Microsoft

In April, 1997, Ticketmaster filed a complaint in federal court in the Central District of California
alleging that "Microsoft's actions diluted their trademarks; created a false, deceptive and
misleading representation that there was a formal relationship between the two of them;
constituted unfair competition and business practices; and constituted a commercial misuse of
their trademarks."

Microsoft at that time operated Sidewalk, a recreational and cultural guide Web site. What
Microsoft was doing was simple -- if a Sidewalk user wanted to buy a ticket to a particular event
mentioned on the site, Sidewalk offered them a link to Ticketmaster's ticket purchase page.
They were actually promoting Ticketmaster sales and sending them customers. So, why would
Ticketmaster complain about increased business traffic? Their gripe was that the link took the
user directly to the event page, bypassing the advertising and other proprietary information on
their home page. They apparently lost focus of the fact that Microsoft was sending them
thousands of customers.

A month after the suit was filed, Ticketmaster blocked Sidewalk users from their site. Links  set
up from Sidewalk then took users to a Ticketmaster page that read, "This is an unauthorized
link and a dead end for Sidewalk."
Status: In February of 1999, the 2-year-old lawsuit was settled out of court. "They settled
on mutually agreeable terms," said Microsoft corporate spokesman Tom Pilla. Details of the
settlement were not made public, but the deep links were removed, directing Sidewalk users to
the Ticketmaster homepage.

Ticketmaster vs. Tickets.com

Ticketmaster uses its Web site to sell tickets for events to its customers and so does
Tickets.com. But, Tickets.com also lists information about tickets available from other sources.
Tickets.com even explains on their website: "These tickets are sold by another ticketing
company. Although we can't sell them to you, the link above will take you directly to the other
company's Web site where you can purchase them." That's where this controversy begins.

Ticketmaster claimed that when Tickets.com transferred a customer to a Web page deep within
their site, it caused the customer to bypass the Ticketmaster home page. What's the big deal
with that? One might think they would be glad to get more business. They're not!  Because
they have ads on their home page and advertisers pay a lot of money to be seen there, they
feel that deep linking interferes with their ability to raise revenue. Ticketmaster believes that
deep linking is legally wrong because it violates sections of the ‘terms and conditions' at the
bottom of their home page.

Status: In April, 2000, Federal Judge Harry L. Hupp obviously disagreed with Ticketmaster on
several claims, ruling in favor of Tickets.com by dismissing four counts of the portion
of the suit involving deep linking. In his ruling he states that, "...hyperlinking does not itself
involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying
is involved. The customer is automatically transferred to the particular, genuine Web page of
the original author. There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a
library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently." He
further states, "It cannot be said that merely putting the terms and conditions in this fashion
necessarily creates a contract with anyone using the web site."

Universal vs. Movie-List

The Universal Studios/Movie-List controversy, while also a deep linking case, was a bit different
in nature.  Movie-List , a collection of links to over 900 movie trailers, was deep linking to
trailers within the Universal Web site. Originally, they were actually running the trailers, which
were the property of Universal Studios, on the Movie-List server.  Not only were they deep
linking to trailers, Movie-List was also selling CD-ROMS with trailers they had downloaded.
When Universal sent a cease and desist order, they removed the trailers from their server,
instead deep linking directly to them on Universal's server, along with trailers on some popular
movie fan sites like Hollywood.com, which has permission from Universal to post trailers. The
way the Movie-List site was set up, only the URL indicated that the trailer actually belonged to
Universal.  As far as the average surfer would notice, the trailers seemed to be running on
Movie-List's site.  Universal then sent them a second cease and desist, stating, "You are not
permitted to link to other sites that contain our copyrighted material without our authorization.
Accordingly, you must remove all images from our films as well as links to other sites that have
our servers."

Status: All trailers have been removed from the Movie-List server, and the owner no longer
sells the CD-ROMS. He has removed all of the deep linking to Universal pages, however,
he has restored some links to Universal's main site. Movie-List is now under fire from
Hollywood.com who is ordering that he remove deep linking to their site.
Other deep linking cases that you may want to review include:

 The Times vs. News Index

The Link Controversy Page has links to news stories and synopses of each of these suits.

From:
http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/FacultyExcellence/Pattie/DeepLinking/cases.html