LinkMyths.html
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 31 October 2006 - Apple Inc. build 13), see www.w3.org" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
"text/html; charset=us-ascii" />
<title>
Links and Law: Axioms of Web architecture
</title>
<link href="di.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body bgcolor="#DDFFDD" text="#000000" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<address>
Tim Berners-Lee
<p>
Date: April 1997
</p>
<p>
Status: personal view only. Editing status: not perfect.
</p>
</address>
<p>
<a href="Overview.html">Up to Design Issues</a>
</p>
<h3>
Axioms of Web Architecture
</h3>
<hr />
<h1>
Links and Law: Myths
</h1>
<p>
See <a href="LinkLaw">Links and Law</a> before reading this.
</p>
<hr />
<h3>
Myth one
</h3>
<h3>
<a name="Myth" id="Myth"></a>
</h3>
<p>
Myth: "A normal link is an incitement to copy the linked
document in a way which infringes copyright".
</p>
<p>
This is a serious misunderstanding. The ability to refer to a
document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a
fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that
speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is
more efficient but changes nothing else.
</p>
<p>
When the "speech" itself is illegal, whether or not it
contains hypertext links, then its illegality should not be
affected by the fact that it is in electronic form.
</p>
<p>
Users and information providers and lawyers have to share
this convention. If they do not, people will be frightened to
make links for fear of legal implications. I received a mail
message asking for "permission" to link to our site. I
refused as I insisted that permission was not needed.
</p>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" id="There">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<b>There is no reason to have to ask before making a
link to another site</b>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
But by the same token,
</p>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
You are responsible for what you say about other
people, and their sites, etc., on the web as anywhere
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>
Myth Two
</h3>
<p>
Myth: Making a link to a document makes your document more
valuable and therefore is a right you should pay".
</p>
<p>
This is another dangerous one. It is of course true that your
document is made more valuable by links to high quality
relevant other documents. A review in a consumer magazine has
added value because of the quality of the products to which
it refers the reader. I may be more valuable to you as a
person if I refer you to other people by name, phone number
or URL. This doesn't mean I owe those people something.
</p>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
We cannot regard anyone as having the "right not to be
referred to" without completely pulling the rug out
from under free speech.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>
Myth three
</h3>
<p>
Myth: Making a link to someone's publicly readable document
is an infringement of privacy.
</p>
<p>
The "security by obscurity" method of hiding things behind
secret URLs has the property that anyone knowing the URL
(like a password) can pass it on. This is only a breach of
confidentiality of there is some confidentiality agreement
which as been made.
</p>
<h3>
Hall of Flame
</h3>
<p>
Famous cases in which people tried to prevent others linking
to their web pages include, if I recall correctly,
Ticketmaster trying to stop the Seattle Sidewalk site linking
into its pages, so that those looking through the site about
the town could follow a link and buy tickets to the events.
This was widely perceived not only as philosophically wrong
by falling for the myths above, but also crazy, as it was a
protest against Seattle Sidewalk bring traffic and hence
business to the Ticketmaster site.
</p>
<p>
In 2002, A Danish court made an injunction preventing a
Danish news filtering service (effectively a sort of search
engine) from linking to pages of a Danish newspaper. See the
slashdot article. I assume that the appeals process will
clear up this after this time of writing (2002/07). If such
decisions are accepted, the whole working of the web would
break down.
</p>
<p>
In 2004, a <a href=
"http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2004Aug/0029.html">
comment</a> to the W3C TAG noted that the <a href=
"http://www.athens2004.com/athens2004/">Athems Olympic
site</a>, no less, tried to prevent deep linking, to pages
such as their <a href=
"http://www.athens2004.com/en/Sports/indexpage">sports
page</a>. Thus, a vast set of rather unique resources were
supposed to be not really part of the web. They even try to
constrain how one will link to entry page. The Athens site
violates the principles above and sets a very bad example. A
pity, when the Olympics celebrate what is best in humanity,
that the web presence should exclude itself from the global
discourse.
</p>
<p>
In 2010, according to the <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/technology/09paper.html"
>New York Times</a>, the Nikkei Shimbun's website decided it could disallow linking,
even to its home page.
"Links to <a
href="http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/freetop.aspx">Nikkei's home page</a>
require a detailed written application.
Among other things, applicants must spell out their reasons for linking to the site.
In addition, regular readers of the site will also notice that the paper
has disabled the ability to right-click -- which usually brings up a menu
including "copy link address." The paper's "link policy" ends on an ominous
note: "We may seek damages for any violations of these rules."
The Nikkei says the rules are intended to make sure its pay wall is not
breached and to prevent the linking of its content from "inappropriate" sites.
</p>
<h3>
Conclusions about links
</h3>
<p>
There are some fundamental principles about links on which
the Web is based. These are principles allow the world of
distributed hypertext to work. Lawyers, users and technology
and content providers must all agree to respect these
principles which have been outlined.
</p>
<p>
It is difficult to emphasize how important these issues are
for society. The first amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, for example, addresses the right to speak. The
right to make reference to something is inherent in that
right. On the web, to make reference without making a link is
possible but ineffective - like speaking but with a paper bag
over your head.
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<i>A reminder this this is personal opinion, not related to
W3C or MIT policy. I reserve the right to rephrase this if
misunderstandings occur, as its always difficult to express
this sort of thing to a mixed and varied audience.</i>
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a href="Metadata.html">Next: Metadata architecture</a>
</p>
<p>
<a href="Overview.html">Up to Design Issues</a>
</p>
<address>
Tim BL
</address>
</body>
</html>