FC: News web sites try to charge for links to articles

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40850,00.html

    Free Links, Only $50 Apiece
    by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
    2:00 a.m. Dec. 28, 2000 PST

    WASHINGTON -- Online news sites are turning to a novel way to make
    some extra cash: requiring fees for links.

    The Albuquerque Journal charges $50 for the right to link to each of
    its articles. Localbusiness.com and Latino.com are more generous, and
    permit one to five links without payment.

    There's just one catch. Legal experts say no U.S. law or court
    decision allows a website to successfully demand payment for links to
    its content. Such linking is a common practice online and allows
    services like search engines to exist.

    "They have no right to use the legal system to stop the linking," says
    Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA. "But if sites really want
    to stop linking, they can easily do it by technological means, by
    periodically shifting the file names of their pages, by delivering the
    pages using CGI scripts rather than direct links, or by including HTML
    code that checks the address of the site from which the user arrived."

    The sites that limit unapproved linking rely on a service provided by
    Renton, Washington, startup iCopyright.com. In exchange for a portion
    of the licensing revenues, customarily less than 50 percent,
    icopyright.com handles collecting payment for article reprints,
    photocopy licenses or links.

    Nobody questions a publisher's legal right to demand payments for
    article reprints, at least for substantial quantities. But
    iCopyright's license agreement, which is featured at the bottom of
    articles at its partners' sites, says the company can selectively
    grant or withhold "HTML Link permission (that) allows you to link to a
    specified Web page."

    The iCopyright.com license agreement also restricts what can be said
    about the content of the linked-to article. If you sign up to pay $50
    to link to, say, an Albuquerque Journal article, you agree not to say
    anything "derogatory" about "the author, the publication from which
    the content came, or any person connected with the creation of the
    content or depicted in the content."

    Because the agreement limits negative comments about someone
    "depicted" in a news story, someone linking to an article about
    President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore would not be
    permitted to criticize either one.

    Paula Tobol, iCopyright.com's senior marketing manager, defended the
    company's license agreements. "The license is to guarantee the link
    and give you peace of mind that it will stay available for a specified
    period of time," Tobol said in e-mail to Wired News. "Currently, the
    legal issue of linking is somewhat unclear."

    [...]




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