In copyright law, the legal status of hyperlinking (also termed "linking") and that of framing concern how courts address two different but related Web technologies.
In large part, the legal issues concern use of these technologies to create or facilitate public access to proprietary media content — such as portions of commercial websites.
Merely linking to Kelly's originating home page, on the other hand, without free-standing display of the full-size images, would not run afoul of the fair use limits established by the Panel.
[9] In July 2003 a German Federal Superior Court held that the Paperboy search engine could lawfully deep link to news stories.
[11] "A sensible use of the immense wealth of information offered by the World Wide Web is practically impossible without drawing on the search engines and their hyperlink services (especially deep links)," the German court said.
[12] The first suit of prominence in the field was Shetland Times Ltd v Wills, Scottish Court of Session (Edinburgh, 24 October 1996).
[13] The Shetland Times challenged use by Wills of deep linking to pages of the newspaper on which selected articles of interest appeared.
[17] In April 1997 Ticketmaster sued Microsoft in Los Angeles federal district court for deep linking.
Microsoft's Answer[19] raised a number of defenses explained in detail in its pleadings, including implied license, contributory negligence, and voluntary assumption of the risk.
Microsoft also argued that Ticketmaster had breached an unwritten Internet code, under which any website operator has the right to link to anyone else's site.
This factor, combined with the relatively slight economic harm to Kelly, tipped the fair use balance decisively in Arriba's favour.
Although the facts were somewhat closer than in the Arriba Soft case, the court nonetheless found the accused infringer's use fair because it was "highly transformative."
… We are also mindful of the Supreme Court's direction that "the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use."
In addition, the court specifically addressed the copyright status of linking, in the first U.S. appellate decision to do so: Google does not … display a copy of full-size infringing photographic images for purposes of the Copyright Act when Google frames in-line linked images that appear on a user's computer screen.
However, such assistance raised only contributory liability issues and does not constitute direct infringement of the copyright owner's display rights.
The conduct was excused because the value to the public of the otherwise unavailable, useful function outweighed the impact on Perfect 10 of Google's possibly superseding use.
It concluded that "in-line linking and framing may cause some computer users to believe they are viewing a single Google Web page, [but] the Copyright Act .
In Goldman v. Breitbart, Justin Goldman, a photographer, posted his on-the-street photograph of Tom Brady with Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge and others to Snapchat, which became popular over social media such as Twitter on rumors that Brady was helping with the Celtics' recruitment.
Judge Katherine Forrest decided in favour of Goldman and asserting the news sites violated his copyright, rejecting elements of the Perfect 10 ruling.