Is Digg's business model legal or are they getting a pass from every site because of the traffic they bring to websites? Is it legal to gain profits from advertising while providing links to news, blogs, videos, & pictures without a written consent from the original owner/creator? I know that some RSS feeds won't allow you to use them if you are profiting from them in any way. Maybe it is legal if the content is not directly on your site, but linked from your site? Thanks in advance, -DigiP
Yes, it's legal to link to sites without their permission. I've read of a few court cases on this issue.
I had a feeling it was ok for news and information. What about images and videos? I think I remembered reading articles that it was forbidden to link to images and videos, although they were probably talking about hotlinking. Do you remember reading anything about linking to images and videos? Thanks in advance, Digip
In some countries, linking to videos/images can be illegal if the file being linked to is infringing. Example: I put a link to a movie trailer on the studios website, totally legal. I put a link to a torrent of a dvd rip of that movie on Joe Schmoe's site, possibly illegal (depending on where you live). Hotlinking without permission has been found to be illegal in some jurisdictions especially if you try to make it look like your own work.
i would have to say that linking is not infringement... The internet would be nothing without backlinks...
Main stream media seems to be warming up to providing a Digg It button. Guess they're loving the traffic to their site. Besides it seems like the last case I read above someone suing over incoming links was quite a while ago. Rich Ord has an article about the AP suing Moreover. The Associated Press is suing news-aggregation site Moreover and its parent company VeriSign for copyright infringement for snippeting and linking to its news.
FreeRepublic.com got into a lawsuit over that in 1999 and the judges ruled against them. During an appeal, they negotiated a final settlement of $5,000 instead of the $1,000,000 the judge had previously ordered. In addition to the $5,000 they had to purge the articles from their web archives, start enforcing a policy regarding what users could post, and keep a list of news sources and what they allowed (excerpt or link only). Even on a site where users post the content, quoting from a source verbatim w/o permission could get the site owner in trouble. Then again, the LA Times vs. FreeRepublic case specifically ruled on full text of articles.. excerpts might be ruled on differently.
Linking to another site is probably not illegal... but may be against the linked website's Acceptable Use Policy.
I know there are a multitude of websites who share your concern and have actually blocked referrers from digg and stumbleupon.com in an effort to bring a voice to their cause.
If its your users and not you yourself its ok. But if you get a removal request you have to remove it. At least I think so.