hello all, been a lurker for a long, long time of this great forum, but going to start posting now. My questions are with regards to Iframes, and in particular the legal issues that they may bring. Lets say i have a sports site and i wish to have the latest sports results, could i add an Iframe from another site and have the results appear on my page? There are 2 versions of this though: 1) i just add the domain into the Iframe e.g resultsite.com 2) i ONLY copy the source of the results e.g resultsite.com/results.php Would both be legal? would i NEED permission? would 1 be ok, but not 2? OTHER DETAILS *I should add that the page i will be displaying the Iframe has NO google ads, but will have 1 affiliate banner and possibly a text link. *My site is FREE to use and thus i dont directly profit from the Iframes *I am happy to add a short disclaimer directly under or above the frame e.g "This results service is powered by xxxxxxx.com for the full results see xxxx.com So basically, do i need to ask for permission? and if not, do i have a chance of getting into trouble? Many thanks.
If you cause the iframe to initiate a click-thru for some affiliate program, that is definitely not allowed and a quick way to get booted from the targeted aff. program. More specifically, if some banner/affiliate link would go to bigdollars.com when clicked, if you make that the value of the iframe "src" property, NOT allowed. framing whether with frames or iframes is borderline, and probably in many cases not allowed/illegal. However, if you've ever clicked external links at about.com, they frame everything external to their site, but the top frame offers the visitor a link to unframe the page, or to return to about.com. So the way they do it, it's more or less transparent to the visitor and not sneaky. When you talk about having a banner within this other site's content, unless the banner was already on that page, it would mean you're copying their content and adding your own banner/aff. link, and I'd have to guess that's a no-no. Wanna provide an example for us to look at?
i think i explained poorly. ok, another hypothetical scenario. I have a forum and one of the threads is discussion of the Superbowl. Many of the members give their opinions on who will win, and then half way down the thread i insert a live scoreboard from CNN.com in a 500 x 600 Iframe. Is this allowed?
p.s at NO POINT will i attempt to claim the content within the frame as my own, nor will their be any of my affiliate banners inside or close to it.
I use frames for a few things. It drives more traffic to the other sites, so I doubt they care. I think when you start 'claiming' the info as your own, that is where you get into trouble. IMO...
most sites wont care, like you said it drives traffic to them, but the use i have for it is to display the live scores service from another site. This is a service that not many sites have, so maybe they are not keen on others using it within an Iframe.
If you do it best give also offer a link which opens that site full browser, and if in doubt your always best to ask!
Well if you ask permission and the webmaster says yes then its legal. If the webmaster says no then don't do it.
that is true, but what is the legal stance on this? e.g if i was to put an Iframe of this forum on one of my pages, could you do anything about it? There must be a correct legal answer out there somewhere, it would be intersting to know.
Here is what you want to know. It is seen as linking to an alternate website. This is perfectly legal. It is only illegal if you intend to mislead the end user about a product or service. If a web surfer is inclided to belive the content is yours, you are in trouble. I would place a thing that said something like "Sports scores from CNN" above the frame. **note** I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, gut I do read a lot.