Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Do I need permission to link to someone's page?

[Lord Northern]

Hey.
I was wondering: say I have a website where users discuss different articles and when a user wants to discuss a specific article, he/she will be able to link to that article and then say what they have to say.
Certainly, copying and pasting would violate the site's copyright but simply including a little link sounds like a legal alternative. Is it really? Or, technically that would still require me as the webmaster, or the user who posted it to request permission just for linking?

I know nobody would care because it only gives more traffic to the site but legally, would permission be needed?

Thanks in advance.

[maniakaz]

I think it is absolutely legal: you do not quote this article, you do not puiblish it. it is just a link - so there should be no problem.

[rghf]

You have a right to quote parts of the article under fair use in the law so yes you are fine to link/quote/comment as much as you want

[Tristan Perry]

Yep linking is fine. As long as the website you are linking to contains legal info (etc).

And what a2b2 says is true as well - under Fair Use laws, you could copy and paste a small section of their website's content if you wanted, as long as you then give full credit to the original author.

[Lord Northern]

I see.
Well, sounds good to me.

Thanks for your responses.

[brookie]

Originally Posted by Lord Northern

Hey.
I was wondering: say I have a website where users discuss different articles and when a user wants to discuss a specific article, he/she will be able to link to that article and then say what they have to say.
Certainly, copying and pasting would violate the site's copyright but simply including a little link sounds like a legal alternative. Is it really? Or, technically that would still require me as the webmaster, or the user who posted it to request permission just for linking?

I know nobody would care because it only gives more traffic to the site but legally, would permission be needed?

Thanks in advance.

The whole web would collapse if asking permission were necessary - it would be the end of blogging