Permission for website links

[Elizabeth McMahon <mcdear@pivot.net>]

This is a bit late but pertains to the discussion about requiring
permission from a site before linking it to a webpage.  The comments
came from Tom Easton, a professor at Thomas College, Waterville, Maine.
He is currently a professor in their Masters computer technology in
education program in which a friend of mine is enrolled. His comments
seemed to put it all in perspective for me and seemed very down to earth
and logical. Hope the rest of you find them as helpful in sorting out
this issue. And, yes, I did get permission from him to post his
comments!

Liz McMahon
Library Media Specialist
Williams Jr. High Library
Oakland, ME 04963
lizm@williams.sad47.k12.me.us


> One cannot violate copyright by saying "see this site or document."
> But there are indeed people out there who are eager to take offense
> and turn the legal beagles on you.  See
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/websuit980921.html ,
> which is surely one major basis for that school district's fear of
> lawsuits.

> Quotations from sites may be another matter, depending on their
> length, but that can be handled by paraphrasing.
>

> _Of course_ one doesn't need permission to link to a site.  The mere
> existence of the site is tacit permission since that is the entire
> purpose of having a site!  It's like a book in the library--you don't
> need the author's permission to open it, nor to cite in the references
> to a paper.
>

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