Edited by author 06-28-2002 12:34 AM
Illway, if you'd read the letter that this quicktopic is in reference to, you'd understand clearly what the lie is:

"A link is a public fact: *This* story exists *there.* The role of copyright in our society does not extend to granting authors control over the contexts in which the existence of their work may be noted."

NPR has repeatedly taken the position that this isn't true. They're wrong. No sane copyright attorney would take this position. It does not reflect the settled practice, the case-law or the statutes.

I'm not sure what your above the law reference is about? Is it that Barlow said some silly things several years ago about copyright? What does that have to do with the price of bread or the NPR link-policy?

Your analogy *is* poor. The NPR's website is part of its body; this does not entitle it to control who can discuss the public fact of its body's existence and location.

A link doesn't touch NPR. A person who follows a link touches NPR. NPR isn't saying that it has a right to control who *visits* its site (though, in fact, it does have this right and can exercise it through trivial technical means; circumvention of those means is a criminal act under the DMCA, which allows for substantial statutory damages and criminal penalties in the case of commercial circumvention).

It's saying that it has the right to control who can give *directions* to its site.

BTW, the mailto link on your site is broken -- I attempted to send you mail last week and got a bounce.