Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
Is displaying a screen shot of the whole, or part, of someone's webpage on your website, without their permission, ethical / legal?
What did you have in mind?
If I obtain permission to display webmaster A's website in an iframe, and webmaster A has a link to webmaster B's website in his/her webpages, and a visitor clicks that link - which would then display webmaster B's website in the iframe - do I have to get permission from webmaster B as well?
The question is: Is displaying material from someone's website in your own website ethical / legal and how far can you go?. Are you obliged to obtain permission from all website owners first? Has there been any legal precedent set?
There are clear lines on what you can and cannot do.
But from your second post I'd warn you that once you start talking about 'what you can get away with' ("How far can you go"), you have already gone too far.
Using someone else's creation, without permission, in order to make money is theft. It really is as simple as that.
"Passing off"" someone's creation as your own, by screen grabs, frams, js, whatever, is morally indefensible, and usually illegal.
Think about it; you know it makes sense.
Just to be clear about one thing, I'm using iframes as a way to seamlessly integrate other webpages into my application, not to disguise or take any credit away from the original creator.
My specific application involving iframes is a forum, where members are allowed to enter their own webpage URL as part of their member profile - not so unusual. If a visitor (or another member) on my forum clicks a link to visit a member's webpage, the webpage will open in an iframe, so that the visitor never has to leave my forum.
I have implicit permission to display member's webpages to visitors by way of members joining my forum and entering their URLs into their member profiles, however if a member's website has a link to another website and a visitor clicks that link as well, then that webpage would also open in my forum iframe. Would displaying the new webpage in my forum iframe be illegal?
It also depends which country you are in.
in the UK, for example, there's a clear precedent in the 'shetland times' case, where a local newspaper site deliberately framed the contents of its rival - and lost the case.
there are almost always better ways to do these things; a simple link, rather than an iframe, for example - if you insist, opening in a new window.
But you can't beat a plain old-fashioned link. No complications, no hate campaigns, no rivals shrieking in pain, no court cases. Just happy surfers. ;)
For me, it's a "look and feel" thing I'm trying to accomplish with my forum. For example, I have buttons that display messages, photos, videos, classified ads, etc. within a fixed area of the screen (iframe).
If I have a simple link to another website which opens anywhere except in the iframe, that destroys the look and feel of what I'm trying to accomplish. I would like the website to open in the iframe so that there is a consistent look and feel to the way my forum works.
Of course, if what I want to do becomes, at some point, illegal, then I won't do it.
I'm in Canada, so our legal system is probably fairly close to that in the UK.
Do you know what legal issues decided the case you quoted? Was it a copyright thing, a fraud thing, etc.?
and tell me how a normal outbound link can destroy the look and feel of your website? don't be selfish. let it open a new window and there you go.
don't frame external websites! no chance you gonna get permission from each and every webmaster that could happen to be linked inside your iframe. so it's indeed illegal.
There are many nasties that can happen with "normal" links. One quick example that comes to mind is disabling the function of the browser back button by the linked to website. Not that that's a real issue for an experienced surfer, but for the inexperienced, getting back to my forum from such a website could pose a problem.
but at the end of the day, if someone wants to leave your site to do something else, then they are going to leave - there is nothing you can do about it. you can try doing things like opening their sites in iframes and doing redirects and all that kind of stuff but you can't keep hold of them indefinately. all you are really doing is making your site a little less usable to your visitors (and THAT is what will really drive them away in the end)
the whole point of a forum is that people will keep coming back to it everyday to talk. it is sticky in itself, without you trying to keep them there.
my advice: make your site as usable and as pleasurable to use as possible. and that will make your visitors happy and keep them coming back.
think about it this way... if you joined up to a new forum and found out that your homepage link was opening up inside their frames, ruining the look of YOUR site, then would you be happy? i doubt it. well that is how your visitors are probably thinking about your site.
