Your lawyer friends sound anal-cautious. There are a few lawsuits about direct Web links, but the only ones that are remotely seen as IP violations are those that "deep-link" meaning they bypass all the advertising on the front page toward useful info down deeper - and even those have not been settled.
Where your buddies would have a better case for worry is if you put little trademarked icons to identify the links.
But corporate lawyers are paid to be insanely cautious adn they are reading every worst case analysis (ie. the Web will be destroyed as all linking is made an illegal copyright violation.)
-- Nathan
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, kelley wrote:
> dear lawyer putzs and wannabes :Þ
>
> we just picked up an account from Big Cigar Bank of America.
>
> the lawyers are insisting that it could be copyright infringement if i do
> the following in a weekly newsbits thingy like most of us get in some form
> or another.
>
> Someplace in Ill (June 7, 2000). One Pope Carrol (aka Carrol Cox) has long
> maintained that he's been involved in marxist praxis since before he ever
> heard the word, "Marxist". In an effort to clean the Internet of Petty
> Bourgeois Platonist Scum, Pope Carrol has launched a new Web site that
> should, once and for all, eliminate all bloody fool wannabe marxist
> poseurs. http://www.website1.com/squeegee/
>
>
>
> Dougdadddy's, New York City, NY (June 7, 2000). A well-known author and
> journalist, Doug Henwood, unleashed his newest concerns about the social
> ills associated with capitalist. Henwood's latest concern is the abusive
> situation faced by shopping carts, especially in urban inner city.
> http://www.shoppingcartabuse.com/
>
> Butt seriously, these wanker lawyers say that it could be copyright
> infringement to do the same with legit sites, like Techworld, ITworld, Wired.
>
> this makes no sense to me and i'm curious. why? wouldn't it be the case
> that these yo yos want people to visit their sites. the more click ons to
> their site the better because they use these numbers to sell advertising
> slots yah?
>
> so if'n any o youse legal beagles have a klew by four...you wanna pipe up?
>
> kelley
>