The Link Controvery Page was created in January 1997. It was the offspring of a German article which I wrote in 1996 that included a detailed analysis of legal problems surrounding hyperlinks, inline images and frames. At that time, discussions about such issues were still at a very early stage. There were a handful of articles on this topic worldwide, and only four published cases existed: the Dilbert Hack Page case in the U.S., the Shetland Times case in Scotland and two cases in New Zealand. Since then, much has changed. Countless cases have been reported by the press worldwide, numerous courts - including national Supreme Courts - have decided on the legal status of linking and framing, and the number of legal publications on this topic is just staggering.

For over seven years, the Link Controversy Page has been catching up with this development. Over the time, it has assembled over 400 links and 200 non-electronic citations in the area of linking law. The page offers materials in 9 languages and is accessed by users from over 85 countries. It has been used by numerous law schools worldwide as a teaching resource, has been cited in decisions by the Austrian Supreme Court, and has been recommended by the U.S. National Law Journal as well as the online editions of the New York Times and the Boston Globe. As you might imagine, keeping the Link Controversy Page up to date has always been a very time-consuming task. For approximately five years, I updated the page very regularly in order to provide an up-to-date information source. Over the last two years, however, due to other commitments I have had, I was unable to fullfill this goal. But on July 30, 2004, I have put a fully updated version of the page online.

For various reasons, I have now decided to freeze the Link Controversy page in its current status. One reason is that, over the last few years, I have been focussing my research interest on other issues in cyberlaw (such as digital rights management, trusted computing, and Internet governance). Therefore, I am unable to put the amount of time and energy into the Link Controversy Page any longer that would be needed to update the page on a regular basis. Another reason is that, although some issues in regards to linking and framing are still open questions, this area of cyberlaw has largely been settled. I like to look at areas that are currently on the edge of the intersection between law and technology, and linking law is just not on this edge anymore.

Therefore, I hope you understand that I want to focus my resources on other projects than linking law. Altough I'll freeze the Link Controversy Page in its current status, I might do an update in the future if anything earthshaking is happening. But please do not expect any regular updates to this page anymore.

I want to thank the countless users of the page worldwide for their continuous feedback. Many of the links on this page could only be included because of numerous emails from readers which I received over the last seven years. I hope that the page will continue to serve as a useful research site in the field of linking law.

Finally, thanks to Volker Dohr who convinced me that the best thing to do would be to freeze the Link Controversy Page.

And, last but not least, here is one of my favorite links: it's John Cage going online.

<http://www.bechtold.name/archive/lcp_background.html>

by Stefan Bechtold; last update: July 30, 2004