world who own infringed copyrighted works, who have or will register them with the U.S.
Copyright Office as required, whose works fall into either of two categories: they were the
subject of prior infringement which was blocked by YouTube after notice, but suffered
additional infringement through subsequent uploads (the ‘repeat infringement class’), or are
musical compositions which defendants tracked, monetized or identified and allowed to be used
without proper authorization (the ‘music publisher class’).”^3030 The court found the suggestion
that a class action of the dimensions presented in the present case could be managed with judicial
resourcefulness to be “flattering, but unrealistic.”^3031 In Nov. 2013, the case was settled by
stipulated dismissal.^3032
D. Linking and Framing
The practice of “linking” is another activity that is ubiquitous on the World Wide Web.
A “link” is an embedded electronic address that “points” to another Web location. Links may be
of at least two different types. The first type, which will be referred to as an “out link,” merely
provides a vehicle by which a person browsing a Web page can go to another site by clicking on
the link. The out link stores the electronic address of the destination site, and clicking on the link
sends that address to the browser, which in turn moves the user to the new destination site.
A second type of link, which will be referred to as an “inline link,” is a pointer to a
document, image, audio clip or the like somewhere on the Web contained in another’s Web page
which, in effect, pulls in the image, text or audio clip from the other Web page into the current
document for display. In other words, a user looking at A’s Web page will see on that page
image, text, or an audio clip that actually was “pulled in” from site owner B’s Web page.^3033
When material from an inline link is displayed within the “frame” or window border of a page of
the linking website, this type of linking is often referred to as “framing.”^3034 The linking site is
sometimes referred to as a “para-site,” with obvious pejorative connotations.
Both out links and inline links raise a number of potential copyright issues. An out link
that points to a site containing infringing material may, for example, cause further infringing
(^3030) Id. at 6.
(^3031) Id. at 7-8.
(^3032) “UK Soccer League Ends Suit Against Google’s YouTube,” Law360 (Nov. 13, 2013), available as of Nov. 15,
2013 at http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/treaties/en/documents/pdf/hague.pdf.
(^3033) I. Trotter Hardy, “Computer RAM ‘Copies:” Hit or Myth? Historical Perspectives on Caching As a Microcosm
of Current Copyright Concerns,” 22 U. Dayton L. Rev. 423, 449 (1997). For example, “[a]n individual at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a while kept an inline 7ink to the ‘Dilbert’ cartoon of the day. The
cartoon appears on copyright owner United Media’s site, http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/, but to
browser’s of the individual’s site, the cartoon appeared to be residing ‘there.’ United Media sent the individual,
Dan Wallach, a ‘cease and desist’ letter, after which Wallach ceased and desisted the in-line linking.” Id. at 39
n.82.
(^3034) “Frame” technology is a page presentation capability available in both the Netscape Navigator and the
Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers that enables the display of multiple, independently scrollable panels on a
single screen. Frames may contain many types of elements, including text, hypertext, graphics, scrollable
regions, and other frames.