CADTutor Hijacked?

[David]

I've just been alerted to this: http://go.cadwire.net/?5094,3,1

Do you think it is entirely legitimate to display other peoples websites within the frames of your own site?

More to the point; is it desirable for CADTutor to be treated in this way? I suppose they do provide a direct link and a "close frame" option. Am I just looking a gift horse in the mouth?

[James]

I wouldn't like it, but it's a good way of getting extra traffic isn't it? As long as your site's navigation is there people can go on to have a good look round your site. So after the initial annoyance I'd probably let it be.

You could always put some JavaScript in the HEAD of your page, this will dispense with the offending frame onload - http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/framebreak.shtml

[Tom]

The legal argument turns on the principle of Fair Dealing. Books on copyright law and IP deal with it exhaustingly. My short summary that to use an illustration for the purposes of comment or criticism is legitimate but to simply purloin someone else's content is illegimate. For text there is also a norm: approx 500 words. It rather looks as though the example you gave is anthologizing rather than comment so I guess you could stop them if you wanted to.

[francis]

This happened to the mighty metal-sludge (http://www.metal-sludge.com/MainPage.htm) a few years ago, except someone purchased metalsludge.com and used that as the framset - probably a better URL in the first place. They took the JavaScript route out (I know this because I suggessted it to them). The code is almost identical to the on in JB's link:

<!--

if (self != top) top.location.replace(self.location);

-->

But that in the head of your page and all your troubles will be gone. Why should hundreds of hours of your hard work go to help create advertising revenue to someone else? It makes your site look worse and won't be doing you any favours.

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On a slightly different note - anyone been infected by a virus? 96 emails this morning, 15 of which contained thw w32.lovgate.R virus (a new one on me)