Here's a gray area situation...

[migg321]

Let's see what you got.

First of all, this question is related to the internet mainly so that by itself shrinks the answering pool by a good margin. So whomever is left, try your best.

The question is, is this website doing anything wrong and is there any potential lawsuits that could be files against them?

Website:

The web site scans links (articles, pictures etc) on other websites on the internet and is capable of ranking the content on their page with their "special" technology. They then display the links to these other websites' content and categorize them according to their own system. All this website shows is the name of the article or picture, the name of the author, and the link directly to the source.

And when you click on one of these links... you go directly to the website of where the link came from but you carry with you a little window that allows you to go back to the main original website after you read said article or see said picture.

Do you guys believe that this is considered "fair use" and is anything else wrong here?

[Byncuniddiday]

The issue comes up with ads.

When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of “fair use” would clearly apply to the situation.

There are 4 things you have to take into account when deciding if something is fair use or not:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

If the site wasn’t making any money, then one could make the case that the site owner doesn’t aim to profit from the hosted content, and because the originating site is down, the hosted content doesn’t affect the potential market for or the value of the original work, thereby putting it is on decent legal ground.

However, since the website is making money from ads, by hosting content produced by others, and without obtaining their explicit/expressed permission, the site is actually on very shaky ground.

There's also the example of a website like Law Plug - its a collection of user-collected links to legal websites, forum threads, and blog postings.