iFrames and Law [closed]

Question

Suppose an actor A has the site of an actor B in iFrames. There is no difference in the sites except the url. Urls are totally different. Should the actor A ask a permission of the actor B for using B's site? Is there any law that forbid placing other site on a site in iFrames?

Answer 1

Not a programming question, but at least let me help you with a link to a site. The owner of plagiarismtoday.com have had some of your concerns and, although not a lawyer, have collected quite a bit of information.

http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/04/07/is-the-diggbar-content-theft/

Read The Law on Framing and follow the link to the case of Washington Post v. TotalNews

You should also check your country and local state laws, there is no such thing as a standard legal solution because it changes from one place to the other and many countries do not have laws on what you are asking. However, let me tell you, the web seems to be dominated by two frame of mind, or law philosophy:

• lex mercatoria: these folks tend to think the web is commerce and commerce laws should apply, which are mostly derived by mores and civil laws
• lex retis: these folks say the web is anarchy, no law should govern it

PS: I am a lawyer. Even if this is a bit complicated, I hope you can get an idea.

Answer 2

As far as I can tell, it only becomes a legal problem if the iframe is used to perpetrate fraud, deceptive marketing, or somesuch. Short of that, it's merely annoying. You can always use framebusters/framekillers if it bothers you enough.