Legal Question in Technology Law in Texas

Web page rights

We have a genealogy page online that is a free service for people researching in our county. After having a page up with information on the local historical museum for 2 years, we have been emailed by a person representing the president and board of directors of this museum and have been told to kill our URL, that it was never authorized by the board and that it contained inaccurate and outdated information. The pages we have up on the museum contain photos we took ourselves when we toured it (nothing stated you can't take photos), and we copied the information that was on the plaques outside each structure, so they must have changed the plaques since we visited last. They gave us the URL to their museum page, and stated that it was the only authorized site. We know that we could easily remedy the situation by just asking them if we may link to their page, but we put in quite a bit of work on the pages we have, and it was just the way they went about *telling* us that we would *have* to kill the URL, instead of asking us nicely to please change the link to their page. We just wanted to know if legally we would have to take our link down. Thanks for any help you can give us on what we know is a trivial matter to most.


Asked on 10/31/00, 3:52 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Re: Web page rights

Provided your site makes it clear that it is not the official website of the museum, and provided you are not selling any products or services with museum trademarks or copyrighted material on them, and provided you do not defame the museum, you are relatively safe. What I would suggest is putting a link and a disclaimer, such as "This is not the official WHATSTISNAME MUSEUM SITE, but we endeavor to keep up to date information on here on the WHATSITSNAME MUSEUM." [substitute the correct name for WHATSTISNAME] Hyperlink the prase Official WHATSITSNAME MUSEUM SITE to their site and that should keep them off your back.

If you need more complex help or want to do some of the no-nos listed above you need legal advice to do it in a way to minimize legal risk. For that you should call me or some other IP lawyer.

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Answered on 11/16/00, 8:11 pm


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