This is not expressly prohibited by any law, but may possibly amount to a contravention of the provisions of the Copyright Act 98 of 1978.
Broadly speaking, copyright is the right given to the owner of a copyrighted work not to have that work copied (reproduced) without authorisation. Without law in the area of linking having been established, website owners who wish to exert strict control over linking (and framing) of their website content, should prohibit third parties contractually from linking by incorporating online terms and conditions which exclude any implied license and which limit and restrict the use of the website content and provide, for example, that no linking may take place without the express content of the website owner.
Reproduced with permission from Law Business Research. This article was first published in Getting the Deal Through – e-Commerce 2009, (published in August 2008 – contributing editor Robert Bond). For further information please visit www.GettingtheDealThrough.com. Download the entire chapter that we wrote on South Africa, including this article.
