I’m on record as saying that linking to another site’s home page with a text hyperlink does not appear to be a use of the linked site owner’s copyright rights¾ because linking does not involve the exercise (use) of any of the exclusive rights of copyright. (There’s more detail on this issue in Chapter 20 of my book Internet Law and Business Handbook).

            However, if you use a graphic image or logo from the linked site as your link icon, copyright and even trademark issues are present. For one company’s approach to protecting its logo marks while allowing them to be used as links, see http://pmapp.us.dell.com/register/link.asp . The computer company, Dell’s (the computer company) link agreement is a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use the Dell link logo as a hypertext link icon. The agreement includes terms of use, including a promise by the licensee to avoid using any marks or graphics that are likely to cause confusion with or dilute the distinctiveness of Dell’s marks.