[pbhjpbhj]

>Is there some law stating that if you host a website, you must allow users to link to it in any way they like?

None that I know of specifically - however putting a website up is an implicit contract allowing normal web usage (for credits: now define normal and enforce that contract).

[kragen]

I don't think you have to bring implicit contracts into it. If I walk down the street and someone's shadow falls on me, I simply don't have a cause of action against them. If someone looks at me, I don't have a cause of action against them. If someone calls my name on the street, I don't have a cause of action against them. (Barring extraordinary circumstances, of course.) You don't need to invent theories about how I'm entering into an implicit contract with the whole world by going out on the street, among whose terms are that people may allow their shadows to fall on me and look at me. It's simply that no tort is created by looking at a person or linking to a web page.

There's no law granting exclusive rights in URLs unless they're copyrightable.

[pbhjpbhj]

I like your example but I don't think that a web page is like a person in public space. As you say their is no tort generally in approaching someone in the street but it is possible that a legal barrier has been erected and so an uninformed observer can't assume that no infringing/illegal activity is being undertaken (think exclusion orders, stalker laws, anti-social behaviour orders and the like; I think these are reasonably common across jurisdictions).

In the case of a website a copyright to that site is automatically created when the work itself is created - this is true in the vast majority of countries at least. Being able to view the site by making a temporary copy in your computer's cache is not clearly non-infringing. Someone aiding the creation of an infringing work can be acting tortuously in "contributory infringement" and hence linking to a website could, strictly, be tortuous. Applying common sense by assuming an implicit contract avoids the need to concern oneself with such apparent infringing actions.

[kragen]

> Being able to view the site by making a temporary copy in your computer's cache is not clearly non-infringing. Someone aiding the creation of an infringing work can be acting tortuously in "contributory infringement" and hence linking to a website could, strictly, be tortuous.

Hmm, I hadn't thought about it from that point of view, but I think you're right. It seems like clear evidence that your copyright law (I assume you're in the US) has gone mad and needs to be put to sleep.

[pbhjpbhj]

>"I assume you're in the US"

UK actually at present - US has some things better than us and some worse. It all could do with a good going over though!