Is It Rude To Link To Someone Without First Asking Permission?

Earlier this week, I wrote an analysis of some silly claims from Canadian IP lawyer James Gannon's sarcastic suggestion that copying money is just like copying content. Gannon stopped by in our comments... and oddly did not respond to a single point that I raised about his faulty analysis. Instead, he only commented to claim that it was somehow rude or discourteous of me to link to his piece and to discuss it without first asking for permission. I found this somewhat shocking. I've never heard that it's common courtesy to ask before you link to someone. Yet Gannon insisted that most people who link to him first ask his permission and he suggests, snidely, that his readership has higher "standards" in regards to how they view content.

Of course, when you combine this with Nina Paley's excellent post about how asking permission when none is needed is rude, it seems that we have a pretty serious disagreement here. Not surprisingly, I agree wholeheartedly with Nina and find Gannon's position both troubling and enlightening when it comes to his confused interpretation of intellectual property issues. He seems to think that a permission society is just fine. Those of us who actually create for a living know that this is not the case. It's a distraction and an annoyance when people feel the need to keep asking you for permission to do what they naturally have the right to do. Permission society is one that is less creative and less willing and able to create. Permission society is the exact opposite of what copyright law is supposed to create. It's not supposed to be a drag on creation. The whole point of things like fair use is that you don't have to ask for permission because it's inefficient to ask for permission in those cases. That he's suggesting that it's somehow discourteous not to ask for permission to do what the law clearly allows is really quite troubling.

In the meantime, has anyone actually ever heard that it's common courtesy to ask someone permission to link to them? I spend a lot of time online and I link to a lot of websites (over 38,000 posts last we checked...) and no one has ever suggested that I should have asked permission first.

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