Is it legal to point a domain to someone else's ip (website)?












2















The question is pretty straightforward: Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip (website)?



The domain owner is not actually copying the content, but just opening the website in his or her own domain.



The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains










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Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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  • 1





    What country would this be in? It might matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

    – Erwin Bolwidt
    5 mins ago
















2















The question is pretty straightforward: Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip (website)?



The domain owner is not actually copying the content, but just opening the website in his or her own domain.



The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains










share|improve this question









New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 1





    What country would this be in? It might matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

    – Erwin Bolwidt
    5 mins ago














2












2








2








The question is pretty straightforward: Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip (website)?



The domain owner is not actually copying the content, but just opening the website in his or her own domain.



The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains










share|improve this question









New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.












The question is pretty straightforward: Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip (website)?



The domain owner is not actually copying the content, but just opening the website in his or her own domain.



The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains







united-states copyright online






share|improve this question









New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 5 hours ago









David Siegel

10.9k1944




10.9k1944






New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









asked 5 hours ago









Faminha102Faminha102

1111




1111




New contributor




Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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New contributor





Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Faminha102 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 1





    What country would this be in? It might matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

    – Erwin Bolwidt
    5 mins ago














  • 1





    What country would this be in? It might matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

    – Erwin Bolwidt
    5 mins ago








1




1





What country would this be in? It might matter.

– David Siegel
5 hours ago





What country would this be in? It might matter.

– David Siegel
5 hours ago













The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

– Faminha102
5 hours ago







The resolution happens in the USA and the domain was bought at Google Domains.

– Faminha102
5 hours ago















If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

– Erwin Bolwidt
5 mins ago





If you could get it to work (the server will probably reject the hostname that it doesn't know) you might run into trademark laws, or if you did it with the intent to deceive, you may run into law around that, or if the domain name is disparaging, you may run into libel laws. There are plenty possible other laws you might run into. The question you should ask yourself is, why would you want to do this?

– Erwin Bolwidt
5 mins ago










2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















3














Yes



One could certainly put up a site whose only content was a link to another domain. And I can't find any law which this would violate.



If the link is a "deep link", and if it bypasses a log-in page, while the other site is so designed that all access is intended to go through the login, i believe (but cannot at the moment verify) that the owner of the other site could claim that this violates their copyright. In any case it is not a good idea.But a link to an appropriate page should have no problem, nor should pointing your domain at an appropriate entry page.






share|improve this answer
























  • What if the website opens in my domain?

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago











  • By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

    – Michael Homer
    22 mins ago



















0














It doesn't work that way. Simply pointing a domain at a server IP won't do what you think, for any number of reasons, i.e., load balancing, proxies, CDNs, shared IPs, the way the webserver is configured, etc. You may be able to display a simple home page on a server with a single IP. But simply pointing the domain isn't going to rewrite the source code of the site and magically make it appear to be your domain.



You could "scrape" the site and download all content and convert the URLs to your own domain, but that requires your own server, and is typically not legal, depending on the TOS of the site you scrape; see the earlier LE question Terms and condition for web scraping



What you are probably thinking of is an iframe: HTML iframe tag. You can use an iframe to display the content of another site in a window on your own hosted domain on your own server.



But the legality of iframing a site depends on the TOS of the site you frame and appears to be in legal flux; earlier LE question Can you be accused of hotlinking/copyright violation if you use an iframe?



Many sites forbid the use of iframes as they see it - case law or not - as copyright infringement. And servers can be configured to block iframing by other hosts.



Try using an iframe for law.stackexchange.com; you'll see the error Load denied by X-Frame-Options, because Stack Exchange forbids iframing their sites, though iframing appears to not be mentioned in Stack Exchange's TOS language.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

    – Greendrake
    2 hours ago













  • Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

    – BlueDogRanch
    2 hours ago













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2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









3














Yes



One could certainly put up a site whose only content was a link to another domain. And I can't find any law which this would violate.



If the link is a "deep link", and if it bypasses a log-in page, while the other site is so designed that all access is intended to go through the login, i believe (but cannot at the moment verify) that the owner of the other site could claim that this violates their copyright. In any case it is not a good idea.But a link to an appropriate page should have no problem, nor should pointing your domain at an appropriate entry page.






share|improve this answer
























  • What if the website opens in my domain?

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago











  • By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

    – Michael Homer
    22 mins ago
















3














Yes



One could certainly put up a site whose only content was a link to another domain. And I can't find any law which this would violate.



If the link is a "deep link", and if it bypasses a log-in page, while the other site is so designed that all access is intended to go through the login, i believe (but cannot at the moment verify) that the owner of the other site could claim that this violates their copyright. In any case it is not a good idea.But a link to an appropriate page should have no problem, nor should pointing your domain at an appropriate entry page.






share|improve this answer
























  • What if the website opens in my domain?

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago











  • By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

    – Michael Homer
    22 mins ago














3












3








3







Yes



One could certainly put up a site whose only content was a link to another domain. And I can't find any law which this would violate.



If the link is a "deep link", and if it bypasses a log-in page, while the other site is so designed that all access is intended to go through the login, i believe (but cannot at the moment verify) that the owner of the other site could claim that this violates their copyright. In any case it is not a good idea.But a link to an appropriate page should have no problem, nor should pointing your domain at an appropriate entry page.






share|improve this answer













Yes



One could certainly put up a site whose only content was a link to another domain. And I can't find any law which this would violate.



If the link is a "deep link", and if it bypasses a log-in page, while the other site is so designed that all access is intended to go through the login, i believe (but cannot at the moment verify) that the owner of the other site could claim that this violates their copyright. In any case it is not a good idea.But a link to an appropriate page should have no problem, nor should pointing your domain at an appropriate entry page.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered 5 hours ago









David SiegelDavid Siegel

10.9k1944




10.9k1944













  • What if the website opens in my domain?

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago











  • By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

    – Michael Homer
    22 mins ago



















  • What if the website opens in my domain?

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago











  • By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

    – David Siegel
    5 hours ago











  • Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

    – Faminha102
    5 hours ago













  • This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

    – Michael Homer
    22 mins ago

















What if the website opens in my domain?

– Faminha102
5 hours ago





What if the website opens in my domain?

– Faminha102
5 hours ago













By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

– David Siegel
5 hours ago





By "opens in your domain" you mean that the displayed URL starts with your domain? I don't see why that would matter.

– David Siegel
5 hours ago













Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

– Faminha102
5 hours ago







Yes, exactly... as an example, let's say that I configure my domain example.com to display the content of law.stackexchange.com website, so you would be able to see everything that you see right now, but the URL would be example.com. I wouldn't change the content, or ad ads, or anything else.

– Faminha102
5 hours ago















This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

– Michael Homer
22 mins ago





This answer doesn't seem to me to address the question at all, which is "Is it legal to point a domain on the web to someone else's ip?"; there's nothing in it about linking, and "deep linking" certainly wouldn't even be possible, let alone part of the question.

– Michael Homer
22 mins ago











0














It doesn't work that way. Simply pointing a domain at a server IP won't do what you think, for any number of reasons, i.e., load balancing, proxies, CDNs, shared IPs, the way the webserver is configured, etc. You may be able to display a simple home page on a server with a single IP. But simply pointing the domain isn't going to rewrite the source code of the site and magically make it appear to be your domain.



You could "scrape" the site and download all content and convert the URLs to your own domain, but that requires your own server, and is typically not legal, depending on the TOS of the site you scrape; see the earlier LE question Terms and condition for web scraping



What you are probably thinking of is an iframe: HTML iframe tag. You can use an iframe to display the content of another site in a window on your own hosted domain on your own server.



But the legality of iframing a site depends on the TOS of the site you frame and appears to be in legal flux; earlier LE question Can you be accused of hotlinking/copyright violation if you use an iframe?



Many sites forbid the use of iframes as they see it - case law or not - as copyright infringement. And servers can be configured to block iframing by other hosts.



Try using an iframe for law.stackexchange.com; you'll see the error Load denied by X-Frame-Options, because Stack Exchange forbids iframing their sites, though iframing appears to not be mentioned in Stack Exchange's TOS language.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

    – Greendrake
    2 hours ago













  • Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

    – BlueDogRanch
    2 hours ago


















0














It doesn't work that way. Simply pointing a domain at a server IP won't do what you think, for any number of reasons, i.e., load balancing, proxies, CDNs, shared IPs, the way the webserver is configured, etc. You may be able to display a simple home page on a server with a single IP. But simply pointing the domain isn't going to rewrite the source code of the site and magically make it appear to be your domain.



You could "scrape" the site and download all content and convert the URLs to your own domain, but that requires your own server, and is typically not legal, depending on the TOS of the site you scrape; see the earlier LE question Terms and condition for web scraping



What you are probably thinking of is an iframe: HTML iframe tag. You can use an iframe to display the content of another site in a window on your own hosted domain on your own server.



But the legality of iframing a site depends on the TOS of the site you frame and appears to be in legal flux; earlier LE question Can you be accused of hotlinking/copyright violation if you use an iframe?



Many sites forbid the use of iframes as they see it - case law or not - as copyright infringement. And servers can be configured to block iframing by other hosts.



Try using an iframe for law.stackexchange.com; you'll see the error Load denied by X-Frame-Options, because Stack Exchange forbids iframing their sites, though iframing appears to not be mentioned in Stack Exchange's TOS language.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

    – Greendrake
    2 hours ago













  • Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

    – BlueDogRanch
    2 hours ago
















0












0








0







It doesn't work that way. Simply pointing a domain at a server IP won't do what you think, for any number of reasons, i.e., load balancing, proxies, CDNs, shared IPs, the way the webserver is configured, etc. You may be able to display a simple home page on a server with a single IP. But simply pointing the domain isn't going to rewrite the source code of the site and magically make it appear to be your domain.



You could "scrape" the site and download all content and convert the URLs to your own domain, but that requires your own server, and is typically not legal, depending on the TOS of the site you scrape; see the earlier LE question Terms and condition for web scraping



What you are probably thinking of is an iframe: HTML iframe tag. You can use an iframe to display the content of another site in a window on your own hosted domain on your own server.



But the legality of iframing a site depends on the TOS of the site you frame and appears to be in legal flux; earlier LE question Can you be accused of hotlinking/copyright violation if you use an iframe?



Many sites forbid the use of iframes as they see it - case law or not - as copyright infringement. And servers can be configured to block iframing by other hosts.



Try using an iframe for law.stackexchange.com; you'll see the error Load denied by X-Frame-Options, because Stack Exchange forbids iframing their sites, though iframing appears to not be mentioned in Stack Exchange's TOS language.






share|improve this answer















It doesn't work that way. Simply pointing a domain at a server IP won't do what you think, for any number of reasons, i.e., load balancing, proxies, CDNs, shared IPs, the way the webserver is configured, etc. You may be able to display a simple home page on a server with a single IP. But simply pointing the domain isn't going to rewrite the source code of the site and magically make it appear to be your domain.



You could "scrape" the site and download all content and convert the URLs to your own domain, but that requires your own server, and is typically not legal, depending on the TOS of the site you scrape; see the earlier LE question Terms and condition for web scraping



What you are probably thinking of is an iframe: HTML iframe tag. You can use an iframe to display the content of another site in a window on your own hosted domain on your own server.



But the legality of iframing a site depends on the TOS of the site you frame and appears to be in legal flux; earlier LE question Can you be accused of hotlinking/copyright violation if you use an iframe?



Many sites forbid the use of iframes as they see it - case law or not - as copyright infringement. And servers can be configured to block iframing by other hosts.



Try using an iframe for law.stackexchange.com; you'll see the error Load denied by X-Frame-Options, because Stack Exchange forbids iframing their sites, though iframing appears to not be mentioned in Stack Exchange's TOS language.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 1 hour ago

























answered 2 hours ago









BlueDogRanchBlueDogRanch

10.2k21837




10.2k21837








  • 1





    This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

    – Greendrake
    2 hours ago













  • Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

    – BlueDogRanch
    2 hours ago
















  • 1





    This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

    – Greendrake
    2 hours ago













  • Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

    – BlueDogRanch
    2 hours ago










1




1





This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

– Greendrake
2 hours ago







This does not answer the question at all. The technical side of things is irrelevant, let alone that some not big sites hosted in old-school way still do work by opening their IP in web browser.

– Greendrake
2 hours ago















Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

– BlueDogRanch
2 hours ago







Read my answer. Do the terms "legality", "TOS", etc., appear? If you can't understand the technical issues, you won't understand the legal issues that pertain.

– BlueDogRanch
2 hours ago












Faminha102 is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.










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