Indeed, there seems to be a backlog in NPR's permission department. When Wired News applied for a permission to link, an auto-reply was sent back. It appeared to be a standard FAQ about the site, and it said that "we're unable to answer every e-mail we receive but we do look at each one personally." Many hours passed, and no permission was granted. (None of the links to NPR in this story were approved by NPR.)

Dvorkin acknowledged that there are practical problems with the system and that many people might link to NPR without receiving its written permission. What happens to those people?

"Well, they'll have to live with the guilt forever," Dvorkin said, only half-jokingly. "I don't think we're going to chase them down into county court. But (seeking permission) is a matter of respect and honor for what we're trying to do here."

It's worth mentioning that another reason NPR's lawyers might avoid chasing people into court is that there's little guarantee that the company would emerge victorious. In Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com, the one case in which linking policies have been challenged in court, the policies were dealt a decisive blow.

"Hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act," ruled U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp. "There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently."

Despite that black-and-white language, many companies continue to play games with links. The Rodale Press (publisher of Runner's World), the Dallas Morning News and the Danish Newspaper Publishers' Association have all recently tried to use the law to enforce rules on linking.

Those commercial news organizations have said that "deep links" -- links to specific stories within a site, rather than its ad-heavy front door -- or links to ad-free "print-friendly" pages, cost the companies some coin. NPR's site doesn't stand to lose any advertising revenue if people link to its stories, as it doesn't run ads.

As many webloggers pointed out on Wednesday, one of the reasons that NPR doesn't take ads, as specified in 1967's Public Broadcasting Act, is so that it can feature "programming that will be responsive to the interests of the people."

This inclusiveness is a point of pride for NPR. Doesn't this policy violate that spirit?

Dvorkin, NPR's ombudsman, said he didn't think so. In an e-mail, he wrote: "I think there are many ways to discuss NPR's stories. Having an open link policy doesn't have much to do with that. On the other hand, the idea of a free and open Web is a good and important principle.

"In my opinion, NPR needs to find a way to balance that freedom with the rights of artists and journalists to protect their intellectual creativity. NPR isn't just protecting its own stories and programs.... It has an obligation to make sure that independent writers, musicians and producers who are engaged in their creative endeavors with NPR aren't ripped off or exploited. Public broadcasting has that obligation to act as a cultural creative agent for the communities it serves."

Dvorkin also said that policies like NPR's "aren't unusual" in the public broadcasting world and that the Canadian Broadcasting Company and the BBC have similar rules. But terms of service for the CBC and the BBC mention nothing about linking rules. Public Radio International, NPR's main competitor in the United States, has no linking policy either, a spokeswoman said. (PRI does require sites to ask for permission if they'd like to use its logo.)

Dvorkin's argument about "finding a balance" didn't sit well with critics, either. Cory Doctorow and many other webloggers noted that if NPR doesn't want people to link to its site, they can easily implement technical means -- instead of legal means -- to get people to stop linking. If it's freely available on the Web, though, and there are no technical foils to linking, then companies ought to expect that people will link to their site, as it's near impossible, as many have found out, to try to tame the Web through litigation.