StumbleUpon is an example of framing content right...a simple unobtrusive toolbar. I used that site as inspiration for a website I created during my spare time. Link: http://www.picahuna.com
I don't think there's anything necessarily scummy about framing content. In the case of StumbleUpon and my site, there's a benefit to the user experience, and visitors can immediately start using the site without installing an extension. Furthermore, StumbleUpon actually increases traffic to your site.
See, I'd be annoyed if I saw that on one of my sites.
And I understand I could be in the minority here with this discussion. It's good to hear the counter-argument from people who organize, scrape, and aggregate other people's content.
And I ask in part because my main project right now is an aggregator. There are a whole host of practices that would help from a business standpoint that I have questions about, like framing.
When I made the site I debated whether to include frames or not. The justification I used was that I as a user (not just the creator of the site) would actually want a small toolbar that would allow me to navigate quickly between aggregated sites (it aggregates image sites, so I tend to move quickly between pages), and view the sometimes funny captions people give the images.
I can understand your annoyance though. Content creators should have a choice whether to be framed or not... and they do, but like you said not a lot of people know about framing sites and/or how to break them.
I don't think there's anything necessarily scummy about framing content. In the case of StumbleUpon and my site, there's a benefit to the user experience, and visitors can immediately start using the site without installing an extension. Furthermore, StumbleUpon actually increases traffic to your site.