Europe's Court of Justice rules that hyperlinking can infringe on copyright

[boblikepie]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/11/12877872/eu-court-of-justice-hyperlinking-infringe-copyright

Quote

The case stemmed from a complaint against a Dutch website called GeenStijl, which had posted links to leaked photos from Playboyin October 2011. The website had received a tip that the pictures had been uploaded to FileFactory. It posted a cutout of one of the images and linked to the rest. Sanoma Media, Playboy’s Dutch publisher, requested that content be removed, which GeenStijl refused to do. Sanoma then sued the GeenStijl and its parent company, GS Media, arguing that the hyperlink and part of one of the images infringed on its copyright. The case found itself before the EU court, which ruled that posting hyperlinks amounted to copyright infringement, because the website profited from the traffic that it generated.

So copyright is on the agenda again today. While for this case I personally feel that the ruling was correct as they were sharing illegally uploaded files and refused to take down the article when Playboy asked to take them down. I suppose this is similar to the Hulk Hogan Gawker media case and I also think that was the correct call. I wonder how this is going to effect sites like Wikileaks where it could be seen as the leaks they're posting could be seen as linking to copyrighted material or sites that are reporting on this being taken down to a "copyrighted hyperlink".

[rhyseyness]

What a clusterfuck

[LAwLz]

This will be really, really bad. So if I link to some copyrighted material, Linus will be held responsible? If Google indexes a site with pirated content then Google will be held responsible? 

 

The case in the OP is pretty clear. They were dicks and abused the system, but this opens up way more issues than it solves. You can't hold website owners responsible for what's on sites they have no control over. 

[tlink]

geenstijl is really trashy. it´s what /pol/ would be like if it was a media outlet. they do this douche bag kind of stuff all the time for attention.

[Trik'Stari]

And the leaders and courts the "modern" world, show once again that they understand fuck-all about technology.

[deviant88]

internet is slowly going to shit, even if it fails once or twice all these retarded laws and courts eventually will put the web under full control one stupid law at a time

[SansVarnic]

And people still think its a good idea to hand over the internet from where it is at to the UN... *slowly shakes head and walks away* like the UN wont attempt to screw it up even more than this... wow.... just wow.

[spartaman64]

32 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

And people still think its a good idea to hand over the internet from where it is at to the UN... *slowly shakes head and walks away* like the UN wont attempt to screw it up even more than this... wow.... just wow.

europe isnt all of the UN if thats what you are thinking

[bcredeur97]

This is so stupid.... so incredibly stupid.

[SansVarnic]

1 hour ago, spartaman64 said:

europe isnt all of the UN if thats what you are thinking

Of course not. 

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

And people still think its a good idea to hand over the internet from where it is at to the UN... *slowly shakes head and walks away* like the UN wont attempt to screw it up even more than this... wow.... just wow.

1) Nobody is "handing over The Internet" to anyone. 

2) EU and UN are two very different things. 

3) This has not been tested in the US and the law does not say anything about linking directly to copyright infringing material. So in the US it might go the same way. 

[MrDynamicMan]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

1) Nobody is "handing over The Internet" to anyone. 

2) EU and UN are two very different things. 

3) This has not been tested in the US and the law does not say anything about linking directly to copyright infringing material. So in the US it might go the same way. 

Lets not mention thisll be about as re-inforced as the "you have to be 18 to watch porn."

 

what are they gonna do, flag all of google? Go back to ye olden days where you have to manually enter urls for any site? Doubt they even know what a URL is at this point.

[Volbet]

Hmm, as far as I know this has always been against the legislation in the EU. That ruling doesn't really bring up anything new.

Hyperlinking (and to some extend deep linking) has always been and will remain legal for the foreseeable future. 

What the ECJ has ruled in this case is that linking to non-published or un-licensed material goes against the EU's copyright laws.

And the present case certainly goes against that.

What geenstijl did was essentially robbing the publishing rights from Playboy. 

[Syntaxvgm]

WMG has targeted forums for users sharing youtube links before. This is asinine and will not end well

[Sakkura]

I think the verdict in this case is fair. The question is what kind of precedent it will set for less clear-cut cases, and this is just EFF's worst-case scenario. Their job is to be on high alert, and they can sometimes overreact.