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EU court AG finds hyperlinks not copyright violation
2016-04-07 13:17:00| Telecompaper Headlines
(Telecompaper) Posting a hyperlink to images online that violate copyright is not in itself an act of infringement, according to the opinion of the EU Court of Justice's advocate general. The case in question concerns the posting of links on the Dutch website GeenStijl to copyright-protected photos from the magazine Playboy, published by Sanoma, on a third-party website. The Dutch High Court asked for the EU court's opinion on whether placing the hyperlinks could be considered copyright infringement, noting that the links provided by GeenStijl made it easier to locate the infringing images online. According to the advocate general, the hyperlinks cannot be considered infringement, as they do not "make available" the infringing images, nor can be considered an "act of communication" as understood under the EU's copyright directive. In other words, the links on GeenStijl are not indispensable to internet users accessing the infringing images.
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Category:Telecommunications