(Telecompaper) The EU Court of Justice has ruled that posting of hyperlinks to illegally published content can be considered a copyright violation under certain circumstances. The case in question concerns the posting of links on the Dutch website GeenStijl to photos from the magazine Playboy, published by Sanoma, on a third-party website without authorisation from Sanoma. The EU Court notably disagreed with its advocate general's earlier opinion, saying that in certain circumstances hyperlinks could be considered 'communication to the public', a key criteria in determining whether a publication is copyright protected. In this case, the court said the fact that GS published the photos as part of its commercial business and that it was aware the content on the third-party sites was illegal means the Dutch site also violated copyright with its hyperlinks.