POSTED BY Andrew Clark
The European Court of Justice that sits in Luxembourg recently decided the Case of Nils Svensson et al. v. Retriever Sverige. The Plaintiffs in this case, Svensson et al., brought an action against the Defendant, Retriever Sverige, to obtain compensation for the use of hyperlinks by the Defendants, which directed users to the Plaintiff’s website. The question before the court was whether person who places a hyperlink to a copyrighted work with out the copyright holder’s permission violates copyright or related areas of law?
The EU Court held that there was no violation of copyright law by an unauthorized user directing website visitors to copyrighted works through the use of a hyperlink. The court specified that, “the owner of a website, such as that of Retriever Sverige, may, without the authorisation of the copyright holders, redirect internet users, via hyperlinks, to protected works available on a freely accessible basis on another site.” One important consideration to note is that the holding only applies to hyperlinked work that is freely available to the public; it does not include links that seek to avoid payment or restricted access.
The sanctity of the Internet was protected due to the EU Court’s holding. The Internet is a vast medium of information that is often easier found by clicking from Website to Website rather than searching for specific information. What if the court would have held conversely, that a copyright holder’s permission was required to place a hyperlink on a website? That holding would have made it impossible for users to click from one website to another that included complimentary information, thus forever changing the structure of the Internet. For example, had the converse holding been upheld it would have made writing this blog post difficult. Imagine reading a news article about a current legal issue, but where you’d normally find a hyperlink to the related court case there was nothing. You would then have to search the Internet for the specific source adding unnecessary delay and headache. I do agree with the differentiation between linking to publicly available Websites or works and those with restricted access. I do not feel that it would be appropriate to allow hyperlinks to be used to avoid paying to access a website or other specified restrictions. Thankfully, the holding in this case substantiated the Internet as a great space for the world to share information with others, so long as that information is freely accessible.
