Dutch Judge Cracks Down on Hyperlinks

The webzine Radikal (mirrored in Holland, because it has been banned in Germany) published several articles on disabling railroad trains (in the context of preventing shipments of nuclear materials); the German national railroad discovered it, and the fun has been going on ever since. Rejo Zenger writes "Today a dutch judge ordered Indymedia NL on the request of the Deutsche Bahn to remove some links from a page on their website. These links were pointing to the mirrors of Radikal sites. A few of these sites were containing two articles that have been forbidden in court before. The links were indirect links (surface links) instead of direct ones to the articles (deeplinks). So, none of the links was pointing to the offending articles directly! The judge "orders Indymedia immediately after receiving this sentence to remove and to keep removed the hyperlinks, which are placed on (a) website(s) under the control of Indymedia, if those hyperlinks lead directly or indirectly to the Radikal articles [...]". This is BAD. As almost all links indirectly point to the Radikal articles we can abolish the web now. The announcement, Dutch with English to follow shortly. The decision of the judge (dutch only)." Indymedia's press release (English) covers it pretty well. Update: 06/21 19:54 GMT by M : My summary in the first sentence has been corrected.

Comments

dutch != deutsch

[bzzzt]

The Deutsche Bashn is the german railroad. Radikal is a german newsletter. Only the website is dutch...

Re:dutch != deutsch

[paule9984673]

Just to complete this...

The newsletter found a new home on a server in the Netherlands some years ago after publication in Germany was forbidden. The authors and also some "usual suspects" were facing criminal prosecution. Houses and offices were searched, etc.

Since the German jurisdiction ends at the Netherland's border nowadays, Deutsche Bahn filed civil suits in the netherlands.

Press release on Indymedia

[estoll]

press release: Judge orders Indymedia NL to remove links to Radikal mirrors
Indymedia NL 21.06.2002 01:55

Amsterdam, 20 june 2002

The court case, initiated by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail, DB) against
Indymedia NL, has turned out negative for the latter organisation.

Indymedia NL regrets the facts that the judge in the verdict does not
elaborate on which kinds of links are permissible and which are not. This
ruling will therefore have severe consequences for every person or
organisation that has placed links on the Internet. Due to the structure of
Internet, it is possible to reach any website on the internet, by way of
combinations of links and indirect links.

Deutsche Bahn insisted a couple of weeks ago that Indymedia NL should
remove a number of indirect links of mirrors of the website of the
periodical Radikal. Through the linked start page, numerous articles are
available, including two articles concerning ways of blocking nuclear
transports. These two articles have been ruled illegal in the Netherlands
by the same judge on April 25th 2002. Indymedia NL refused to adhere to the
demand.

In the verdict of June 20th, the judge has ordered to remove the hyperlinks
and to keep them removed, in as far as these hyperlinks lead to the Radikal
articles, either directly or indirectly and notwithstanding whether these
hyperlinks were placed by visitors. If Indymedia NL does not comply with
this order, a penal sum of 5,000 Euros per day can be imposed. The judge
ordered that, like an Internet Service Provider but just as much like the
editors of a newspaper, Indymedia NL is, in principle, responsible for the
content that has been published with its help.

The verdict is surprising, since Indymedia NL does not link directly to
illegal articles. Until now, only direct links to illegal material were
forbidden in the Netherlands. Out of this verdict however, it follows that
indirect links to illegal material are also forbidden, because Indymedia
NLs links only point to copies of the front page of the German periodical
Radikal. It takes more clicks to reach the illegal articles.

Indymedia NL considers the ruling a dramatic limitation of the
possibilities of the Internet and the freedom of speech. Indymedia NL will
probably try to appeal this decision out of principal considerations.

Some more background

[rigolo]

Maybe it is good to have understand the whole story from the beginning ...

It starts way back in 1997 when the German magazine places some of their issues online at a dutch ISP (XS4ALL). In these issues they describe how to derail german trains.

A German Court rules that these documents are illegal and these publications are illegal in Germany. German ISP are orderded to block the URL to XS4ALL. Because blocking something on the internet is virtually impossible these blocks were lifted because a lot of people started to publish mirrors of these documents.

Back to April this year ...
The German Railroads suddenly notice that these documents are still online and available and through a (dutch) court order forces XS4ALL to take these pages down.

XS4ALL is applealing this decision and they are still in court (you can check the XS4ALL pages at http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/overzicht/radikal.html )

At the same time Indymedia plublishes a list with mirrors where these documents can be found ...
and that is now illegal to. They want to appleal, but as always .. money is an issue ..

I hope this helps.

Rigolo

Look at the verdict!

[morie]

The verdict mentions the sites as well and should therefore be illegal!