Deep Linking Legal in Germany

BlueWonder writes "German news site Heise Online reports a recent decision of the Bundesgerichtshof, the highest court in Germany: Deep linking is not illegal. Newspaper company Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt had sued the news search engine Paperboy for deep linking to their articles. According to the Bundesgerichtshof, the public interest in a well-working Internet takes precedence over the commercial interests of the newspaper company, even if the advertizing of the company is bypassed. The Bundesgerichtshof has clarified that users can access any page if they know the URL, and deep linking is just a technical simplification for entering the URL manually. (Warning: links go to German sites - use the fish...)"

Comments

Wrong dept.

[BgJonson79]

Shouldn't it be from the-no-shit-dept. ?

They're nuts. Deep Linking = GREAT traffic source

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

I've recently started using a news aggregator that takes RSS feeds from various sources and provides deep links straight to the article pages of their sites.

I find myself visiting pages on the Register, The Motley Fool, and loads of other websites that I would never have visited otherwise.

The publishers of these feeds know that, they know that it brings traffic and if they didn't want to do it they could pull the feed and prevent deep linking using any of various hacks.

It is up to them as a publisher to use deep linking to their advantage and stop being so anal about it.

Why all the fuss?

[Stackster]

If a site doesn't want anyone to "deep link" to them, why not just check the HTTP_REFERER HTTP header, and send those requests that come frome a "deep link" (anything outside their own site, probably) to the front page?
Sure, you can set your own referer header and fool such things, but "ordinary users" wouldn't bother doing that.

(Or do Big Evil Compaines always try to take legal action first, and if that fails, go for a technical solution?)

Re:Why all the fuss?

[janda]

Well, most larger companies hire their own laywers, they might as well keep them busy...

Seriously, I think this is (mostly) another example of the marketing department doing the design work, and not understanding the technology. Then, when they find out that people can bypass their ads, they talk to the programmers.

The programmers tell them that this is the way the protocol is supposed to work, so there's no real way around it without recoding everything to use cookies, registration, headers, and other stuff, which will make the marketing department look bad for not giving good requirements in the first place.

It will make the marketing department look even worse if the programmers said it should be done with cookies, headers, etc and the marketing department did the "we don't have time" routine.

So, drag them to court first.

Note: You can substitute any department/person for "marketing" here, I'm just using them as an example from personal experience.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[SCY.tSCc.]

If a site doesn't want anyone to "deep link" to them, why not just check the HTTP_REFERER HTTP header, and send those requests that come frome a "deep link"

Unfortunally, that approach is inherently flawed. Some proxies remove the HTTP_REFERER header or change it to something else (ever seen those XXX_REFERER removed by SoftwareXYZ in your logs?).

In addition, caches (built into your browser or proxy) in general might get confused by different content that comes with the same URL because it depends upon the HTTP_REFERER header.

bye,
Settel

Re:Why all the fuss?

[i_really_dont_care]

There are a bunch of other possibilities to avoid "deep linking", for example by using dynamic content. I assume, they are already using cookies or session IDs to track their users. The same technology can be used to assure that a user has to view the main page before a subpage can be shown.

It's also important to note that the ruling was about deep linking "per se" and not about accessing content that is protected. The press text reads:

"Ein Berechtigter, der ein urheberrechtlich geschütztes Werk ohne technische Schutzmaßnahmen im Internet öffentlich zugänglich mache, ermögliche dadurch bereits selbst die Nutzungen [...]."

Which means (sorry for my bad English, emphasis mine):

"A benificiary who publicy publishes a copyrighted work without technical protection on the Internet, thereby already permits its use [...].

This makes perfect sense for me.

Please consider

[BlueTrin]

arresting Google, they provide deep-linking and even CACHE !!!

Oh wait ... you are too lazy to put a robots.txt in your root ?

One noteworthy point not mentioned in the /. story

[mkweise]

...is that the rulin states that if the owner of a web site wants to prevent deep linking, it may feel free to use technical measures to prevent it. (That could be as simple as using the referrer= tag.) It goes on to state that circumventing technical measures designed to prevent deep-linking very well may be illegal (and that they'd rule on that if and when it comes up.)

Thank you

[Vryl]

This is the only sane argument about this. Laws or court cases against deep linking are moronic. It is a public network. You have advertised an address, and you knew what that meant when you did it.

You are not being co-erced into putting content on the network, and the consequences of putting up content are obvious to all.

Some interesting and similiar cases:

[BlueTrin]

Deep linking illegal under EU law, By Andy McCue, Computing [26-01-2001]

Danish Court Rules Deep Linking Illegal

Some examples of companies who forbid deep linking (the last link is full of stupid examples, some websites which would get a great benefit for their popularity from deep linking

An english link

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the notice at Links&Law.com.

Re:They're nuts. Deep Linking=GREAT traffic source

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

But that one click is one more click than they would have got.

The whole point is that deep linking drives somebody to your site that would never have come by were it not for that deep link - i.e. you do not have the opportunity to generate the 2 clicks that you talk about.

You have the opportunity on the end of that one click to capitalise on it and entice the visitor into the rest of your site.

Re:That doesn't solve all problems.

[mkweise]

You might now think that Germany is the land of the sane and bright, but this isn't true.
In fact in some German states ISP are required to use censorship filters to filter content which is showing disrespect to human dignity like infamous rotten [rotten.com] or neo nazi propaganda
Indeed taking the new decision of congress to ensure free, uncensored internet access everywhere on the world, then you'll see very soon that Germany will be besides North Korea, China, Vietman, Iran and Lybia on the list of offenders.

As would the United States, if you look at the matter objectively. Please understand that many Germans feel as strongly about neo nazi propaganda as Americans do about kiddie porn...or certain decryption tools, for that matter.

And in Denmark

[Snaller]

...it was ruled illegal. Because they said, because of EU rules. Which of the countries will have to change?

Re:That doesn't solve all problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not correct!

> So sales of Doom, Quake and Command
> and Conquer 3 are extremely restricted

You must be 18 years old or older, thats all.

> In fact in some German states ISP are required
> to use censorship filters to filter content
> which is showing disrespect to human dignity
> like infamous rotten [rotten.com] or neo nazi
> propaganda

There are 17 German states, contents are only filtert in North Rhine-Westphalia. (I think that about 10 - 20 sites are filtert.)

There are many people and clubs like CCC against filtering, because it is AGAINST THE GERMAN LAW.

But it is allowed to use other DNS outside NRW.

> Furthermore you can't get Hitler's "Main Kampf"

You can buy the annotated version. But I don't like it too, that you can't read the original book if you want. (The name of the book is "Mein Kampf")

> or plans for explosives of weapons in stores

Oh, I think that's a good law.

Search engines?

[BenjyD]

Wouldn't preventing deep-linking destroy the use of search engines? What would Google do - provide a link to the front page and directions?

"On the main page, scroll down half way and click on the small link on the right hand side. Close the resulting pop-up and scroll down to the bottom of the next page. Follow the second link from the right and you will find the content you are looking for."

This attitude isn't that unusual for some websites

[Ethelred Unraed]

They're nuts. Deep Linking = GREAT traffic source

The attitude of Handelsblatt unfortunately does not seem to be that unusual, at least not in Germany. I remember having to work with a large marketing and design agency on a web project (the small agency I was working for was doing the website, the other agency -- the biggest in our area -- did the print marketing and was trying to also lecture us on how to do the site).

First they criticized the fact that we had a full navigation on every page of the site -- in their view people should page through the site like a magazine.

Secondly they wanted to force people to start at the homepage and work from there.

They apparently thought of websites as being literally just a form of magazine or book -- you start at the beginning and page through to the end. I remember arguing with them vociferously that that was wrong, since it threw away all the advantages of the Web (I said it was akin to putting a radio ad on TV with no video) and also explained the principle of deep linking -- to which they reacted with horror and practically demanded we block deep linking, by lawsuits if necessary (WTF?).

Given that the client's site was for a major German utility company with loads of info for customers, deep linking made all the sense in the world -- much more so than many other sites (since news sites, etc. would link directly to pages with promotions and so on).

In the end we carried the day by arguing our position with the client's marketing director (who seemed to "get it" in general, even if he had some bizarre suggestions, like doing the entire ~1000-page site in Flash -- thank God we didn't do that).

OTOH that other agency was also pretty damned clueless about a lot of other things -- proof that large agencies often aren't large because of the quality of their work, but just because the PHBs have all the right connections. *sigh*

Cheers,

Ethelred