Dutch Court Rules Hyperlinks Can Constitute Infringement

Ubi_NL writes "In yesterday's ruling of Playboy (via publisher Sanoma) vs Dutch blog Geenstijl, the court ruled that hyperlinking to copyrighted material was itself infringement of copyright. The court ordered the blog to remove all links to the infringing links (court ruling in Dutch). How this ruling fits into the supreme court ruling that hyperlinks cannot by themselves infringe copyright is still to be discussed, possibly in an appeal."

Comments

Re:And standing next to me is stealing my air

[Znork]

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that new, there's also the judge Chris Hensen who happened to be running a commercial anti-piracy together with the council for the plaintif while deciding that links to TPB should be blocked.

Frankly I suspect it's rare with members of the various parts of the judicial system in the field of IP who do not have significant financial interest in enforcing IP. Whether it's revolving door interest or more blatant abuses the field of government granted monopolies has always been lucrative for those on the inside, which probably makes the field very attractive for those with slightly lower ideals than what could be expected in a judiciary.