Heise Online loses ‘link’ fight
p2pnet.net News- The Big Music cartel has won a legal victory in Germany where the Munich Intermediate Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling that while there’s no problem with writing about DVD copying software, it’s not OK to link to anyone actually selling the software.
Heise Online says in January of 2005, it published a story about Slysoft’s AnyDVD program.
“Eight companies from the music industry then took Heise Zeitschriften Verlag to court for an alleged breach of Section 95a of the Copyright Act," the story goes on.
"This Act bans, among other things, the manufacture, import, propagation, sale, renting, and advertisement of ‘tools to crack copy-protection mechanisms.’ The music industry felt that merely providing a link to the homepage of a manufacture of copying software itself constituted a breach of this Section. In addition, Heise Verlag is accused of having provided ‘instructions on how to crack copy-protection mechanisms’ in the report. Finally, the news report was considered ‘illegal advertising’ for the sale of the software.”
But Heise Zeitschriften Verlag argued this comprised an “unacceptable breach of the constitutional freedom of the press” and that claims made by the music industry “made no sense”.
What else is new?
"The article neither contained any instructions, nor advertising," said Heise Online editor-in-chief Christian Persson last January.
"On the contrary, the fact that making copies of DVDs is illegal was expressly stated. Providing a link to a vendor’s homepage is a natural part of online reporting and hardly matters anyway because our readers know how to find them by using search engines for the Internet."
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See:-
Heise online – MPA’s Bollywood search warrants, p2pnet, July 28, 2005
July 29th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Big Music would NOT win this stuff, if the people making the rules, knew ANYTHING about how the internet works…
They need to be equcated that LINKS can’t be held against someone like this! Its just a LINK! >_>
July 29th, 2005 at 8:48 pm
That way you avoid linking to the vendor’s homepage, but you still get your reader there. Albeit in one more click.
July 30th, 2005 at 7:03 am
On the contrary, the fact that making copies of DVDs is illegal was expressly stated. Providing a link to a vendor’s homepage is a natural part of online reporting and hardly matters anyway because our readers know how to find them by using search engines for the Internet.”
Why doesn’t google get sued? This question comes up many times…