

Re: TAG ISSUE-25 deep linking

From: Rigo Wenning <rigo@w3.org>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:29:34 +0200
To: Yves Lafon <ylafon@w3.org>
Message-Id: <201104112229.34258.rigo@w3.org>
Hi Yves, 

please note that the german federal supreme court in civil matters 
(Bundesgerichtshof) decided on 14 October 2010 (the motion was published 
today) that Links participate in the freedom of expression of the main 

In the case, a journal article on copyright infringement had linked to a 
software that allowed the circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms. 
The court decided that if an article, by its content, is protected by freedom 
of speech, the links on foreign web pages that prove or complement assertions 
of the text are also covered by the freedom of expression out of the main 

Decoding, that means: Not every link is covered by freedom of expression, but 
those links that have a utilitarian relation to a main text that is covered by 
the protections of freedom of speech.

(link for those reading german)

This still does not explain why in France all policy documents coming from 
larger law firms contain the part that linking to a site is prohibited, which 
in itself is very curious as it is a clause against the absolutely predominant 
expectations and habits of every average user. As such it already is really 
questionable whether such a clause against the usual reasonable expectations 
is valid and can be valid.

So I'm still trying to find the french court case that triggered this clause 
and would allow us to understand the meaning. But it might just be some stupid 
template that everybody copied. Contract business has also its trends.. 


Received on Monday, 11 April 2011 20:29:59 GMT
