To hyperlink or not? Posting a hyperlink can infringe copyrights
14/09/2016
On 8 September, the Court of Justice (“CJEU”) in the GS Media BV v. Sanoma Media a.o. case (C-160-15), within the framework of a preliminary ruling requested by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, held that GS Media, by posting hyperlinks that give access to copyright-protected work which is freely accessible on another website without the consent of the right holder, and knowing that the hyperlinks were published without the consent of the right holder, made a communication to the public in the sense of article 3(1) of the Information Society Directive 2001/29/EC.