In a long awaited ruling, the Maritime and Commercial Court in Copenhagen has decided that so-called deep linking is legal in Denmark. The decision is expected to have a major impact on many Danish online-services and search engines.
Controversially, the Maritime and Commercial Court has decided to go against a prior verdict by a lower Danish court. In July 2002, the court ruled that the Danish company Newsbooster was violating copyright law and marketing law by using deep links to articles in Danish online-newspapers. Instead of linking to the main pages of the newspapers, Newsbooster was linking directly to the individual articles, thereby allowing readers to bypass the front pages. The newspapers demanded that the service be shut down - with success.
In the new case, the court has taken the opposite stance. This time, the Danish real estate site bolig.ofir.dk was linking directly to houses for sale at the real estate agent Home. By proving deep links into the internet-database of Home, Ofir again came into conflict with the same law, which closed Newsbooster in 2002. But this time, the court decided differently.
"It should be considered ordinary practice, that search engines make available deep links, which allow the user to access the required information in an effective manner (...) Parties, including providers on the internet, should thus expect, that search services will establish links to those pages which are published ..." reads the court ruling.
In an interview with Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper , Hanne Bender, one of the leading Danish experts in copyright-law, described the new ruling as a milestone. "This decision is incredibly exciting. It challenges everything that has been said in all prior cases," says Hanne Bender, lawyer at the company Bender von Haller Dragsted.
Maritime and Commercial Court ruling ( in Danish, 24.02.2006)
http://www.domstol.dk/media/-300011/files/v010899.pdf
(Contribution by Karim Petersen, Danish WSIS network)