In response to the article about the Norwegian Supreme Court decision on hyperlinks in the previous EDRI-gram, subscriber Matthias Spielkamp from Germany pointed to an article he wrote about recent jurisprudence in Germany. Contrasting the Norwegian decision that a hyperlink can not be considered unlawful in a copyright context, irrespective of the legal or illegal nature of the content offered, the appeal court of Munich decided to uphold a ruling that the e-zine Heise had to remove a link to the website Slysoft.com. At the site software was offered to make copies of copy-protected CDs and DVDs.

Spielkamp writes: By providing a link to the company's homepage, the court said, Heise intentionally provided "assistance in the fulfilment of unlawful acts" and is therefore liable as "an aider and abettor". The case is based on article 95a of the German authors rights code, resembling the infamous section 1201 of the US DMCA, prohibiting the circumvention of copy protection measures.

Spielkamp continues: Christian Persson, Heise Online's editor in chief, said "it has to be taken for granted that in online reporting it is legal to provide a link to a company's web site". The High Court had ruled in 2004 that links are a "fundamental component of online journalism". They could only be seen as breach of law in case journalists "ignore blatant evidence that they are unlawful".

German appeals court outlaws links to websites offering circumvention technology (09.08.2005)
http://www.immateriblog.de/archives/000254.html

German High Court ruling (01.04.2004)
http://www.linksandlaw.de/urteil63.htm