Denmark, Netherlands and
India: New Deep Linking Decisions
Over the last
ten years, a number of deep-linking cases have been litigated in the United
States and abroad. The courts in most countries (e.g. USA, Germany and Austria)
have come to the conclusion that deep linking is permissible and no copyright
infringement. The operator of a web site can not prohibit deep links to his site.
In the last few months several cases from other countries have been reported to
me, that I want to mention in this update:
In 2001 a court in Copenhagen,
Denmark ruled in favor of the Danish Newspaper Publisher's Association against
the online news aggregator Newsbooster. Thereby deep linking has been ruled
illegal. In 2006, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court has taken the
opposite stance. The court accepted the use of deep links. The Danish web portal
Ofir.dk had made deeplinks to real estate advertisements on the Internet,
including advertisements from the market leading estate agency chain Home, who
sued Ofir. The court stressed that search engines and deep links are desirable
for the functioning of the internet today:
"Different kinds of search services which may be considered to be increasing in
number on the Internet must be considered to be desirable as being necessary for
the functioning of today’s Internet as a medium for searching and exchanging an
incredibly extensive and steadily increasing quantity of information. The
database protection that is one purpose of the Database Directive also reflects
these conditions. It must be considered that search services generally make
available deep links whereby the user can efficiently directly arrive at the
desired information which, as the Internet is established and functions,
generally must be seen to comply with the interests followed by those who choose
to use the Internet for the provision of information to the public."
(Home v. Ofir, Maritime and
Commercial Court Ruling, February 24, 2006, English translation of the relevant
parts
available here;
pdf in Danish)
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March 6, 2006:
Groundbreaking Judgment Deep Linking, Law & Justice:
"In a groundbreaking judgment the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court
accepted the use of deep linking in relation to real estate advertisement."
Other country, same opinion:
Zoekallehuizen.nl (”Searchforallhouses.nl”; ZAH) is a search engine, which
searches all web sites of estate agents in The Netherlands for houses that are
for sale on a daily basis and places the results of its search actions on its
websites in the form of deeplinks. A court in Arnhem denied two estate agents
and the Dutch Association of Estate Agents (NVM) a injunction to stop ZAH from
deep linking. According to the court, deep linking is permissible and the texts
accompanying the deep links are allowed under the quotation right.
And finally, a closer look to India:
In the beginning of 2006,
in a case between the search engine Bixee.com and job site
Naukri.com, the Delhi High Court in India prohibited Bixee.com
from deeplinking to Naukri.com. This is the first case of its
kind in India.
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March 23, 2006: Bhaswati Chakravorty,
The Deep Linking Conundrum:
"Deep linking has confounded the Internet community always. As the
Naukri case becomes the first-ever in India, we try to delve into its
evolution"