Thursday 29 November 2012

Svensson and the "clickable link": does anyone know?

On Monday Iona posted this item on the forthcoming reference of some click-through copyright questions in Case C-466/12 Nils Svensson, Sten Sjögren, Madelaine Sahlman, Pia Gadd v Retriever Sverige AB. To jog readers' memories, the following questions have been referred:
1. If anyone other than the holder of copyright in a certain work supplies a clickable link to the work on his website, does that constitute communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 ...?

2. Is the assessment under question 1 affected if the work to which the link refers is on a website on the Internet which can be accessed by anyone without restrictions or if access is restricted in some way?

3. When making the assessment under question 1, should any distinction be drawn between a case where the work, after the user has clicked on the link, is shown on another website and one where the work, after the user has clicked on the link, is shown in such a way as to give the impression that it is appearing on the same website?
I've just been asked if I know which is the "clickable link" in the underlying Swedish litigation to which the questions refer -- but I don't. Can any reader advise?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

According to the logic of your Meltwater Court of Appeal decision, wouldn't it be illegal to provide you with this clickable link and/or for you to publish it?

Daniel Westman said...

It was normal hypertext links to articles on a public web sites.Tthe links were provided by a media monitoring company.