The on-line recruitment company StepStone, has obtained a court
order under EU copyright and database regulations preventing a
rival from providing hypertext links to StepStone's on-line job
adverts, a practice known as deep linking.
The injunction was granted by a German court against Danish
media group OfiR, restraining it from using hypertext links to
StepStone's German job site. It is one of the first cases in which
the new EU Copyright and Databases Regulations have been
successfully used to control hypertext links over the internet.
StepStone sought the injunction because OFiR was using the link
to substantiate a claim about the large quantity of jobs available
via its site. StepStone deemed this action to be prejudicial to its
brand position in the long term. In addition OFiR were deep linking
to the StepStone site which meant visitors were not taken to the
home page and therefore did not see its banner advertising.
Adrian Lifely of Osborne Clarke, the law firm representing
StepStone, said:
"It is not, of course, every case of
hypertext linking which is unlawful - the internet would grind to a
halt. But the courts in Europe do have power to intervene where
linking is extensive and prejudicial to the site involved. The
impact of the Database Regulations in this respect is often
overlooked and I'm sure we will see many more cases like this in
future as the legal framework of the internet matures."
In August 2000, an Amsterdam court ruled in support of deep
linking in a case where one news site was linking to stories on
other web sites of various newspapers. The objection of the Dutch
newspaper group in bringing the action was that the links would
bypass the branding and advertising on the home page of its web
site.
The court decided that deep linking to other sites is a
widespread and commonly accepted practice on the internet and that,
under copyright law, there is an exception to copying for the
reporting of current events, provided there is sufficient
acknowledgement.
The Dutch case was the first deep linking case in Europe to
accept the practice. However, the StepStone case is different
because the copyright loophole that excuses news reporting was not
relevant.
