PCM, one of the largest newspaper groups in the Netherlands had
sought a court order against Kranten.com, a company with a web site
consisting mainly of news headlines that link directly to the
stories on the web sites of newspapers. The publishers objected
because these links would bypass the homepage of the newspapers,
the page that would normally carry the newspaper’s branding and
advertising.
Kranten.com successfully argued that such deep linking to other
sites is a widespread and commonly accepted practice on the
internet and because, as in UK law, news articles can be copied for
the purpose of reporting current events, provided there is
sufficient acknowledgement.
PCM has indicated that it will not appeal the court’s ruling,
although it has until 5th September to do so.
The verdict is the first time a European court has accepted deep
linking, although it has previously been allowed by a number of US
courts. In Scotland, the same question arose in 1997 when The
Shetland Times took action against the operator of a news reporting
service called The Shetland News. However, that case was settled
between the parties before the court could decide on the
matter.
The decision by PCM to accept the court’s decision means that
the significance of the judgement is unlikely to extend to other
parts of Europe. There are two higher Dutch courts in which an
appeal should have been heard before the case could reach the
authoritative European Court of Justice.
It is still possible that a court elsewhere if faced with the
same issues could be influenced by the PCM case, but its effect
will not be binding. In addition, a case of deep linking that
cannot rely on the copyright law exception for news reporting might
see a different result.
