Dutch court rules linking to photos is copyright infringement
[Via Ars Technica]
A Dutch court has ruled that the website GeenStijl infringed copyright by linking to unauthorized copies of nude pictures of reality star Britt Dekker. The pictures originally appeared in the Dutch version of Playboy magazine.
According to the Associated Press, the website has been ordered to pay €28,400 ($36,000) and will face further fines if it does not remove the links.
“The court said GeenStijl called attention to naked photos of model Britt Dekker posted on a website called Filefactory by an unknown person shortly before publication of the November 2011 issue of the magazine,” the AP reports.
[More]
We are in dire need of fixing some laws in the world. The US has already demonstrated that we feel perfectly fine entering a foreign country and working to extradite one of their citizens for breaking an online law we have created.
That is right. What the foreign citizen did might be perfectly legal in their country or in most countries. But if we feel it breaks one of our Internet laws, then we can drag that person out of their country, into ours, try them and fine or imprison them.
So why would Holland not be able to work with American authorities to extradite a similar ‘criminal?’ Do we want to live in a world where simply linking to another site is a crime for which we can be removed from our country and tried in a foreign land?
It could happen.
A Man With A Ph.D. 