• About Us
  • Contributors
  • Guides
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Write for The SEM Post
  • Submit a tip or contact us!
  • Newsletters

The SEM Post

Latest News About SEO, SEM, PPC & Search Engines

  • Google
  • SEO
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Bing
  • Pay Per Click
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • State of the Industry
You are here: Home / Publishers / EU Wants Site Owners Liable for Linking to Copyright Infringed Content

EU Wants Site Owners Liable for Linking to Copyright Infringed Content

November 9, 2015 at 5:17 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS

eu linkingA new leaked document shows a very scary route the EU wants to take with links on the web, one that would hold a site owner liable if they link to any content that infringes on someone’s copyright.  Yes, a site owner could be liable if someone else they happen to link to has stolen content on that page, even if they had no idea if was stolen.

This means that publishers – or anyone who publishes anything online, whether it be for business or a personal blog – could also need to consult a lawyer for every link they make, to know it is “safe” to link to.

Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament representing Germany, wrote on her site about the leaked draft on copyright reform and it could have a profound affect on the entire internet.

According to a draft communication on copyright reform leaked yesterday (via IPKat), the Commission is considering putting the simple act of linking to content under copyright protection. This idea flies in the face of both existing interpretation and spirit of the law as well as common sense. Each weblink would become a legal landmine and would allow press publishers to hold every single actor on the Internet liable.

Boing Boing puts it even more succinctly.

Take Boing Boing: we’ve made something like one million links over the years. Even if we’d been able to pay lawyers to review every page we’d ever linked to, we’d also have to pay layers to continue to review all of those million pages regularly, to make sure that none of those pages had been updated with infringing material.

It’s a grotesque perversion of copyright, which gives creators the right to control who may copy and display their creations, expanding this right to encompass who may factually state the location of copies of those works.

It also puts pressure on webmasters.  Especially for large sites, and especially ones that cite sources and attribute links regularly, suddenly they could be liable to content on any one of those thousands or millions of links.  Not only that, they would be liable even if that linked content changes in the future.

At the heart is many major EU publisher’s drive to get news aggregators such as Google to pay for linking to their content via Google News, a situation which has led to Google News closing entirely in Spain and other countries attempting their own laws to force Google to pay, which have all backfired.  Reda agrees, as she says, “This is based on an absurd idea that just won’t die: Making search engines and news portals pay media companies for promoting their freely accessible articles.”

Right now, this is a leaked proposal.  According to Reda:

The leaked text is not a law proposal, but just a summary of the Commission’s plans for next year. The plan is supposed to go public on the 9th of December. Affecting change in the now-known versions is nigh impossibly until then. But sometimes controversial proposals are leaked to test them – if there is no protest, the plan can be unworriedly pursued.

While it could be an attempt for the Commission to gauge public reaction by leaking this information early, the fact this is even on their radar is very scary to anyone who links to a website.  And while this seems too crazy to possibly pass, many people are taking the threat very seriously, particularly because of the severe implications this could have on the entire web.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates - August 1, 2022
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update - October 19, 2021
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update - April 23, 2021
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020

Filed Under: Publishers, SEO

Sign up for our newsletter


Founder & Editor

Jennifer Slegg (2052)

Sign up for our daily news recap & weekly newsletter.


Follow us online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Latest News

2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates

We finally have the first Google Quality Rater Guidelines update of 2022, and like usual, it is … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites
  • Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials

Categories

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Amazon
  • Apple
  • Bing
  • Branding
  • Browsers
  • Chrome
  • Content Marketing
  • Design
  • Domains
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Firefox
  • Foursquare
  • Google
    • Analytics
    • Google RankBrain
    • Quality Rater's Guidelines
  • History of Search
  • Industry Spotlight
  • Instagram
  • Internet Explorer
  • Links
  • Local
  • Mobile
  • Native Advertising
  • Other Search Engines
  • Pay Per Click
  • Pinterest
  • Publishers
  • Security
  • SEO
  • Snapchat
  • Social Media
  • State of the Industry
  • The SEM Post
  • Tools
  • Twitter
  • Uncategorized
  • User Experience
  • Video Marketing
  • Week in Review
  • Whitepapers
  • Wordpress
  • Yahoo
  • Yelp
  • YouTube
March 2023
MTWTFSS
« Aug  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031 

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in