Legal responsibilities for Setting links / Embedding
Matthias Gottschalk, partner at GMP and responsible for copyright / internet- law, presented at the autumn event of AIPPI Switzerland on December 1, 2016 in Zurich a lecture on “Linking and making available on the internet.”
The presentation included a summary of the report of the swiss working group on this issues and, inter alia, recent leading decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the subject of “linking”, namely Svensson (ECJ of 13.02.2014), Best Water (ECJ of 21.10.2014), and GS Media / Sanoma (ECJ of 08.09.2016). Following the presentation, RA Gottschalk, together with Catherine Mettraux-Kauthen, lawyer at SRG / SSR, and Professor Thomas Weibel, journalist and professor of multimedia- production at University for Technicity and Business at Chur, discussed the Swiss view on the legal treatment of link placement. A consensus has been reached during such discussion that the establishment of a “simple” surface link usually shall not require the prior approval of the rights holder. However, said assessment potentially to be changed, if contents, which are accessible on the linked website are available there without the permission of the right holder, will be made available to the public by means of so-called “Embedding”. The question if the setting of such embedded-link shall be made subject to the permission of the rights holder if the link setter has commercial interests remained in dispute until the end of the discussion.
Link zu GS Media/Sanoma (EuGH v. 08.09.2016)
