Canada Supreme Court Ruling

Hyperlinking doesn't constitute defamation

[Demaestro]

Original Article:
[theglobeandmail.com...]

The Court was unanimous in ruling that anyone whose site supplies hyperlinks that lead to another site has not published it for the purposes of libel and defamation law.

I had my eye on this one and I was pleased with the ruling. The ruling includes a statement that publishing a link is not the same as publishing, hopefully that will be extended past just the purposes of libel and defamation and will extend to copyright claims as well if required.

This is especially good considering that any content you link to can change after you create the link.

[Leosghost]

If it extends to copyright ..you are not going to be able to move in Canada for file"sharing" sites that link to cyberlockers..

And Piratebay will be looking for server space* with Canadian hosts..

*and maybe office and living space too

[Demaestro]

Leo...

You are correct and I hadn't even considered that, the use case I was thinking was a situation like this thread in which I link the original content from the Globe and Mail and don't have to worry about them claiming I have copied the article.

I do not hope that this opens up that can of worms with P2P. We have that stupid Private Copying Levy which assumes anyone buying a blank CD-R is a criminal and is using the CD-R to record non-purchased downloaded material which allows Canadians to download for "free" since we are paying for it VIA the levy, we just aren't allowed to share it back, or seed, and I don't like that either.

[Leosghost]

We have that stupid Private Copying Levy which assumes anyone buying a blank CD-R is a criminal and is using the CD-R to record non-purchased downloaded material

We have that too ..except you are not allowed to download..nor make backup copies of what you already own..( I do - make backups of what I already own ) and it applies to DVD and BR blank media ..and soon to HDs ..and SSDs..

We just think of it as the blank media tax..