In September 2016, in a further key decision on hyperlinking and copyright, the CJEU held that creating hyperlinks may be a communication to the public and so may amount to copyright infringement, if the creator of the hyperlinks knows or should have known that the material to which they are linking has been posted without the copyright owner's consent. If hyperlinks are created for financial gain there is a greater duty to check that the material is freely available before creating the link.
This decision will give greater protection to those seeking to prevent links to their material when it has appeared on the internet without their consent.
Commercial organisations should review their procedures and policies to ensure that where hyperlinks are created, sufficient checks are undertaken to ascertain whether the material to be linked to has been posted with the consent of the owner.
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