European court decision on the use of hyperlinks. This could affect us here.

Last week a website site from my country named GeenStijl had its day in Court. The European court was going to make a decision on the hyperlink. Yes you read it well. The hyperlink.

There is a dutch women who was shortly famous and made it to the cover of the playboy. The pictures where leaked (aren't they always leaked?) before the official release, and the website GeenStijl made a article about it ,and put a hyperlink to the pictures.

That is something almost all website do these days. We do it here. I am going to do it right at the end of the article even.

The consequence of a negative decision (in my eyes) are enormous. It would mean that you can not link to a picture or article if you are not 100% sure that the site is owning the rights.

And that is what indeed happened. Here the court decision http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2016-09/cp160092en.pdf

There is a footnote (at the moment) that there needs to be a financial gain. So it would not harm normal citizens who tweet or post something on Facebook. But there is a financial gain for us here on Steemit.

I am not a jurist but this is something that worries me. Not only for Steemit but the control of copyright lawyers on our internet.

If Steemit is going to grow, this is something that needs more attention then some bots checking the posts (with all respect for the effort)

EFF also posted about it.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/european-copyright-ruling-ushers-new-dark-era-hyperlinks

Oh and about the girl. Just google, that is still allowed. https://www.google.com/search?q=playboy+gelekte+foto%27s+britt+dekker&biw=1920&bih=1075&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3u-bpx4XPAhULIMAKHZBxC1UQ_AUIBigB