Linking to Pirate Content may not be communication to a new public

Perhaps a slightly dull headline but in the world of copyright infringement and piracy this preliminary ruling today from the European Court of Justice CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL TEXT makes life more difficult for the copyright owners.

In essence, and only on the facts of this case, if material is freely available already, then no new communication to the public occurs when it is published / linked to again without permission. This echoes Svensson and Bestwater.

Without a communication to the public there is not on the face of it copyright infringement. Other remedies such as trademark infringement and conspiracy to defraud still stand however.

This is not really ideal particularly when it does not seem to matter if it is obvious that the "source" material is not itself authorized. Copyright legislation really needs a bit of a re-boot.