Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion is now owned by a billionaire residing next to the Playboy founder after purchasing it for $200 million. (Photo : Getty Images/ Robert Mora)
Playboy Dutch edition publisher won in a court case against GS Media who was found guilty if copyright infringing after they posted links to a photographer's images of Britt Dekker.
Publisher Sanoma commissioned the photos of the TV personality which was captured by photographer Carli Hermes. After the shoot, the license of the photos were given to Sanoma who runs the Playboy Magazine brand in the region.
The problem started when GreenStijl, the gossip site of GS Media, posted a cutout of the said pictures in 2011. GreenStijl also posted hyperlinks of the photos to a file storage site leading to viewers accessing the photos without the publisher's explicit permission and license, The Guardian has learned.
Hyperlinking is not supposed to be illegal but the case against GS Media found that the site linked to photos that they did not have a license for. The European Court of Justice ruled that the publication violated the copyright on the photographs for the Playboy Magazine Dutch edition's publisher.
The court said in its ruling: "When hyperlinks are posted for profit, it may be expected that the person who posted such a link should carry out the checks necessary to ensure that the work concerned is not illegally published."
Google and other related web entities with the same linking services could be targeted for the same grounds regarding copyright infringement, TechCrunch reported. Other courts in varying countries could still find a similar case with a different ruling based on what the investigation finds.
Search engines link to almost all stuff on the Internet and they could also link to file storage sites with content that are illegally uploaded. For instance, anyone can easily search for torrents or streaming sites for their favorite TV show which could otherwise be considered illegal in many forms.
GS Media argued that the ruling hurts press freedom as it will be harder for publications to freely report on obscure topics or newsworthy events because they would be targeted with lawsuits. The same can be said for files that have been leaked from the government which is another case altogether.
