German court curtails news site's links
A German tech news web site is free to report on software that can crack copy-protection mechanisms on DVDs, so long as the story doesn't include a link to the software vendor's homepage, an appeals court in Munich has ruled.
Heise online in January published an article describing and linking to the maker of a program that claimed it could lift copy-protection from DVDs. Eight music companies then sued Heise, alleging that the report violated a chunk of German copyright law that bans, among other things, advertisement of tools to hack copy-protection.
Freedom of the press protects Heise's right to report on such software but not its right to link to the goods, a lower court ruled in March. The appeals court upheld that decision, holding that linking to "a portal where illegal activity takes place" is going too far, and refused to hear either side's appeals.
A similar case played out on American turf beginning in December 1999. Eight movie studios sued 2600 Magazine for publishing a story and linking to a DeCSS, a computer code many people used to skirt copyright protections on DVDs. A federal appeals court ruled in 2001 that posting links to such content violated the