|Disclaimer|
Decision of the Local Court of Hamburg of May 12, 1998
(312 O 85/98)
For the first time, a German court has ruled that the provision of Internet
links may make the owner of a web site liable for statements contained
in the linked third party web site.
Facts
The Defendant is the owner of an Internet web site which offered a collection
of links to third party web sites containing statements about the Plaintiff,
a controversial attorney and TV presenter in Germany. On his web site,
the Defendant included a disclaimer according to which responsibility
for linked third party statements would only lie with each respective
author. As some of the linked third party web sites contained defamatory
statements about the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff applied to the Local Court
of Hamburg for an injunction to prohibit the Defendant's links to such
third party web sites and to award the payment of damages against the
Defendant. The Plaintiff argued that the provision of links to defamatory
third party sites constituted a defamatory act by the Defendant under
German law. The Defendant (who apparently was aware of the defamatory
statements) was of the view that his links only opened a "market
of opinions" for which he was not responsible.
Held
The Local Court of Hamburg found in favour of the Plaintiff. The Court
was of the opinion that the presentation of the Internet links represented
an endorsement of the defamatory third party web sites. It did not agree
with the contention of the Defendant that the Internet links would only
open a "market of opinions". Instead, the Court relied on German
case law established with respect to the print media business. According
to such case law, the distribution of defamatory statements of third parties
constitutes a defamatory act by itself if the distributor does not clearly
dissociate himself from such statements. The Court found that such precedents
are also applicable to Internet links. As the Defendant's disclaimer was
not, in its view, sufficient to dissociate from the statement of the linked
web sites, it granted the injunction requested and ordered the payment
of damages (which mainly related to the costs of the proceedings).The
information and opinions contained in this document are not intended to
be a comprehensive study, nor to provide legal advice, and should not
be relied on or treated as a substitute for specific advice concerning
individual situations.
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