Our old mates, the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, have welcomed an Appeal Court ruling in the Netherlands which has overturned a previous decision regarding the legitimacy, or not, of a website that provided links directly to illegal sources of music.
The Dutch lawsuit was based on that familiar theme of whether or not websites which provide links to illegal content, but which do not actually host illegal content on their own servers, can be guilty of copyright violation. The lower court ruled the www.zoekmp3.nl site was not guilty of any violation, despite it providing 'deep links' to illegitimate sources of music content. But the Dutch Court Of Appeal disagreed, saying the service was benefiting commercially from providing links to "infringing files", and was doing so without taking into account the interests of content owners. The site's owners were ordered to remove such 'deep links' from its service, and to pay damages to the content owners, though the actual damages payment is still to be assessed.
Welcoming that ruling, IFPI's General Counsel Geoff Taylor told reporters: "This is a very important decision for the creative industries in the Netherlands and internationally. There has been concern that Holland could become a centre of internet piracy, but this decision shows that the Dutch courts will not tolerate websites building a business out of facilitating copyright infringement. That is an essential condition for the legitimate digital music market to flourish. It sends a clear message to others operating "mp3 search" services that they will be held liable for the damage that they cause."
Geoff's probably right, you know, though I would draw his attention to this entry from Wikipedia: "The Netherlands is often referred to by the name Holland. This is, however, misguided, since the provinces of North and South Holland in the western Netherlands are only two of the country's twelve provinces".