We have placed links to other sites on the Internet on our site.

The Hamburg Regional Court decided per judgment dated May 12, 1998 that by including a link on ones page, one may also be accountable for the content included there.

According to the regional court, accepting this accountability can only be ruled out by expressly disassociating oneself from this content.

The following applies to all these links:

We hereby expressly declare that we have no influence on the design and content of the linked pages.

We therefore hereby expressly distance ourselves from the content of all linked pages on our homepage and do not adopt this content as our own.

This declaration applies to all links displayed on this homepage and to all content of the pages to which the banners and links registered with us lead.

Here is an excerpt

11. Civil and criminal liability for hyperlinks to external content

Attorney Dr. Stefan Ernst, Freiburg/Br.

Hyperlinks are "the" design element of www pages. The Internet is probably also the only place where most participants are happy when they are "linked". Two main legal questions arise:

Can the owner of the linked site request that the link be removed?

This question is particularly relevant in cases where the owner of the linked website does not want anything to do with the link provider or where contacts are wrongly suspected. Example: A pharmaceutical company includes an essay by a university professor in its presentation, giving the impression that he is under contract. Aspects of competition law are of particular importance here

Copyright or personal rights, especially when using frames or inline links.

Is the link provider liable under civil or criminal law for the content of the linked site?

This paper addresses the second question.

Problematic content

The question of liability for hyperlinks can arise for various reasons. The most unpleasant case for the link provider is that the linked websites contain criminal content. This can be child pornography material as well as - which will be the case much more often - pirated copies of copyrighted works. The exploiters of music copyrights complain about the immense loss of income due to the illegal distribution of popular music via the Internet. This has increased significantly since the development of MPG-3. The investigators are correspondingly active in their search for such files on the web.

Responsibility for hyperlinks?

The Teleservices Act (TDG), which came into force on August 1st, 1997 as part of the so-called Multimedia Act, contains a liability privilege. A corresponding regulation can also be found in the draft for an EU directive on electronic commerce, which was recently published. The standard (§ 5 TDG) reads in excerpts:

Service providers are responsible for their own content that they make available for use in accordance with general legislation.

Service providers are only responsible for external content that they make available for use if they are aware of this content and it is technically possible and reasonable for them to prevent its use.

Service providers are not responsible for third-party content to which they only provide access for use. An automatic and short-term provision of third-party content based on a user query is considered access mediation.

The three paragraphs clearly show the purpose of the law. On the one hand, every content provider should of course be responsible for what it presents on the Internet (paragraph 1). On the other hand, anyone who, as an access provider, like a telephone company, only offers customers the opportunity to select any content themselves should not be responsible for it (paragraph 3), since they often know just as little about its existence as they do about it cannot influence. The third-party service provider, who has its own computer, the storage space of which it makes available to its customers (service provider), can only be liable in view of the mass of data it processes if it knows that and where its customers are accessing criminal content saved on his computer. In this case he is obliged to delete it.

The link provider does not appear in this triad. Accordingly, its classification is also controversial among lawyers. Despite the fact that this law has been in existence for over a year, in particular

on the question of its interpretation with regard to the responsibility for hyperlinks, no unanimous opinion can yet be formed among legal experts. Binding jurisdiction on Internet law is anyway only in the

to be expected in the next few years when the higher courts deal with the relevant questions.

On the one hand, one could think that the link provider would only - in accordance with paragraph 3 - provide access to third-party content over which he has no influence. However, since the switching of the link to a certain website is based on a free decision, a general exemption from liability does not fit. Otherwise the law would also privilege the conscious and intentional link to criminal content, which cannot be right.

On the other hand, it is argued that the link provider would consciously and intentionally include all content on the linked page in its own presentation through a link. In doing so, he makes them his own. However, according to paragraph 1, the provider is fully responsible for their own content. However, this line of argument suffers from the fact that a link often not only refers to specific content, but also to pages of considerable size. These can also change after the link has been set up, so that the link provider could possibly be held accountable for content that he could not have known existed at the time the link was set up. He would therefore have to check his links regularly, which is practically impossible to do.

Responsibility for hyperlinks?

The Teleservices Act (TDG), which came into force on August 1st, 1997 as part of the so-called Multimedia Act, contains a liability privilege. A corresponding regulation can also be found in the draft for an EU directive on electronic commerce, which was recently published. The standard (§ 5 TDG) reads in excerpts:

Service providers are responsible for their own content that they make available for use in accordance with general legislation.

Service providers are only responsible for external content that they make available for use if they are aware of this content and it is technically possible and reasonable for them to prevent its use.

Service providers are not responsible for third-party content to which they only provide access for use. An automatic and short-term provision of third-party content based on a user query is considered access mediation.

The three paragraphs clearly show the purpose of the law. On the one hand, every content provider should of course be responsible for what it presents on the Internet (paragraph 1). On the other hand, anyone who, as an access provider, like a telephone company, only offers customers the opportunity to select any content themselves should not be responsible for it (paragraph 3), since they often know just as little about its existence as they do about it cannot influence. The third-party service provider, who has its own computer, the storage space of which it makes available to its customers (service provider), can only be liable in view of the mass of data it processes if it knows that and where its customers are accessing criminal content saved on his computer. In this case he is obliged to delete it.

The link provider does not appear in this triad. Accordingly, its classification is also controversial among lawyers. Despite the fact that this law has been in existence for over a year, in particular

on the question of its interpretation with regard to the responsibility for hyperlinks, no unanimous opinion can yet be formed among legal experts. Binding jurisdiction on Internet law is anyway only in the

to be expected in the next few years when the higher courts deal with the relevant questions.

On the one hand, one could think that the link provider would only - in accordance with paragraph 3 - provide access to third-party content over which he has no influence. However, since the switching of the link to a certain website is based on a free decision, a general exemption from liability does not fit. Otherwise the law would also privilege the conscious and intentional link to criminal content, which cannot be right.

On the other hand, it is argued that the link provider would consciously and intentionally include all content on the linked page in its own presentation through a link. In doing so, he makes them his own. However, according to paragraph 1, the provider is fully responsible for their own content. However, this line of argument suffers from the fact that a link often not only refers to specific content, but also to pages of considerable size. These can also change after the link has been set up, so that the link provider could possibly be held accountable for content that he could not have known existed at the time the link was set up. He would therefore have to check his links regularly, which is practically impossible to do.

Summary

The result is that not all hyperlinks can generally be classified in one category or another. However, the existence of the requirement to consider individual cases leads to a fair and

solution that does justice to the special features of the respective link - even if the classification may be difficult for the non-lawyer. As a guideline, the following should be noted:

If the link provider is aware of the illegality of the linked content, he is liable. As a rule, a declaration that one distances oneself from the criminal content does not change anything.

A link to a very extensive homepage that does not contain obviously illegal content will not lead to liability. However, if the link provider is made aware of this fact, he must remove the link.

In principle, there is no obligation to regularly check linked pages. Normally, one does not have to assume that other providers will subsequently fill their websites with illegal content.

The classification of a link as proprietary depends primarily on the context in which the link is embedded. The other contents of the homepage of the linker, the accompanying circumstances of the link in the form of explanations and the specific destination on the page of the linked person (is

the incriminated content is addressed directly or does it have to be searched for first?). When switching frames or inline links, however, it is more likely that they are made your own, since the content of the linked page is directly integrated into your own web page.

In principle, the linker is not responsible for the further hyperlinks on the website in question. Checking these links is only necessary in certain cases, for example if the text indicates

that criminal material, pirated copies or similar are located there.

However, these rules can only be guidelines. In cases of doubt, it is advisable to refrain from using the link or to seek legal advice.