Copyright: Europe Explores Its Boundaries: Part 1: Link Hubs

INTRODUCTION

This year, as the world celebrates the 25^th anniversary of the World Wide Web, the Web's founder, Tim Berners-Lee, has called for a fundamental reappraisal of copyright law.  By coincidence, this year we also anticipate a rash of UK and European legislative developments and court decisions centring on copyright and its application to the Web.

In our "Copyright: Europe Explores its Boundaries" series of posts—aimed at copyright owners, technology developers and digital philosophers alike—we will examine how UK and European copyright is coping with the Web and the novel social and business practices that it enables.

HYPERLINKING AND LINK HUBS

Everyone that uses the Web uses hyperlinks, and most of us may never consider whether we need permission to share a hyperlink with our friends and colleagues.  As we know, hyperlinking is fundamental to the working of the Web.