Copyright >> Inline Links To Unlicensed Third-Party Content Now May Be Copyright Infringement

For years, copyright attorneys throughout the country have relied on a decision from a Federal appellate court in the 9th Circuit (California and surrounding states) to advise clients that they may safely place on their websites unlicensed photos, videos and other copyrighted content taken from third-party websites, so long as that content appears on their sites only through "inline links" to the third-party sites. Following that guidance, website operators have displayed and performed unlicensed YouTube videos, news photos, social media posts and other third-party content on their sites, and have avoided copyright infringement claims and liability for doing so because they did not copy that content onto their own web servers and instead provided that content by posting the file address (i.e., inline link) of the page where the content is stored on its original web server.