Reblogged from Legal Web Watch April 2014.

April 26 was World IP Day. I didn’t notice too many people getting excited by this. But one who did was Graham Smith.

Graham is a partner at Bird and Bird and the leading expert in internet law, central to which is IP law and, in particular, copyright law.

Graham’s bible on Internet Law and Regulation is sadly out of date. We carried a review of the 4th edition in the January 2008 Newsletter. Happily, the 5th edition is due out in December

Links and the law

Crucial to the web is the link. After all, there would be no web without them. So the legality of linking has exercised the courts from day one.

Indeed, the Shetland Times case of 1997 was one of the first to consider the question. I was on the case in one of my early “Pages on the Web” for the Solicitors Journal.

Most recently, we’ve had the Svensson judgment from the CJEU on the legality of linking to infringing material. Much has been written about this. Here are a few to get you started:

• Graham Smith on his Cybereagle blog (also published on INFORM)
• Patricia Mariscal on the Kluwer Copyright Blog
• Alberto Bellan and Eleonora Rosati on The IPKat

There is comment on the case in most IP law blogs: all are catalogued on infolaw Lawfinder.

In the upcoming issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers (May 2014) we have a veritable feast of articles on copyright:

• Shireen Smith, principal at Azrights, on “Copyright in website images”
• Simon Stokes, partner at Blake Lapthorn, on “The future of digital copyright”, and
• Laurie Kaye, partner at Shoosmiths, on “Copyright, fair use and the advance of culture”