EU considers outlawing web links - unless you check them with your lawyers first

The European Union (EU) is being pressed by its own digital commissioner to extend the trade bloc's copyright laws to web links. The move would make anyone linking to a web page that contained copyrighted content liable for copyright infringement.

The extension of EU copyright law is being pushed by digital commissioner Gunther Oettinger and European Parliament president Martin Schulz, with the aim of cracking down on digital piracy.

However, in addition to opening up ordinary people and businesses to inadvertent copyright claims - for linking, for example, to a blog containing an image ripped-off from an image library - it would also stifle people's freedom to share links to online information, such as web links to Computing, The Inquirer and other popular websites.

Julia Reda, the sole remaining Pirate Party MEP following 2014's EU elections, described the plans as "a frontal attack on the hyperlink, the basic building block of the internet" and added: "Each web link would become a legal landmine and would allow press publishers to hold every single actor on the internet liable."

She continued: "This is based on an absurd idea that just won't die: making search engines and news portals pay media companies for promoting their freely accessible articles. Earlier attempts at establishing this principle resulted in Germany's and Spain's 'ancillary copyright laws' for press publishers."

Reda added that the plan would be published next month. "The leaked text is not a law proposal, but just a summary of the Commission's plans for next year," she said. Making changes to those plans before they are published on 9 December is "nigh on impossible", she continued, but suggested that the plans may have been leaked in order to test public opinion. "If there's no protest, the plan can be pursued," she warned.