The website savethelink.org has opened its gates! Its goal is to preserve the "ability to link to your favorite content and services". Everybody is called upon to participate in this petition. Organisations supporting this initiative include IGEL, but also EDRi, Copyright for Creativity and Creative Commons.
The link is under attack!
The right to link to any website is becoming more and more restricted. Spain, for example, forces every news service by law to pay a royalty in order to be able to show snippets of articles. As a result, Google News Spain declared to shut down its service. Relatively unknown might be a ruling by India's Supreme Court that allows to block whole websites and certain links. At the same time, Australian politicians are planning on passing a similar law. As to Germany, there is still no final decision on the scope of the ancillary copyright for press publishers. Now, whilst negotiating with EU-representatives, the USA demand the Spanish law be extended to the whole European Union.
Internet users everywhere need to stand up and stop this development
All those actions harm the free spread of information and knowledge over the internet. The freedom of expression is at risk, the foundation of the Web wavers and ..there is no end in sight. Therefore it is high time to act as a unit, to speak out and save the link! Sign here!