Research On Infringement Identification Of Deep Linking On Network Aggregation Platform

The advancement of Internet technology has a driving effect on copyright protection.Emerging technologies continues to raise novel questions for copyright and impact the development of copyright law.For example,the rapid transmission through internet promoted the establishment of the right of communication through information network.The later developed network aggregation platforms and deep linking technologies further brought up challenges for copyright protection in the internet environment.Deep linking aggregates works scattered across various websites and puts them on one single platform,allowing users to directly obtain works from such platform webpage.Aggregating works without the authorizations of the owners of copyrights takes the advantage of the linked websites without any cost,and adversely impacts the legal and economic interests of the owners of the relevant copyrights.Currently,linking technology can be characterized as inline linking or deep linking,based on the specific technology used.While there is some uncertainty on this point,inline linking is commonly considered as not directly infringing copyright,however,controversial viewpoints have been discussed with respect to deep linking.This article focuses on the discussion of deep linking and its relevant legal impact.Existing laws have not clearly provided whether an unauthorized deep linking constitutes copyright infringement.There have been discussions on the standard of identifying infringements from a theoretical perspective,the lack of an unified legal standard(s)for purposes of identifying infringement and the application of relevant law have lead confusion in legal practice.As such,deeper research on the identification of copyright infringement and standardizing relevant regulations and corresponding applications will help resolve the disputes/confusions in the case of deep linking,and will further protect the interests of each party and facilitate a healthy development of internet technology.This article consists of five chapters.The first chapter introduces the history of the issue,and discusses the character the aggregation platform and deep linking,and from this leads to the question whether deep linking used by the aggregation platform directly infringes the right of information network dissemination.The second chapter analyzes several standards to identify infringement against deep linking on aggregation platforms,and briefly evaluates each standard.The third chapter discusses the problems and difficulties identified in current legal practice with respect to copyright infringement.In the third chapter,we will compare the typical cases of infringement determination of deep linking behaviors in China,summarize and analyze the problems existing in the practice of infringement determination.The fourth chapter discusses the judicial practice of identifying the infringement against deep linking in foreign countries,concluding that we cannot stick to the so called“ mainstream ” standard from the past in current world.The fifth chapter of this article,based on the aforementioned discussions and analysis,addresses thoughts on the copyrights infringement resulted from deep linking on aggregation platforms,and provides practice suggestions.