Deutsche Bahn, the German rail company, won a court case against Indymedia.nl, ordering Indymedia.nl to remove all direct and indirect links to two pages that contain information considered unlawful in the Netherlands. Part of the story is about repression and censorship in Germany and in the Netherlands, but the more important question is what happens to the internet if one is not allowed to place links to sites that again could link to pages with forbidden material. If one follows the reasoning of the court literally, it would become impossible for Indymedia.nl to link for example to Indymedia.org, as the incriminated pages are still linked from other Indymedia sites.

German authorities and Deutsche Bahn vs. Radikal and xs4all
In the 1990s the German journal Radikal published several articles on the transport of nuclear wast in Germany (CASTOR transports), on actions against it and some practical tips how to stop and/or delay train traffic in Germany. The transports are done by the then publicly owned and now privatised rail company Deutsche Bahn (DB). Radikal has a long history of repression by the German authorities including everybody who has more than one copy in his/her possession, so in 1995 a version of Radikal was set online, hosted on the Dutch server xs4all (English translation at the very end of the posting.) So far, it were mainly the German authorities that followed up on the protest against nuclear power stations, storage facilities and transports, but increasingly companies themselves sue for damage claims.

In spring 2002, the now privatised Deutsche Bahn filed requested that xs4all would take two articles offline, which contain practical advise on how to stop a train safely, and to provide them with the name of the xs4all subscriber who had put the Radikal issues online. (This request is probably stems from a German law where every publication, down to the smallest flyer, has to state the name of a person resposnible for its content.) Xs4all lost the case, the name was given, and the 2 pages were replaced with a copy of the court order (Kleiner leitfaden zur behinderung von Bahntransporten aller art, Bauanleitung einer Hakenkralle).

Deutsche Bahn vs. Indymedia
Indymedia.nl reported about the court case and a lot of people reacted on it. Among was argued that it is nearly impossible to remove something from the internet as mirror sites (site containing the same information as the original one, but hosted somewhere else) can easily be set up. Links to such mirror sites were also posted after xs4all lost their case.
All of them linked to the start page of those sites, but not to the articles. From the start page one had to figure out where among the more than 50 pages, in which issues and than under which headlines the incriminated articles were located. All of the articles at least two clicks away from the start page, that's at least 3 clicks away from the Indymedia.nl site. Only much later, after the Deutsche Bahn had filed their charges, another comment was posted that explained the necessary steps to find the articles.

Apparently annoyed that the two article were not disappearing from the internet, Deutsche Bahn went on suing other organisations, even trying on Google as the pages were still in the cache of the search engine. Against Indymedia.nl charges were filed to remove links leading to the two incriminated pages. Indymedia.nl refused to do so. Firstly, reporting about a court case must allow a documentation what it is about. Secondly, Indymedia.nl never linked directly to the pages. It linked to several copies of the start page of an archive, some of them containing the incriminated articles. However, not all of these sites even fell under the Dutch jurisdiction. Thirdly, removing all indirect links would literally mean removing all links whatsoever on indymedia.nl, since every page on the internet can be reached by any other page in, on average, 17 clicks.

However judge Orobio de Castro, the same one who had earlier declared the two pages illegal in the Netherlands, seemed to know alarmingly little about the nature of the internet and ordered Indymedia.nl to remove all direct and indirect links to the two articles, with a fine of Euro 5,000 for every day that the links were available on the site. Indymedia.nl therefore removed all links to the start pages of the mirror sites.

The future of the internet
Removing links to the start page of Radikal means removing the link to an archive that contains more than 50 articles and a lot of additional information about Radikal and the repression against it. And how far can you go to still consider something an indirect link? Should Indymedia.nl be able to link to another Indymedia site even though it be displaying links to mirror sites of Radikal? If not it would have to remove the link to indymedia.org. Should Indymedia.nl be able to link to the homepage of the German Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Department, BKA), even though their yearly report states the existence of mirror sites of Radikal?

How to go on?
Indymedia.nl is going to appeal against this verdict. This is not about the two articles. This is about the nature of the internet. However it is also about money: Indymedia.nl does not have the financial resources to go to court, and therefore needs donations at the Dutch bank account 943.21.53 to Stichting "Vrienden van Indymedia" (IBAN NL PSTB 0009 4321 53, SWIFT PSTBNL21) or via paypal.

Also on Indymedia.nl (but mostly in Dutch
Indymedia versus Deutsche Bahn (Persberichte en reacties in medere talen)
Deutsche Bahn wants to censor the Internet
Een middagje rechtbank
Uitspraak Rechtszaak Deutsche Bahn
Indymedia NL loses 'hyperlink case' (Persberichte en reacties)

Deutsche Bahn vs. xs4all: 1 | 2 | 3
in English

Radikal:Background information over 'Radikal' (English translation at the very end)