“To accept that the provision of a hyperlink is not enough to amount to participation in the process of publication which is completed when a third party clicks

“To accept that the provision of a hyperlink is not enough to amount to participation in the process of publication which is completed when a third party clicks on the hyperlink so as to view the webpage, however, is not to deny that the provision of a hyperlink might combine with other factors to amount to participation in that process of publication of matter on that other webpage.” [¶66] “It will be recalled that the Court of Appeal in this case adopted the possibility of defamatory matter being published by way of incorporation by reference into a search result. In our view, this suffers from two difficulties. The first is that whereas incorporation by reference clearly has a place in contract law 64 and other areas of law, such as patent law and the law relating to wills, it can have no place in the law of defamation, which requires that the defamatory meaning be conveyed for publication to be complete. [...]” [¶45] I'd be wary of claims that this is broad decision affecting all areas of Australian IP law. Also be mindful that “publication” has a technical meaning; one of the dissenting opinions makes a good case that the majority is erring [¶149-154].