Besides being a professor Visser is also a lawyer who in the past has litigated on behalf of Brein.

In some cases, as in the case of Wikileaks for instance, freedom of speech can prevail over copyright, Visser said. But because this case was about nude pictures there was a "clear commercial interest," he said, adding that Playboy's business model is based on publishing the pictures first. If this is not illegal, everyone could publish something anonymously online and then link to the content, he said. "Everyone feels that is not right."

The Dutch ruling was made possible by a recent ruling in which the Court of Justice of the European Union found that hyperlinks can infringe on copyrights if their publisher intervened, reached a new public and wanted to profit from their publication, said Visser.

Visser could not predict if other European judges are going to follow the Dutch interpretations of this verdict. "That remains to be seen," he said.