"We are not happy with this verdict," said Janneke Slöetjes of Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom (BoF). While BoF understands the court's reasoning in this particular verdict, it is worried about possible consequences for future lawsuits. "What will be the boundaries?" Slöetjes said. "This could be very bad news for search engines for instance," she said, adding that it is uncertain how the profit and intervention criteria will apply for a website as Google.

One organization that is pleased with the court's ruling is Brein, the Dutch anti-piracy foundation."This [verdict] offers many opportunities against sites that are consciously offering access to unauthorized content," said Tim Kuik, Brein's director. His group won at the ISP level in a court in The Hague earlier this year.

If a court can decide that a link infringes on copyright, it will be easier to make a case, he said. Before, Brein had to prove that a link was illegal, and Wednesday's verdict could help shorten that process, he said. And when a court rules that someone infringes on copyrights, the defendant always has to pay for the plaintiff's court proceedings, which is not the case when a link is declared illegal, he added.

"We are going to see how we can use this verdict in future lawsuits," Kuik said.

"It is an exaggeration to say that this judgment has far-reaching consequences," commented Dirk Visser, professor of intellectual property law at Leiden University. "This verdict was absolutely motivated by the severity of the infringement," he said. Everyone senses that linking to illegal material cannot be right, he said.