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Web 2.0 - A term resounded throughout the world
Author: Dominik Eickemeier, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Everybody has heard of “Web 2.0”, but hardly anybody could describe what the hype is actually about. This article is to remedy this lack of information. Web 2.0 stands for a new internet and new technologies behind it.

Nomen est omen

The term has been designed by Tim O’Reilly and O’Reilly Media for a Web 2.0 conference in the year 2004. The term was designed to help describing new developments and new trends in the internet business. Web 2.0 has also been described by the “LOW” principle, which is “Let Others Work”, or, a bit more seriously, user generated content.

Still, many question the helpfulness of the term, as many of the technologies now used and described as Web 2.0 have already existed since the early days of the internet. Internet veteran Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, put it this way: “I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means”

But since Web 2.0 is not only about new technologies but about a new perception of the internet by both users and business, one can understand that there is a need to name this new trend. Web 2.0 is a worldwide phenomenon and its many popular applications such as YouTube, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, MySpace or SecondLife, blogs and forums prove its great importance today.

How does it work?

Wikipeda, for example, asks users to contribute to the world’s largest internet encyclopedia, YouTube, MySpace or Flickr offer free of charge services to upload content of any kind: movies, videos, music clips or personal information. SecondLife assists the desire to sneak into a different, “second” life on the internet. In blogs and forums people discuss all kinds of interests thinkable or report on any imaginable theme. But how about the legal backside of this phenomenon, what problems arise by the new forms of communication on the internet?

Actions in many countries have already been filed with the courts, partly seeking huge amounts of damages as in the Viacom versus YouTube/Google case in the USA. How do German courts, which have proven a good portion of both sensibility and efficiency in dealing with internet issues, handle Web 2.0 cases?

The Bundesgerichtshof, the German Federal Court of Justice, had to decide several cases related to Web 2.0. It held eBay (co-)liable for trademark infringements by account holders. In one case the account owner offered obviously counterfeited Rolex watches for extremely low prices. According to the judges, eBay has an obligation to examine sales offers which obviously infringe other party’s trademark rights or copyrights. Although eBay is not obliged to examine any new offer before posting it, the court imposed a duty to filter out those offers which “obviously” violated third parties’ rights. The court did not answer the question, how that could be done, though that is of grave importance to the internet business. However, the court at least said that as far as it is technically possible and as far as it can be reasonably imposed upon the business, an obligation to search for identical or similar infringements, which have already taken place, must be accepted by eBay. How far the responsibility goes and what measures might be regarded reasonable is still in dispute in several law suits.

Another question is whether the initiator of a forum or blog might be held liable for third party’s contributions. Again, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled that even if the author of a rights violating contribution is known, the person whose rights have been infringed, may also assert cancellation of the contribution by the host of the forum. But as long as he does not know, the host is not liable. Therefore, if one is of the opinion that his rights have been violated by another person, one needs to send a letter to the host of a forum firstly and, in case it does not react to the letter, sue the host in court.

Many constellations have not yet been presented to court but due to the immense power of the Web 2.0 applications and business, one thing is for sure: there’s more to come. However, up to now one can say that Web 2.0 business can be successful and, different from internet business in 1998 to 2000, it seems to be profitable for many and not only a few businesses.