Your response seems to ignore everything in my comment other than the second sentence. I was asking why that detail should matter as far as the law is concerned, and I gave some reasons I don't think that would be good or practical.
If your link is set up to make the image display immediately (that is, you wrap it in image tags, or as in one case, embed Instagram posts) then you may be violating copyright. What's more, in Europe, just a hyperlink to a copyrighted work violates copyright.
Conclusion: copyright is not about copying, it's about access.
I deliberately ignored it, because it was all irrelevant.
> I was asking why that detail should matter as far as the law is concerned, and I gave some reasons I don't think that would be good or practical.
I have no idea at all how anything should matter as far as the law is concerned. Not my problem, unless I somehow get caught. But not getting caught is a problem grounded in reality, unlike legal ones. I think I can manage that.
That said, if laws about computers don't comport with how computers actually work, I'll take extra amounts of glee in violating them.
And, even more gleefully, nobody will be able to detect my violations. My internet traffic will look identically the same as someone "innocently copying" or whatever.
Attempting to have a discussion with someone who participates like that pointless.