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Legal
Spanish courts back YouTube in Viacom-style case
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 24 September 2010
A Spanish federal court has ruled that YouTube is not liable for copyright infringement, even though it often hosts unlicensed content uploaded by its users.
Judges were convinced that, because the web firm operates a take-down system, whereby it blocks unlicensed content if and when it is made aware of it, there should be no liability. The Google-owned web service also discussed its efforts to introduce an automated content-filter system for the benefit of content owners while fighting a lawsuit brought by Spanish broadcaster Telecino.
Responding to the ruling, Google wrote on its blog yesterday: “This decision is a clear victory for the internet and the rules that govern it”.
Telecino’s argument was similar to that at the heart of the Viacom v YouTube case fought in the US courts over the last few years. Like Telecino, the MTV owner originally argued it was unfair that it should have to monitor YouTube’s entire platform for the unlicensed upload of its content, when it is Google which benefits from any advertising generated between said content being uploaded, spotted and removed.
That said, with US courts generally ruling that YouTube’s current takedown system is sufficient for the web firm to has so called ‘safe harbour’ protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Viacom’s case actually focused more on allegations that in its early days YouTube bosses operated a deliberately sloppy take-down system because they knew unlicensed content drove the most traffic. Viacom, of course, also lost its case against the video website.
The Spanish ruling is interesting because European copyright systems, most pre-dating the internet, don’t generally provide specific statutory ‘safe-harbour’ provisions for web firms. That said, the Spanish copyright system hasn’t proven especially helpful for content owners pursuing (alleged) online infringers, so that this ruling would go in YouTube’s favour isn’t especially surprising.
