YouTube won a case against copyright infringement accusations in Spain
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Deutsch: [YouTube in Spanien vom Vorwurf der Urheberrechtsverletzung freigesprochen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2249]
Google has won a battle against Spanish broadcaster Telecinco which brought
the company to court in June 2008 claiming that the company’s service
YouTube was liable for the copyrighted material posted by its users.
Spanish Commercial Court no.7 of Madrid ruled against Telecino, following
the EU E-commerce directive which says that a website is responsible for the
content uploaded by its users only if a notification of allegedly copyright
infringing content is made. Once the notification is received, the website
has to remove the respective content.
Telecino claimed that Youtube already had procedures in place for copyright
owners to identify and notify the website of any videos that allegedly
breach copyright but Google argued that screening material before it was
made available would be an impossible action.
“This decision demonstrates the wisdom of European laws. More than 24 hours
of video are loaded on to YouTube every minute. If internet sites had to
screen all videos, photos and text before allowing them on a website, many
popular sites – not just YouTube, but Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and
others – would grind to a halt,” was Aaron Ferstman’s comment on Google;s
European public policy blog.
Google has also been careful to reaffirm that it respects copyright laws:
“We are very pleased with today’s ruling. The win today confirms what we
have said throughout this process: YouTube complies with the law. The ruling
recognises that YouTube is merely an intermediary content-hosting service
and therefore cannot be obliged to pre-screen videos before they are
uploaded.”
Telecino, which was bound to pay for the trial expenses, stated that the
judge’s decision was only trying to avoid “taking a decision that would have
placed in checkmate the national and international trade of YouTube and its
owner Google” and that it intended to defend itself from the attacks against
its rights and to appeal to superior legal courts.
Spanish court throws out copyright infringement claims against Youtube
(23.09.2010)
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1735045/spanish-court-throws-copyright-infringement-claims-youtube
YouTube wins against Telecinco in the tribunal(only in Spanish, 23.09.2010)
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/09/23/comunicacion/1285234927.html
Google wins YouTube case in Spain (23.09.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/sep/23/google-wins-youtube-case-spain
A big win for the Internet (23.09.2010)
http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2010/09/big-win-for-internet.html