A court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube is responsible for the content that users post
 

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17785613

YouTube loses court battle over music clips

A court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube is responsible for the content that users post to the video sharing site.

It wants the video site to install filters that spot when users try to post music clips whose rights are held by royalty collection group, Gema.

The German industry group said in court that YouTube had not done enough to stop copyrighted clips being posted.

Rights battle
YouTube said it took no responsibility for what users did, but responded when told of copyright violations.

"Today's ruling confirms that YouTube as a hosting platform cannot be obliged to control the content of all videos uploaded to the site," said a spokesperson for the video site.

"We remain committed to finding a solution to the music licensing issue in Germany that will benefit artists, composers, authors, publishers and record labels, as well as the wider YouTube community," they added.

Gema's court case was based on 12 separate music clips posted to the website. The ruling concerns seven of the 12 clips.

If YouTube is forced to pay royalties for all the clips used on the site it will face a huge bill.

Gema represents about 60,000 German song writers and musicians.

If enforced, the ruling could also slow the rate at which video is posted to the site as any music clip would have to be cleared for copyright before being used.

Currently, it is estimated that about 60 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube worldwide every minute.

YouTube owner Google has yet to comment on the ruling.

The court case began in 2010 and came after talks between YouTube and Gema about royalties broke down. In 2009, the stalemate meant that videos from German recording firms were briefly blocked on the site.

Gema has rung up several victories against sites it has claimed are using music without paying royalties.

In 2009, file-sharing site Rapidshare was told to start filtering songs users were uploading following action by Gema. In March, 2012 a second judgement told Rapidshare to be more proactive when hunting down content pirated by users.

Music streaming site Grooveshark pulled out of Germany claiming licencing rates set by Gema made it impossible to run a profitable business in the country.

in addition to this case there is one australia that has held google responsible for the content of its advertisers

massive implications in both cases

As it should have been from the beginning.

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Good.

People simply should not be loading things they don't own, including music soundtracks. I spend a chunk of money every year on royalty free music for my projects, so I don't have much symptahy for those who think they can use any track they want for free.

Agreed ... You can't open a sports bar without paying royalties to the NFL, NBA etc. You can't run a radio station without paying a per song royalty. You can't open a movie theatre without paying Hollywood. Why does an internet company think they can make money off the same content and not pay for it? Fine them to death.

Let's see them try to survive with cute kitten videos.

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How in the world is YouTube supposed to check for this? I had one of my videos taken by YouTube because they thought my music might be copyrighted, when in fact I made the music myself.

Then they need to shut down. Businesses fail everyday. Not being able to comply with the law is not an excuse for breaking it. There was a world before youtube remember?

How will the Mexican cartel survive without being able to sell drugs? Same question isn't it?

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There sure was a time before YouTube.

I have to admit it's comical watching entire movies on YouTube....

Yup. Youtube fits into the Google business seamlessly. Sell advertising for content although we've never ever created anything original in the history of our existance.

Same as Google itself. Make billions of dollars off the work of others. The internet is a joke.

Gotta agree, It hurts but I gotta agree with you. lol.

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Yeah just wait till Google starts its own record label. It is certainly big enough and has a big enough advantage in distribution to put everyone else out of business.

Well stated. :2 cents: :thumbsup

Yes then watch them scream as everyone steals their property.

Us too, and glad to pay musicians for their music. We take great care to make sure alll our site is ours to sell.

I would dare to say how youtube have more views with goofy videos then with music videos,i am not sure why they even bother with music.

Please share some links, we need music too but it's hard to find those who'll license to a porn company.

https://youtube.com/results?searc... 80.357.5.5.0.

https://youtube.com/results?searc...7 7.551.8.8.0.

I would say it's very close. Look at the Adele page.

Still it's not about views. It's about free downloads v people paying to consume the music.

The GEMA is fierce, they fight for every penny they can get. From anyone. Good for the musicians but unfortunately the percentage the GEMA keeps for them is also quite significant.
And they have not quite understood the internet yet, we will see if the lawsuit finally forces them and Youtube to come to an agreement like they already have with other websites.

youtube is full of stolen music. it is hughly ironic that users take entire albums, rip each song, upload to youtube, no one cares.

but you upload the zip to megaupload and suddenly you offend the world deserve jail time etc...

youtube is a mainstream pirate haven nothing more. and everyone who is against piracy uses it, and all the people who hate torrents etc sit on youtube watching shit all day long...

typical.

tons of music is already blocked for german visitors because of the non-agreement between Youtube and GEMA

That's not even slightly ironic.

But carry on.

finally....

go to youtube and type in "full movie" and enjoy the 12.000.000 results...this is how hard they "try" :1orglaugh

of course they are responsible LOL ...fuck them and their pirate business model...too good to obey the law LOL fuckers...

Why not instead turn the problem into an opportunity?

Link the video which is using the song to the itunes/beatport/online retailer where the song can be purchased.

There's plenty of videos that already do that, in fact there's labels which use youtube to promote their artists.

Of course you can always download the video for the song or use software to rip the music, but the quality will be crap.

I think youtube knew these losses were coming well in advance.

If you create music that is commercially available you should belong to one of 3, if not all, US music publisher administrators; BMI, ASCAP, HarryFox.

I belong to all 3 but use Harry Fox to administer our rights.

Youtube has entered into an agreement with music publishers as of this year. They are paying 15% net of ad royalties.

Learn more here, https://www.harryfox.com/public/ - Go to youtube license offer.
Its free to opt in...

It's amazing how much Google will do to defend themselves in support of piracy, rather than changing their business model in any appreciable way. It would be so easy for them to relegate pirate results past the first 100 SERP results, and every copyright industry would calm down immediately. That would be such a good show of faith to throw a bone to copyright creators and legitimate advertisers and websites, whom Google has built their empire off of.

But they simply refuse. It's just crazy what %% of the top 100 results for any digital product are blatant pirate listings.

how you define and prove a "pirate result?"

It's their culture and more profitable to ignore the problem.

They don't need to prove a thing. They can simply start relegating known pirate sites and that would be the end of it. They're a company and can do whatever they want with their result pages.

Your question relates to the "justice" of how to choose who gets relegated, but they don't have to be just at all. My point is that they don't need to be "right" about each and every result, because they don't have to defend themselves afterwards.

There in lies the paradox, if they stop indexing piracy other search engines will grow in popularity, just like with porn tubes or even youtube included, there is no going back to 3 min clips because every other tube will remain with 10 min clips...they cant afford to go legit they will end up like yahoo :)

12.000.000 full movies on you tube :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh