Google win over Spanish YouTube trail 'significant'
Google has won a ruling over Spanish Televinco in Madrid with a court rejecting the claim that its video-sharing facility YouTube should be held responsible for copyrighted material posted on the website.
Telecinco claimed that YouTube has damaged its business having aired TV programmes ahead of their broadcast in Spain and that it was make profit from exploiting intellectual property rights.
The court ruled that the copyright owner should be responsible for identifying and reporting to Google when its material infringed intellectual rights.
Mark Owen, head of the Intellectual Property Practice at London law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said the ruling held great significance.
“This is an important judgment, as it's the first of its kind in Europe involving YouTube and is a straw in the wind for how these issues will play out in European Courts. While comforting for services such as YouTube it is a blow to companies which have spent considerable sums on copyrights,” explained Owen.
“It places the onus on them to monitor sites such as YouTube and similar sites and not on the sites themselves, to keep track of infringements.”