Knowledge of Infringing Videos Necessary For Action Against YouTube

Google’s YouTube is not liable for direct or indirect copyright infringement unless it fails to take down the offending video after proper notice, a New York District Court found.

The court found that YouTube is protected from copyright infringement claims under the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) because Google has no obligation to seek out or search for infringing videos on its site. “[I]f investigation of ‘facts and circumstances’ is required to identify material as infringing, then those facts and circumstances are not ‘red flags.’” For that reason, the court said, “awareness of pervasive copyright-infringing, however flagrant and blatant, does not impose liability” on YouTube.

The lawsuit was filed by Viacom, which claimed that there were “tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, which were taken from Viacom’s copyrighted works without authorization.” However, the court found that when Viacom provided notice of specific videos, YouTube “swiftly removed them.”

The DMCA provides a “safe harbor” for Internet service providers who provide a way for copyright owners to send notice to have infringing materials removed. If the materials are removed under that process, the service provider receives limited protection from any copyright infringement claim. The court found that the “burden is on the owner to identify the infringement. General knowledge that infringement is ‘ubiquitous’ does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements.”

Viacom International, Inc. v YouTube, Inc., S.D.N.Y. No. 07 Civ. 2103, issued June 23, 2010.