across the bar

google victory in the you tube copyright lawsuit

by Steve - Posted 26 June 2010

Google have successfully defended the lawsuit brought against them by Viacom and its co-plaintiffs for direct and secondary copyright infringement involving copyright protected material being uploaded to You Tube. The New York district court ruled that Google were entitled to safe harbour protection under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and that general knowledge of copyright infringement on its site did not disqualify it from such protection. Viacom have said that they will appeal the decision.

Check out the ruling.  

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first decided case involving ISP liability for copyright infringement

by Steve - Posted 11 February 2010

Judgment was handed down by the Austrailian Federal Court on 4 February 2010 in the landmark case of Roadshow Films (Pty) Limited v iiNet Limited. 

The case raised the question whether an internet service provider or ISP authorises the infringement of copyright by its users when they download copyrighted movies and TV shows on the internet. The general principle In Australian copyright law is that a person who authorises the infringement of copyright is treated as if they themselves infringed copyright directly.

The court found that the ISP did not authorise copyright infringement for the following reasons:

• The infringement of copyright was done using the BitTorrent system and not simply from the internet services provided by the ISP. The ISP did not create or control the BitTorrent system.
• The ISP did not have the relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring.
• The ISP did not sanction or approve copyright infringement.

The judge said that he could not be compelled to make a finding against the ISP simply because "something had to be done" about internet piracy, which on the evidence presented appeared to be occuring on a large scale worldwide.

He also said that an ISP provides a legitimate communication facility which is not intended to infringe copyright. It is only when users choose to make use of file sharing tools such as BitTorrent that copyright infringements take place.

This judgment will have persuasive authority if a similar case comes before a South African court. Although copyright holders may be disappointed by the outcome, it looks like common sense has prevailed in a situation which could have had dire consequences for the ongoing development of the internet if the decision had gone the other way.

A summary of the case is available here (we are trying to access the full judgment which is a 200page monster).

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