YouTube wins court case in Spain on intellectual property

Madrid, Sep 24 (IANS/EFE) YouTube, the Internet portal for videos, won a legal battle in Spain as a judge dismissed a suit brought by Telecinco television contending that the publication of its content on the web violated intellectual property protections.

Search engine giant Google, which owns YouTube, announced the verdict handed down by a commercial court in Madrid.

The court decision accepted YouTube’s position that it is a mere intermediary offering services of content accommodation and cannot therefore be obliged to previously check on videos to be uploaded by users.

“YouTube,” the verdict said, “is not a content provider, and therefore has no obligation to control the illegality of anything uploaded to the web site.”

“Its only obligation is precisely to collaborate with copyright owners so that, once identified the infraction, it can proceed immediately to remove that content,” the court ruled.

Telecinco filed the suit two years ago against YouTube for distributing the network’s content.

In a press release, YouTube said Tuesday that the court decision means that it is the copyright holders who must identify and notify the site about the individual videos that violate intellectual property rights, so that the service can proceed to withdraw them.

YouTube - the note said - offers copyright holders a free technological tool, Content ID, that allows them to protect their content automatically and avoid having it uploaded to the portal if that is against their wishes.

More than 1,000 media entities in the world use this tool effectively, including the leading television channels, YouTube said.

–IANS/EFE