This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Deutschland: YouTube wegen Verletzung von Urheberrechten verurteilt

On 3 September 2010, the German Hamburg state court ruled that Google's subsidiary YouTube had to pay damages for not having prevented and blocked the upload by its users of several videos of Sarah Brightman's performances, thus violating its copyright.

Although YouTube uses a standardized form to users regarding their right to publish materials, the court did not find this enough and considered YouTube as legally responsible for the content uploaded, especially as the platform can be used anonymously, in the court's opinion.

YouTube uses Content ID, an anti-pirating technology to check out videos. Now the page for adding videos includes now a warning that uploading copyrighted content is not allowed unless the uploader is the right holder or has previously received the right holders' agreement.

A prior verification of all the materials made available on the platform would however create a huge problem for YouTube as, according to last year's figures, 24h of video were uploaded every minute, which makes the measure impossible from the financial as well as personnel point of view. Also, this would be contrary to the EU E-commerce directive which specifically states that such an online service has not a general obligation to "monitor the information which they transmit or store, nor a general obligation actively to seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity."

YouTube must not publish those videos anymore and has to provide information to establish the amount of compensation for the uploading of the videos. Google will appeal the decision.

In another case in Germany one week before, Google had a slight success in its trial with the German collective societies, when the court declined to issue a preliminary injunction against YouTube. But the court also estimated that the collective societies may have the right to ask for taking down of videos for which collective contributions haven't been paid, but this needs to be proven during the trial, not in an interim injunction.

The court's decision is the result of a long battle between collective society GEMA, the German Society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights, and Google, who have been trying for over a year to renegotiate a license expired in March 2009.

GEMA and other collective societies have failed so far to obtain in court the injunction of YouTube but what they actually want is to get paid for Internet broadcast of the videos. The negotiations have failed because there is a discrepancy between the payment expectations of the two sides. GEMA is used to the traditional method of royalty collection where a user pays at every broadcast of a copyrighted material, while YouTube, generating its revenues from advertising, does not charge users to watch videos.

German court rules against YouTube over copyright (4.09.2010)
http://www.google.com:80/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJ6jhspHQJ_JJyw3B...

German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading (31.08.2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/31/gema_youtube/

German battle over YouTube royalties wages on (27.08.2010)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5951245,00.html