YouTube streaming ruling deferred pending EU decision

The German Federal Court of Justice (Der Bundesgerichtshof) has delayed a ruling in a case concerning potential copyright infringement by streaming platform, YouTube, for uploads by third parties to receive input on the issue from the Court of Justice of the European Union. A Jurist report notes that the plaintiff in the case is a music producer that has a contract with vocalist Sarah Brightman. The producer brought the case against YouTube for compensation for Brightman’s music uploaded on the platform. The Federal Court of Justice delayed the proceedings based on interpretations of Directive 2001/29/EC ‘on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society,’ Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce, and Directive 2004/48/EC relating to enforcement of intellectual property rights. The permissions relate to when: the platform receives advertising revenue and the process to upload a video is automatic; the terms of use of the platform give the operator of the platform a worldwide, non-exclusive and royalty-free licence to the videos; the terms of use include language that warns that copyright infringing uses may not be discontinued; the platform gives tools to allow those who own the rights to certain content to work toward blocking videos that infringe on their rights; the platform presents search results based on content-related categories and ranking of videos; and if the operator of the platform has no concrete knowledge that copyright infringing media is available and once that knowledge is confirmed, deletes the media or blocks access to it.