A US court has ruled in favour of Google, dismissing Viacom's assertion that postings of their content on YouTube were copyright infringements.
Google won by arguing that YouTube is a "Safe Harbour" - in other words it provides a place for content to live, without exercising any editorial functions.
This provision was initially intended to cover ISPs, but Google successfully argued that they offered a similar service.
A crucial part of this argument is that a "Safe Harbour" will respond to a demand for copyrighted content to be removed immediately.
Google got this right, taking 100,000 Viacom clips off YouTube in 24 hours.
If this judgement survives appeals by Viacom, it has some important ramifications for content creators and copyright holders.
What this means to you.
Copyright holders could be solely responsible for initiating action to protect their content. In practice, this means a lot of time spent trawling the web and sending takedown demands.
Unless some smart entrepreneur comes up with a service to act for copyright holders.
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