GEMA Filters YouTube

Germany’s royalty collection organisations have come a step closer to getting some money out of YouTube by winning a Hamburg State Court case April 20.

GEMA, the main German royalties group, and other copyright holders won their legal battle contending that YouTube and other similar sites are responsible for the content published by users.

The case for allegedly infringing the copyright on seven music clips was brought against YouTube in 2010 by GEMA and several other groups handling music rights.

YouTube has previously said it’s not legally responsible for the uploaded content, although the Hamburg judge disagrees.

The video site hasn’t said whether it will appeal the court’s decision.

Earlier this month, the Google-owned video site suffered another legal setback when a U.S. appeals court reopened a $1 billion case against it brought by media conglomerate Viacom, as well as England’s Premier League and a clutch of media companies.

The German court’s decision means YouTube must remove copyrighted music from its site as soon as the rights holder makes it aware of the offending clip.

The judgment did not go as far as forcing YouTube to trawl its site in search of possible copyright violations.

The battle between GEMA and YouTube has been rumbling on for more than three years.

Google has reached agreement with at least a couple of dozen European collection agencies to allow access to YouTube, but GEMA has apparently been holding out for more money.

Some in the German record industry are showing concern about the money it’s missing while GEMA digs its heels in over reaching an agreement.

“This is an important partial victory,” a GEMA spokesman explained, as if forcing YouTube to remove clips is a step nearer to making it pay for them.