Internet search services provider Google Inc, US, has announced that a federal judge in New York has ruled that its video sharing site YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.
Viacom, a global entertainment content company, was seeking $1 billion in damages in a case testing the depths of copyright-infringement protection under the DMC Act of 1998. The ruling could reportedly have major implications for several Internet sites that are mainly built with content uploaded by their users.
In 2007, Viacom filed a lawsuit against Google accusing the company of copyright infringement after several Viacom videos were uploaded to the site. The company had then argued that Google was not entitled to those protections as it had intentionally turned a blind eye and profited from extensive piracy on YouTube.
Judge Louis L. Stanton of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, ruled in favour of Google, saying that while the company surely knew that copyrighted material had been uploaded to its site, it was not aware of which clips had been uploaded with permission and which had not.
Google and other groups supporting Internet companies have welcomed the decision, saying that it would protect not only YouTube but also other websites that host user-generated content.
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