YouTube wins EU court case over copyright violations

Europe’s top court ruled Tuesday that platforms are not liable for copyright violations on content uploaded by third parties unless the companies fail to take sufficient action.

The decision came in a combined cases against YouTube by music producer Frank Peterson and against file-hosting company Cynado by publisher Elsevier.

The court concluded that “online platforms do not themselves make a communication to the public of copyright-protected content illegally posted online by users of those platforms unless those operators contribute, beyond merely making those platforms available, to giving access to such content to the public in breach of copyright.”