German court orders YouTube to take down copyrighted videos

A German court has ordered YouTube to take down copyrighted music video clips as a result of a lawsuit filed by copyright royalty collections body GEMA and a number of groups handling music rights.

The Hamburg court ruled that YouTube had to act to remove clips at the request of rights-holders, although it was not required to proactively search for possible copyright violations.

YouTube owner Google, which had maintained that it only provided a technical framework for publishing content, nevertheless welcomed the ruling as providing legal certainty for uploading sites.