BRUSSELS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Google's YouTube has won a legal battle over illegal uploads of music and videos protected by copyright, with a top European Union (EU) court ruling on Tuesday that the platform cannot be automatically held liable in such circumstances.
"As currently stands, operators of online platforms do not, in principle, themselves make a communication to the public of copyright-protected content illegally posted online by users of those platforms," the Court of Justice of the EU said in a statement.
"However, those operators do make such a communication in breach of copyright where they contribute, beyond merely making those platforms available, to giving access to such content to the public," the statement said.
The EU court was ruling over questions referred to it by the Federal Court of Justice in Germany which is hearing two cases on copyright infringements over illegally uploaded content.
In the first case, Frank Peterson, a music producer, filed an action against YouTube and its legal representative, Google, in respect of the posting on YouTube in 2008 of a number of recordings over which he claims to hold various rights. Those recordings were posted by users of that platform without his permission.
This case gave rise to another similar one between publisher Elsevier and file-hosting service Cyando in Germany over various works posted online on the platform in 2013. The works, which were copyright protected, were posted by users of that platform without its permission.
In its ruling, the EU court said such platforms cannot be automatically held liable for illegal uploads of copyright-protected music or videos.
But they can be held liable if they do not put in place the appropriate technological tools to tackle copyright breaches by their users or where they provide tools on their platforms for illegal sharing of content.
Moreover, they could be held liable if it becomes aware of the illegal content on its platform "and refrains from expeditiously deleting it or blocking access to it," said the court. Enditem
