A decision by the Vienna Commercial Court, which is not yet final, states that the video platform YouTube can be held directly liable if third parties upload copyright-infringing content.
Puls 4, an Austrian private television station owned by Pro-Sieben-Sat1, sued for an injunction. In 2014, Puls4 demanded that the platform prevent users from posting such material on YouTube. At that time, content from Puls4 appeared on YouTube.
Please see the current press release
PULS 4 wins lawsuit against YouTube
Vienna Commercial Court: “YouTube is not a host provider.”
The decision of the Vienna Commercial Court, which was delivered yesterday and is not legally binding, has the potential to revolutionize the Internet. The court found that YouTube is directly liable for copyright infringements committed by users on the media platform. PULS 4 – represented by Markus Boesch from the law firm PLOIL BOESCH Rechtsanwälte – had sued for an injunction and demanded that YouTube first have to prevent third parties from uploading copyright-infringing content.
The result of the commercial court is the result of a complex evidentiary process in which the essential functions of the YouTube offering were meticulously examined. YouTube invokes - as in a large number of proceedings throughout Europe - the so-called host provider privilege under the provisions of the E-Commerce Act, which stipulates that technical service providers as intermediaries should not be liable for the content posted by a user. But the prerequisite for this is a neutral role. It is precisely this neutral role that the Vienna Commercial Court denied:
“By linking, sorting, filtering and linking, in particular by creating tables of contents according to specified categories, determining the surfing behavior of users and creating a tailor-made surfing suggestion, offering assistance, etc., YouTube leaves the role of a neutral intermediary and can therefore not rely on invoke the host provider privilege…”
This has far-reaching consequences:
The decision, which is limited to copyright claims, can be applied to other legal areas such as violations of media law, personal rights, criminal law and also to comparable online offerings/media platforms such as Facebook.
Markus Breitenecker, Managing Director PULS 4:
„With this decision, we have reached a milestone in the efforts of rights holders worldwide to reclaim their content and the opportunities to commercially exploit it. The media that call themselves social networks will have to recognize that they also have to take responsibility for the content from which they earn millions. This is a real game changer.”
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

