Video/audio streaming site Video has prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by major music labels Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music.
This is not the first time Vimeo has tangled with labels over the same issue, as RAIN reported in 2016 in Capital Records vs. Vimeo.
The fulcrum in both cases is he Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enacted in 1998. That law protects internet services from liability when users upload infringing material, without the platforms’ knowledge, while at the same requiring removal of the unauthorized files. In that case the court absolved Vimeo of culpability, unless the labels could prove that Vimeo staffers knew that the unauthorized videos were infringing, “or knew facts making that conclusion obvious to an ordinary person.”
In this most recent case, the labels asked the jury to rule that — “based on the employees’ knowledge or expertise, the employees knew that it was extremely unlikely that individual Vimeo users had somehow secured licenses from major rights holders to use well-known hit songs in amateur video productions.”
The three-judge panel jury didn’t buy that, ruling: “Even if a person without specialized knowledge would have intuited a likelihood that many of the posted videos were not authorized, that would not make it obvious that a particular video lacked authorization to use the music.”
The case document is HERE.
