Two new judgements on copyright violation by video sharing platforms

On July 17, 2019 the Tribunal of Rome issued two judgements awarding damages to RTI (Mediaset Group) for copyright infringements by Dailymotion S.A. and Vimeo LLC. The Court found that both video sharing platforms infringed RTI’s copyrights by publishing on their portals audiovisual content drawn from RTI’s programs and awarded RTI damages for a total of 10.3 million euros (5.5 for Dailymotion and 4.8 for Vimeo).
The Court established that the two platforms could not benefit from the safe harbor set in Article 14 of the EU Directive No. 2000/31, as they acted as “active” hosting providers, as their activity was not limited to a mere technical, automatic and passive service. Moreover, both platforms did not undertake the necessary measures to impede the communication to the public of copyrighted material, once informed by the right-holder. Damages were quantified as the reasonable royalty that Dailymotion and Vimeo should have paid to RTI. The two cases are part of a large effort that RTI is undertaking to fully protect its rights against any form of unauthorized circulation. Lear is assisting RTI in the economic analysis needed to support its claims.

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