Damages quantification for violation of IP rights in the user-generated content platforms industry

On 27 April 2016, the Tribunal of Rome published its judgement on the case between RTI and Break Media, condemning the latter to pay 115.000 Euro as compensation for IP rights violation. In particular, the Tribunal has considered Break Media responsible for the unauthorized presence on its website of 48 videos of RTI popular programs. This verdict marks a watershed in the identification of the responsibility for the content presented in user-generated content platforms, and has important implications for damage quantification related issues.
Lear has assisted RTI throughout the proceedings and evaluated the damages resulting from the copyright violations examined. This consisted in estimating the price that Break Media should have paid to obtain the right to show RTI’s contents (and not the price that Break Media would have been willing to pay). In order to correctly estimate the loss suffered by RTI, Lear’s analysis carefully considered RTI business model and the inability to limit the diffusion of the content in the online environment.