Federal District Court Upholds DMCA Safe Harbor For Youtube

On April 18, 2013, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York upheld the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") safe harbor protection for YouTube following a remand from the Second Circuit in a case where Viacom and other plaintiffs alleged YouTube had infringed their copyrights. Of note, the district court found that the DMCA safe harbor provision places the burden of notifying service providers such as YouTube of infringements upon the copyright owner or his agent. The district court also found that YouTube's general awareness of the existence of infringing material on its system, coupled with a lack of a proactive copyright infringement monitoring program, did not constitute "willful blindness" that would render the safe harbor inapplicable. Furthermore, the court found that YouTube's minimal interactions with its users did not amount to a "right and ability to control" infringing activity by its users. Accordingly, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of YouTube.

The safe harbor provision is governed by § 512 of the DMCA, which states that online service providers are immune from liability for copyright infringement only if the service provider:

(A) (i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing; (ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or (iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material. (B) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and (C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity. (Emphases Added)

This case was decided on a remand from the Second Circuit following the Second Circuit's decision in Viacom Int'l Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., 676 F.3d 19 (2nd Cir. 2012). In that decision, the Second Circuit agreed with the district court that the "actual knowledge" referenced in the DMCA safe harbor required knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements. However, the Second Circuit remanded the case back to the district court because it found that the...