Public Knowledge Statement on Viacom v YouTube Appellate Decision

Public Knowledge Statement on Viacom v YouTube Appellate Decision

Public Knowledge Statement on Viacom v YouTube Appellate Decision

The U.S.
Appeals Court for the Second Circuit (New York) today handed down its ruling in
Viacom v. YouTube. The ruling is
here.

The following
is attributed to Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director for Public Knowledge:

“We are
pleased with the Appeals Court ruling. The Court upheld the basic principles of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA). Crucially,
the Court rejected Viacom’s attempt to create a new duty of those hosting
content to monitor actively for infringement in order to qualify
for the law’s safe-harbor provisions. The Court upheld the need for knowledge of specific instances of
infringement in the DMCA, and that a general awareness of possible infringement
is not sufficient.”