Copyright case against YouTube revived by federal appeals court

NEW YORK —A federal appeals court revived a 5-year-old copyright case against YouTube on Thursday, finding that a jury might conclude that the online video service knew it was infringing on rights when it allowed the distribution of videos of popular television shows and other programs.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan decided the case after hearing lawyers several months ago debate whether the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act shields a company like YouTube from broad copyright claims. Google Inc. paid $1.76 billion for YouTube in 2006, just months after the video service was launched in December 2005.

The appeals decision pertained to several lawsuits filed against YouTube, including one in which Viacom claimed YouTube committed "rampant copyright infringement," and others in which The Football Association Premier League Ltd. and various film studios, television networks, music publishers and sports leagues joined to challenge YouTube's practices.

A lower-court judge had ruled that YouTube was protected from copyright infringement claims by the safe-harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That provision protects a company from liability if it doesn't have actual knowledge of copyright infringement. Once notified, the company must eliminate the infringement quickly.

The appeals court noted that Viacom cited evidence that YouTube employees in the company's early days conducted website surveys estimating that up to 80 percent of all YouTube streams contained copyright material and that a financial adviser to Google estimated that only 10 percent of its content was authorized.

"These approximations suggest that the defendants were conscious that significant quantities of material on the YouTube website were infringing," according to the decision by two judges on a three-judge panel. The third judge has since died.

The appeals court also cited evidence that YouTube founder Jawed Karim prepared a report in March 2006 stating that episodes and clips of "Family Guy," "South Park," "The Daily Show" and other shows were on YouTube and although the company was not legally required to monitor content, it complies with requests to take down copyrighted content and would "benefit from preemptively removing content that is blatantly illegal and likely to attract criticism."