Collective management rights organisation GEMA has won a legal case against file-sharing host Uploaded.
Yesterday, the regional court in Munich classified Uploaded as an accomplice in the illegal making available of contents protected by copyright and has ordered it to pay damages.
Once GEMA alerted the service of the content infringing copyright on its site, it didn’t remove the files sufficiently, the judges found.
The judgement is not yet legally binding.
Welcoming the ruling, Dr Tobias Holzmüller, GEMA’s General Counsel, said: “The regional court Munich has decided in the interest of our members. Their ruling confirms that file-sharing hosts play a significant role in the proliferation of music piracy.
“By pronouncing the liability to pay damages for file-share host Uploaded, composers, lyricists and music publishers at least get a small compensation for the rights infringements of their works that have been committed on a massive scale.”
tobias holzmüller, gema
“Online service providers have previously only been obliged to remove contents infringing copyright from their platforms.
“By pronouncing the liability to pay damages for file-share host Uploaded, composers, lyricists and music publishers at least get a small compensation for the rights infringements of their works that have been committed on a massive scale.”
“File-share hosts make a lot of money with the exploitation of creative contents. Copyright infringements are thus deliberately taken into account and accepted.”
harald heker, gema
Dr Harald Heker, GEMA CEO, added: “File-share hosts make a lot of money with the exploitation of creative contents. Copyright infringements are thus deliberately taken into account and accepted.
“This imbalance at the expense of our members is unacceptable for us. We therefore demand a legal framework where platform operators are held accountable and authors finally get their fair share in the respective proceeds. This decision is a clear signal for creatives.”
GEMA represents the copyrights of more than 70,000 members (composers, lyricists and music publishers) in Germany, and more than two million copyright owners globally.
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