Vimeo wins appeal in long-running copyright dispute with record labels

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Video-sharing platform Vimeo has won the latest skirmish in a 16-year-long legal battle with divisions of Universal Music Group.

As reported by reported by Reuters , The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Vimeo on Monday (January 13), dismissing copyright infringement claims brought by major record labels, including Universal Music Group’s Capitol Records and several EMI subsidiaries.

The lawsuit, filed in 2009, centered on Vimeo‘s “Lip Dub Stars” channel, where users posted videos containing copyrighted music. The record labels argued that Vimeo ignored clear signs of copyright infringement when its employees encountered recognizable recordings on the platform.

Other labels listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Caroline Records, Virgin Records America, and Stone Diamond Music Corporation.

The appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision that Vimeo is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act‘s (DMCA) “safe harbor” provisions. Established during the Clinton administration, these provisions typically shield internet providers and intermediaries from liability for user-posted content if they respond to takedown notices.

“The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ contention that Vimeo had actual or red flag knowledge of the infringement or the right and ability to control the infringing activity, and therefore lost entitlement to the safe harbor.”

Judge Pierre N. Leval, US Second Circuit Court of Appeals

“The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ contention that Vimeo had actual or red flag knowledge of the infringement or the right and ability to control the infringing activity, and therefore lost entitlement to the safe harbor,” stated the ruling, which can be read in full here.

The court ruled that “Vimeo was entitled to the DMCA’s safe harbor because: although there was evidence that Vimeo employees had interacted with videos containing infringing content, there was insufficient evidence to prove that it would have been obvious to those employees that the content of the videos was neither authorized by the rightsholder nor fair use.”

The labels also failed to show that “Vimeo had sufficient ‘right and ability to control’ within the meaning of the statute to lose entitlement to the safe harbor,” US Circuit Judge Pierre N. Leval said in the ruling. US Circuit Judges Barrington D. Parker and Sarah A.L. Merriam joined in the opinion.

Writing for the panel, Leval stressed that even if unauthorized use of music might seem likely to an average person, “that would not make it obvious that a particular video lacked authorization to use the music.”

The ruling also addressed the labels’ claim that Vimeo exercised substantial control over user content through its ability to promote or demote posts. The court dismissed this argument, saying Vimeo’s content moderation affected only a minimal percentage of user uploads.

“For example, in 2012, 43,000 new videos per day were posted on Vimeo, which annualized to over 15 million new videos. During that year, Vimeo had only 74 employees. Apart from how minimal an intrusion it is for a staff member to select a video to receive an indication of approval, the number of videos that 74 staff members could have evaluated and emphasized amounted to no more than an insignificant percentage of those posted,” the ruling said.

“Calling attention to selected videos by giving them a sign of approval or displaying them on a Staff Picks channel (or the contrary, by demoting them) did not restrict the freedom of users to post whatever videos they wished,” the judges added.

Additionally, the court determined that denying Vimeo protection under the DMCA would burden the company with “unsustainable costs.”

Vimeo welcomed the decision, with a spokesperson telling Reuters that the decision “ensures Vimeo can continue empowering innovation and artistic expression while respecting intellectual property rights.”

The decision also affirmed that DMCA protections apply to recordings made both before and after 1972, building on a previous Second Circuit ruling that overturned a state court decision in a case involving Grooveshark and Universal Music Group.

Grooveshark, which used to be branded as the world’s most notorious copyright-infringing audio streaming site, agreed to shut down its operations in 2015 after losing a lawsuit against Universal Music.

Music Business Worldwide

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