Germany: Federal Court of Justice issues ruling in case on copyright liability of platforms

On 2 June 2022, the German Federal Court of Justice issued a ruling in a case on the copyright liability of platforms between a music producer and the operators of Youtube concerning the repeated uploading of copyrighted materials by Youtube users. Previously, the Federal Court of Justice had halted proceedings in the case to request a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning EU IP and e-commerce law. Taking the preliminary ruling into account, the Federal Court of Justice has ruled that Youtube may be liable for making copyrighted material available if, being aware that users were making such material available, it did not take adequate technical measures to prevent such copyright violations. Merely reactive measures, such as enabling right holders to find uploaded copyright materials, would not be adequate. Further, if a platform operator commits a copyright violation themselves if it chooses to adopt an operating model which encourages users to commit such violations.