July 18, 2007

Dailymotion fined for hosting film clip

French-based video file-sharing site Dailymotion has been ordered by a court in Paris to pay damages for hosting a film on its site without permission. Variety reports.

"Dailymotion was ordered to pay a symbolic Euro 1 ($1.38) to helmer Christian Carion for posting a clip from his drama "Merry Christmas."

The site was ordered to pay the film's producers Nord-Ouest Euros 13,000 ($17,914) and distributors UGC Euros 10,000 ($13,780).

The Court of First Instance in Paris also demanded Dailymotion publish the full ruling on its website for eight days and that the company remove the film excerpt immediately, or face penalty of Euros 1,500 ($2,067) per day.

The website is considering lodging an appeal."

emily | 8:45 AM | Copypright Issues | Add this this entry to your del.icio.us bookmarks. Digg This Technorati search results for this Entry
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Comments

The judge condemned DailyMotion to pay (limited) damages, that is correct. But the court also confirmed a key point, which is that DailyMotion is a hosting provider and not an editor. This is very meaningful since this is core to the value proposition of being a user-driven platform dedicated to creativity and self-expression. In other words, DailyMotion can operate under the safe harbours guidelines provided for in the European Directive on the matter. Noe that is in contrast to the case of Lafesse-MySpace whereby MySpace was condemned as an editor. Another point to note is that the payment is not effective immediately if DM appeals; this is rare under French Law. What the judge wants to ensure is that DM uses all the means in its power to fight piracy at upload. The methods that have developed and deployed by DM (there are a number, some of which we do not disclose as we consider them to be a competitive advantage) were not used in this case. So all-in-all we are comforted in our ability to run the business as a hosting company and monetize our inventory. This legacy lawsuit will be superseded by the efforts and methods put in place to fight copyright infringement very proactively. I see Metacafe and DailyMotion as the best of breed in this regard. Just have a look at places like www.tv-links.co.uk or alluc.org and see how much content is driven by other "brand names" in the segment, including YT for that matter youtube.


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