So no big surprise, a few days later the Regional Court of
Hamburg did issue a preliminary injunction against YouTube in another case
brought by Frank Peterson, a German composer and producer for Sarah
Brightman and other artists. YouTube was ordered to pay compensation after users
uploaded several videos of performances by Sarah Brightman in violation of
copyright laws.
The Regional Court of Hamburg is quite notorious in Germany for its ill considered decisions regarding liability of internet providers. I would not be surprised if the Hamburg Upper Regional Court on appeal will at least not award any damages to the plaintff. The decision clearly is in violation of European law, the E-Commerce-Directive, in this regard. The court concluded that YouTube was treating content uploaded by its users as its own. That leads to a more strenuous duty to check out the content. The court came to the conclusion YouTube did not fulfil this.