Tribunale di Torino [Tribunal of Turin], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Delta TV Programs S.rl. v. YouTube et al

Reversing en banc a previous judgment of the same Tribunal of May 5, 2014 (see below). This time, the Court accepted Delta TV’s request for interim injunction against Google and YouTube for copyright infringement of certain South American soap operas that users had uploaded to YouTube. In this case, Google complied with its notice and take down policy, and the videos were removed as soon as the specific URLs were provided by Delta TV. Nevertheless, the Court agreed with Delta TV’s claims, and ordered Google and YouTube to remove the infringing videos and to prevent further uploads of the same content through the use of its Content ID software (YouTube’s system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright) using as a reference the URLs provided by Delta TV. The Court stressed that these proactive monitoring obligations derive from the fact that YouTube is a “new generation” hosting service, a role that brought on it a greater responsibility to protect third parties’ rights.