France: DailyMotion Pays Damages for Late Removal of Infringing Materials

Likewise the lawsuit Viacom v. YouTube in the U.S., TF1 engaged DailyMotion in a longlasting legal battle in France. TF1 started proceedings in 2007 against DailyMotion after finding available on the video-sharing platform content included in TF1's catalog. The infringing materials ranged from episodes of Heroes, Martin Scorsese's The Departed, to other satirical and political shows broadcasted by TF1.

 

The Court awarded the damages for failure of DailyMotion to act promptly upon notification to remove the infringing content. For the judges, these delays "constitute unfair and parasitic competition, which is a misconduct triggering civil responsibility." 

 

However, the Court found that DailyMotion was entitled to the safe harbor protection as a hosting provider and rejected TF1'argument that video sharing platform was the publisher of the content posted by users.

 

Additionally, the Court rejected the proactive filtering obligations that TF1 and others requested to impose on DailyMotion. The plaintiffs demanded to remove all content featuring their logos. The Paris Court noted that "[French law] does not impose on the hosting provider a general obligation to monitor the information it transmits or stores, or a general duty of care and proactive filtering, therefore there is no reason to grant requests for removal of all content including TF1 and/or LCI logos, and for the establishment of a system for proactively filtering online content posted on this site." However, the court upheld a measure, which was already ordered by the judges in 2012. DailyMotion must exclude "TF1" and "LCI" from the site's keyword search since these terms provide "easy access to programs produced by these two companies and illegally made available online."