It was, according to some experts, a major victory for copyright owners in their battle against online infringement. Other experts, however, have a very different view of the 2nd Circuit’s decision in Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. They see the April 5 ruling as largely a win for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the many other online businesses that allow users to post content online.
Both sides may turn out to be right. Viacom confirmed that an online business faces no liability when its users post infringing material so long as the business satisfies the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). More significantly, the decision held that an online company does not lose this safe harbor protection just because it knows, in general, that many of its users are posting infringing items.
