Earlier this week the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) filed an action in copyright against Fullscreen. Fullscreen is one of Youtube’s biggest music networks which promotes songs and music videos. The lawsuit filed by the NMPA revolves soley around “Cover-music”, a label given to a piece of music which is a rendition of another song. The NMPA alleges that Fullscreen does not have the proper liscence to profit from uploading their videos onto youtube. The profit most uploaders, including Fullscreen, make by uploading their video is through ad revenue.
The NMPA’s action against Fullscreen comes almost three years after the landmark decision in Viacom international inc v Youtube inc, where Viacom claimed a billion dollars in damages against Youtube. Viacom alleged that Youtube had infringed copyright by allowing their users to upload copyrighted material onto their websites. The claim by Viacom ultimately failed, partly due to the fact that the court recognised that it was inpractical to expect Youtube to monitor all of the activity which happened on their website.
The litigation between Fullscreen and the NMPA could be the aftermath of the precedent set by Viacom international inc v Youtube inc. Seeing as publishers can’t bring an action aganist Youtube, or any other online platform, they are bringing the action against the uploaders of the content.
Suffice to say I think the outcome in this lawsuit will be significant. If the NMPA is succesful, we might see a greater pattern of lawsuits brought against the uploaders of copyrighted material, allthough it should be minded that practical restrictions may sway these lawsuits from occuring against the smaller uploaders.
Sources:
http://www.managingip.com/Article/3242059/Managing-Copyright-Archive/Music-publishers-file-copyright-infringement-claim-against-Fullscreen.html
http://news.techworld.com/networking/3462893/music-industry-changes-its-tune-in-copyright-lawsuit-against-youtube-channel-fullscreen/
