The Court of Milan has once again upheld the claims of the Mediaset Group against a Content Service Provider that hosts user-generated content. This time it is Yahoo! Italy which has been condemned for distributing a number of TV videos protected by copyright without authorization.
After the decisions of the Court of Rome against Google/YouTube and the Court of Milan against Libero.it, both in favour of Mediaset, the direct responsibility of the providers for the unauthorized broadcasting of content protected by copyright has once again been established in Italy.
The Mediaset Group sued Yahoo! on 3 November 2009, following a control sample that had detected the presence of 218 videos taken from its TV shows, for a total of 21 hours broadcasting.
The Court ruled that the unauthorized broadcasting of videos by Yahoo! Italy constitutes a violation of copyright, therefore it has banned all future transmission of these videos on the portal, deciding on a fine of €250 for each video not removed and for every additional day of unlawful presence.
The amount of damages due to Mediaset will be fixed at a second hearing scheduled for October 18, 2011.
A number of commentators have stressed the contrast between the decision of the Court of Milan and the Court of Madrid which, a year ago, rejected similar requests from Telecinco (also part of the Mediaset group) against Google / YouTube.
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