In a landmark decision, a US district court has ruled in favor of YouTube in a copyright infringement case where the Premier League sued YouTube in 2007.
The court case dragged on for three years. In it, the New York district judge ruled that “YouTube was protected by US legislation which says a service provider isn’t liable for infringement if it removes material from its site when notified by the copyright owner.”
The Premier League argued that copyrighted material was being illegally uploaded and viewed on YouTube. As of press time, the Premier League had not announced whether it would appeal the decision.
For any die-hard Premier League fan, we know that YouTube does an excellent job at removing goal highlights within minutes. While the decision doesn’t change anything for fans of Premier League clubs, it may discourage the Premier League from using such heavy-handed legal tactics in the future.
Instead of targeting YouTube, the Premier League needs to create a video-on-demand system which will allow soccer fans worldwide to legally view goal highlights minutes after goals are scored.
The league could join the 21st century and follow the cues from its American major-league counterparts, all of whom have some kind of online streaming package for sale. Baffling that one of the most significant sports leagues in the world hasn’t figured this out yet.
Still absolutely amazes me that the Premier League would get outraged over small clips on YouTube
Full games? I get it….but I always chuckle a bit whenever we see the PL shooting down 1 minute clips of games. There is absolutely ZERO hurt in those clips
This is one thing that MLS has done right, both for viewing matches as well as for simply being able to watch highlights. Pretty simple really.
Got a 13s clip of Alex (Chelsea) 2-0 freekick against Arsenal removed by the FA Premier League. I can´t see how this short clip, of pretty poor quality, would prevent PL from making any money, I just feel they create badwill by doing this. I uploaded it for myself basically cause I want to have it on youtube to share with friends, to show that I actually went to the game (it´s a BIG thing for me being from Sweden), and as a memory, since it was my first Premier League game live. Still love Chelsea but FAPL just hit rock bottom… SUCKS