German court turns down injunction against YouTube

A German court says it has declined to issue a preliminary injunction against YouTube in a drawn-out conflict between the popular video-sharing site and several royalty collecting bodies over unlicensed music videos.

A German court says it has declined to issue a preliminary injunction against YouTube in a drawn-out conflict between the popular video-sharing site and several royalty collecting bodies over unlicensed music videos.

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GEMA, ASCAP, and six other royalty collecting bodies for months have tried but failed to reach an agreement with YouTube on license fees. The plaintiffs therefore tried to reach a preliminary injunction to ban 75 videos from YouTube.

The Hamburg Landgericht said Friday there is some indication that the plaintiffs may actually have a right to ask YouTube to remove the videos with unlicensed songs.

But it says it did not see the necessity of a fast-track decision. It says regular court proceedings, which might take months, are fast enough to decide the case.