Court of Milan Holds Video Sharing Platforms Liable for Copyright Infringement

Abstract

The Court of Milan found that the internet service providers Italia On Line and Yahoo! Italia were liable for copyright infringement in connection with the uploading of several videos on their platforms and that they could not rely on the hosting provider exemption under the E-Commerce Directive.

The two decisions are particularly interesting as the Court of Milan ‘created’ from scratch a new category of internet service provider liability: so-called active hosting liability.

Keywords: copyright, internet service providers' liability, e-commerce directive