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GEMA fails to get interim injunction in YouTube dispute

By | Published on Thursday 2 September 2010

German collecting society GEMA failed to get an injunction to force YouTube to take down videos containing one of 75 songs last week.

As much previously reported, the German equivalent of PRS has been in dispute with YouTube over royalty rates for over a year now. After ongoing licensing talks between the collecting society and video site broke down in May, GEMA asked the German courts to issue an injunction to force the Google-owned site to remove any videos containing one of 75 songs owned by publishers represented by the collecting society.

The society argued an injunction was needed now, pending other legal action, on urgency grounds because, given there is currently no licensing agreement between YouTube and GEMA, the writers of the 75 songs in question are losing money every time one of their videos is played.

But, according to Billboard, the Regional Court Of Hamburg, while not passing judgment on GEMA’s wider copyright claim, said it was not convinced by the urgency argument so would not issue any interim injunctions. GEMA can, of course, proceed with their other legal action against YouTube, but the 75 songs may continue to be accessed via the video site in the meantime. 

GEMA have a month to appeal the injunction ruling should they wish to.



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