German court turns down preliminary injunction against YouTube in dispute over music videos

German court turns down injunction against YouTube

BERLIN — 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.

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.