According to slashdot.org, the Italian government plans to regard video-on-demand (VOD) websites as television broadcasters. Background of this story is a law that was introduced early last year in Italy. This law implies that YouTube is no longer just a hosting provider in Italy, but alike television stations, is responsible for the content of the footage they "broadcast".

This is remarkable because in jurisprudence in other European countries YouTube is seen as a hosting provider, which allows users to generate content on their website, with limited liability for YouTube.

In Spain, the extent to which YouTube is responsible for the content of the videos was investigated by a federal court in Madrid some time ago. Reason for the lawsuit was that television station Telecinco sued Google (YouTube's parent company) for copyright infringement caused by the distribution of videos on YouTube. Telecinco lost the case because the Spanish court ruled that YouTube is not responsible for the content of files that users place on their website.

Article 14 of the EU eCommerce Directive provides that e-commerce hosting providers such as YouTube (under certain circumstances) are not liable for data that users upload, because they are only "hosts" that store data for users. In addition, YouTube fulfills the obligation to delete files on requests of the copyright holder.

Interesting detail is that the Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon Berlusconi has an interest in this discussion. The Prime Minister is the owner of Mediaset and his government also controls the state broadcaster RAI. Berlusconi's company Mediaset met Google in an Italian courtroom before. They demanded compensation for the fact that images could be seen on YouTube in violation of copyrights of their media empire.

Sources: SOLV, DutchCowboys.nl