Streaming is not a copyright infringement

After the law firm U+C initiated a mass warning letter campaign regarding the "streaming" of films on the internet platform www.redtube.com, in which the attorneys issued many thousands of warning letters, the Regional Court (LG) Cologne has now decided in several complaint proceedings that viewing content on the internet does not constitute a copyright infringement.

The starting point for these decisions were disclosure orders from the LG Köln, in which internet service providers were required to provide "The Archive AG" with information about their users. "The Archive AG" had asserted to the Regional Court (LG) Cologne that the identified IP addresses belonged to connection holders who had committed copyright infringements over the internet.

Already in December 2013, the LG Köln had received over 50 complaints against these disclosure orders. The recipients of the warning letters defended themselves with the argument that "streaming" does not legally constitute a copyright infringement. A legal violation was in any case not obvious, as required by law (§ 101 Abs. 9 UrhG), and therefore the decisions were made wrongfully.

Court decision

In itsBeschluss vom 24.01.2014 – Az. 209 O 188/13 – the LG Köln ruled in favour of the connection holder and granted the complaints.

The chamber justified its departure from its original decision by stating that the application from "The Archive AG" had made reference to downloads. In reality, however, it had concerned the retrieval of videos on a streaming platform. According to the court's view, the mere streaming of a video file or its viewing by means of a stream, in contrast to downloads, does not in principle constitute a relevant illegal infringement within the meaning of copyright law.

Conclusion

A decision by the highest court on the topic of "streaming" is still outstanding, so that no all-clear can yet be given. However, we are convinced that viewing ("streaming") of videos on the internet does not infringe copyright rights. Otherwise, meaningful use of the internet would hardly be possible.

Furthermore, it remains unclear how the investigation software deployed by "The Archive AG" was able to record the IP address of the person who bilaterally retrieved a stream from the server of the provider www.redtube.com, in particular given that the operators of the platform dispute any involvement in the investigation. Despite the chamber's indication during the complaint proceedings, the company left this question unanswered.