Landmark ruling on Google's liability for YouTube in Austria

In June 2018 the Vienna Commercial Court, at first instance, handed down a landmark decision on Google Inc.'s liability for copyright infringements on its YouTube platform, after Austrian broadcaster Puls4, whose content had been distributed via YouTube without its consent, filed a claim against Google arguing that the platform would not qualify as a host provider under under the E-Commerce Directive (Directive (EU) 2000/31) ("the E-Commerce Directive"). The Vienna Commercial Court found that YouTube, rather than taking the role of intermediary, should in fact be treated as though the content in question belongs to Google.