High Court Bans Singer From Hitting YouTube Rival With DMCA Notices

The High Court of Justice has issued a permanent injunction to stop a man filing copyright complaints against a rival's YouTube channels. As part of a fraudulent campaign against "the music mafia," the singer used copyright strikes and YouTube's repeat infringer policy to have a music publisher's channels suspended. The background to the dispute is nothing short of extraordinary.

Having developed a highly automated system that attempts to deal with huge and increasing instances of piracy, YouTube has shown it can handle copyright complaints on an unprecedented scale.

Whether the next stages of development will tackle widespread abuse of the takedown system remains to be seen but the High Court of Justice, via the Business and Property Court in Birmingham, UK, hopes to reduce the volume, if only by a little.

Those with both the time and the patience to read the judgment handed down last week in Moviebox Megastores International Ltd & Ors v Rahi & Ors will likely emerge from the other side with a) a headache and b) relief that relatively few copyright takedown abuse cases ever get near a courtroom.

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