First lawsuit by a European broadcaster against video-sharing platforms

 Users can watch excerpts from TV shows and films on many video sharing platforms. It has been known for some time that this is a thorn in the side of producers and media companies. But now TF1, Europe's largest private broadcaster, is said to have had the worst of it and is therefore suing the French equivalent of YouTube, Dailymotion.com. Numerous productions belonging to TF1 and subject to copyright are distributed free of charge and en masse via the internet platform. The site has up to 15 million users per month. Daylimotion does not consider this to be an illegal act. The company, which was founded two years ago, defends itself on the grounds that it only provides the technical infrastructure and has nothing to do with the content. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes, TF1 has filed a civil lawsuit that could be joined by other broadcasters. The French broadcaster is seeking high damages. The lawsuit has a bad aftertaste, because until recently the broadcaster was even interested in buying the video-sharing platform and some of its programs worked together with the platform. However, the deal fell through and the broadcaster's own platform with the same technology failed, so TF1 probably decided to take civil action.