In an opinion Thursday, Judge Stanton granted YouTube summary judgment in a high-stakes copyright infringement case in which the plaintiff, Viacom, claims YouTube unlawfully allows Viacom’s copyrighted videos to be posted online. Judge Stanton’s had earlier granted summary judgment to YouTube because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” provision, which protects websites from infringement claims based on certain user-posted material, so long as the sites lack actual knowledge and have mechanisms to promptly remove the material after being notified by the copyright holder.  The Second Circuit reversed and remanded for Judge Stanton to consider (among other things) whether YouTube had actual knowledge of the videos at issue.  In Thursday’s opinion, Judge Stanton again ruled for YouTube.  He rejected Viacom’s argument that YouTube should be bear the burden of proving it lacked actual knowledge of each of the over 63,000 videos in dispute:
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