French court slaps poor man's YouTube ; Dailymotion guilty of copyright infringement

France's answer to YouTube has been found guilty of copyright infringement. A French high court has ruled against the Paris-based video-sharing site Dailymotion, holding it liable for a copyrighted film posted by its users. Earlier this summer, after a high-profile suit from a man called The Buttock, the same court laid down a similar ruling against MySpace, but its latest order goes a few steps further.

Last month, the President of the High Court of the First Instance of Paris - whose title reads much better in French - issued a "summary order" that classified MySpace as a publisher, arguing that the so-called social-networker is more than just a hosting service and should be held liable for infringing content posted to its site. Well-known French comedian The Buttock - whose title reads about the same in French - sued MySpace after several of his films turned up on its pages. Issued by a separate arm of the court, the new Dailymotion order carries a little more weight - and poses a greater threat to other sharing services. After a film called Joyeux Noel popped up on the site, Dailymotion was sued by the film's producers, and on July 13, a separate arm of the High Court held the site liable for copyright infringement - without calling it a publisher.

In its "proceeding on the merits" - a ruling backed by more legal rigor than a quick-and-dirty summary order - the court ruled that Dailymotion is liable simply because it was aware that the film was on its server.

As the court noted, Dailymotion did not take the film down even after it received a letter of complaint from the producers. The court ordered the site to pay the film's producers 23,000 euros in damages and fork over a 1500 euro fine for each day the movie stays online - though Dailymotion can appeal.