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EU Court Rules Embedding YouTube Videos Is Not Copyright Infringement
Maurits van der Schee writes "The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that embedding a copyrighted YouTube video in your site is not copyright infringement. From the article: "The case in question was referred to EU’s Court of Justice by a German court. It deals with a dispute between the water filtering company BestWater International and two men who work as independent commercial agents for a competitor. Bestwater accused the men of embedding one of their promotional videos, which was available on YouTube without the company’s permission. The video was embedded on the personal website of the two through a frame, as is usual with YouTube videos. While EU law is clear on most piracy issues, the copyright directive says very little about embedding copyrighted works. The Court of Justice, however, now argues that embedding is not copyright infringement."
The fact that we need a court to decide that "embedding a copyrighted YouTube video in your site is not copyright infringement." is already a failure of the system as a whole.
No, that's one of the things a court is for: Clear up legal facts if they are not explicitely stated in the law. The E.U. copyright directive and the laws in different countries don't mention embedding, and thus a court decides when the question comes up. In this case, the system works exactly as it is supposed to be.