German court deals YouTube a blow in copyright case – SiliconValley.com.

HAMBURG — A German court in Hamburg dealt Google (GOOG) a blow on Friday, saying its YouTube online video-sharing site needed to prevent its users from posting copyrighted music clips without permission.

The suit was brought against YouTube in 2010 by German royalty collections body GEMA and several other groups handling music rights for allegedly infringing copyrights.

The test case concerns seven music clips and could be a step toward YouTube and other operators of websites publishing user-generated content having to pay large sums in royalties.