Interesting Case Law in California– California Published Opinion: Lewis vs Youtube, judgement in favor of Youtube is affirmed.
H041127 (Santa Clara County Super. Ct. No. CV256300)
Youtube suspended Lewis’s Youtube account for violation of the Youtube Terms of service by alleged commercial solicitation. After Lewis appealed the suspention, Youtube restored Lewis’s account, which allowed her to upload copies of the videos previously posted to her account, but not historical view counts posted to her account. Lewis filed a complaint for breach of contract, Youtube’s “Terms of service”, demanding either to reinstate her account or compensate her for damages related to the closing of her account.
California Court of Appeal ruled that Lewis cannot establish damages because the Terms of Service with Youtube include limit of liability clause related to Youtube maintaining customer’s accounts and therefore her breach of contract action failed.
Court of Appeal also found that Youtube Terms of service do not impose any obligations on free sharing service like Youtube to maintain and preserve special user’s content.