YouTube could face a huge bill for royalties as it loses a court battle in Germany over music videos.
A court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube is responsible for the content that users post to the video sharing site.
YouTube was taken to court by the German music royalty collection group Gema which said it had not done enough to stop copyrighted clips being posted.
YouTube said it took no responsibility for what users did, but responded when told of copyright violations.
Gema's court case was based on seven separate music clips posted to the website. However, if YouTube is forced to pay royalties for all the clips used on the site it will face a huge bill.
If enforced, the ruling could also slow the rate at which video is posted to the site as any music clip would have to be cleared for copyright before being used.
Currently, it is estimated that about 60 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Google has yet to comment on the ruling.
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