YouTube could face a huge bill for royalties as it loses a court battle in Germany over music videos.
It wants the video site to install filters that spot when users try to post music clips whose rights are held by royalty collection group, Gema.
The German industry group said in court that YouTube 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.
Gema represents about 60,000 German song writers and musicians.
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 worldwide every minute.
YouTube owner Google has yet to comment on the ruling.
The court case began in 2010 and came after talks between YouTube and Gema about royalties broke down. In 2009, the stalemate meant that videos from German recording firms were briefly blocked on the site.
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