Dailymotion

Dailymotion

File:Dailymotion logo 2023.svg Logo since May 2023
Company type	Private
Industry	Video sharing
Founded	March 2005 (2005-03)
Founder	Benjamin Bejbaum, Olivier Poitrey
Headquarters	Paris , France
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Guillaume Clément (Chief Product & Technology Officer)
Owner	Canal+
Parent	Canal+

Dailymotion is a French-based video sharing website currently owned by Canal+. Prior to 2024, ownership was held by Vivendi. Its initial North American launch collaborators included Vice Media, Bloomberg, and Hearst Digital Media. Among the earliest to adopt high-definition (720p) video streaming, Dailymotion serves a global audience with support for 183 languages and 43 country-specific versions featuring localized homepages and tailored content. The platform attracts over 300 million users each month.

History

Dailymotion was established in March 2005 by Benjamin Bejbaum and Olivier Poitrey, who collectively raised €6,000 (approximately US $9,271) from six contributors. By September 2006, the company secured €7 million in funding from Atlas Ventures and Partech International, marking one of the year’s largest French Web 2.0 investments. In 2007, Dailymotion became a founding member of the ASIC, joining forces with other industry players.

The platform introduced support for high-definition video at 720p resolution as early as February 2008, positioning itself among the pioneers in HD video streaming.

In October 2009, investment arrived from the French government through its Strategic Investment Fund. On 25 January 2011, Orange acquired a 49% share for €62 million, valuing Dailymotion at €120 million. Orange completed full ownership in January 2013 by purchasing the remaining 51% for €61 million. Around May 2013, the French government intervened to block Yahoo!’s attempt to gain majority control.

By February 2014, Orange was negotiating with Microsoft to broaden Dailymotion’s presence in the United States while maintaining majority ownership. Other partnership talks centered on expanding content offerings.

In 2015, Vivendi obtained an 80% ownership stake from Orange and increased this share to 90% by September of the same year. The site underwent a significant redesign in 2017 featuring a light blue logo, which was updated again in 2019 to a monochrome design.

September 2020 saw Dailymotion collaborate with Xiaomi’s Mi Video app to boost worldwide distribution of content across music, entertainment, sports, and news categories.

The logo evolved in March 2015 to a bold lowercase wordmark and was refreshed again in May 2023 to an all-uppercase style complemented by a new uppercase "D" icon. This rebranding introduced interactive elements such as polls and video reactions aimed at enhancing user engagement and attracting content creators.

Over time, several features were phased out: comments were removed around 2018, view counters disappeared in mid-2021, and picture-in-picture functionality was discontinued by June 2022.

In September 2024, Dailymotion implemented a policy targeting inactive content, allowing the archiving or deletion of videos that have not seen activity for more than thirteen months.

Global locations

The company’s headquarters are situated in the Immeuble Horizons 17 within the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Its international expansion began in 2007 with an office opening in New York City, followed by launches in London (2009), San Francisco (2011), Singapore (2014), and Abidjan (2016).

Copyright cases and blocking of Dailymotion

In June 2007, a ruling by the Paris High Court held Dailymotion accountable for copyright infringement as a hosting service aware of unlawful user-uploaded material.

The platform has been banned in multiple countries: Kazakhstan since August 2011; India initially banned it in May 2012 but lifted the restriction shortly thereafter before reimposing it in December 2014 due to concerns about ISIS-related content.

In December 2014, the Paris Court of Appeal fined Dailymotion €1.3 million for failing to promptly remove copyrighted footage from French broadcasters TF1 and LCI.

By 2017, according to Chief Product & Technology Officer Guillaume Clément, Dailymotion combined human review with automated systems to safeguard copyrights and could remove infringing content within two hours.

Since January 2017, Russia has permanently blocked access to Dailymotion following a Moscow City Court decision citing repeated copyright breaches involving illegal television material.

See also

• Comparison of video hosting platforms