A few months ago, the user-generated
website Veoh successfully persuaded a judge that the website's take-down
policies combined with section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act gave it "safe harbor" from liability.
Last week, Veoh won a preliminary motion against
Universal Music Group, which also is trying to claim that Veoh should be held
liable for infringing works on their website.
However, the court reserved the right to later
decide the much larger issue of the ultimate applicability of 512(c) to this
case. The court rejected arguments that various activities, including
automatically creating different copies after an upload and allowing users
to access uploaded videos via streaming or full download, disqualify Veoh from
asserting the "safe harbor" defense.
It is unclear whether the Veoh cases will have a
material effect on the ongoing Viacom-YouTube dispute. Some opinions suggest
that the Veoh decisions could potentially put the pressure on Viacom to get a
victory.
Comments