Google, EFF Applaud Veoh DMCA Ruling - Via Threat Level:

Online video sharing service Veoh scored a major victor in a copyright case when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a gay porn distributor claiming the upstart's site facilitated the infringement of its copyrighted works.

The case, brought by IO Group, is similar to lawsuits by other rights holders against YouTube, MySpace, MP3tunes and others. The allegations are  basically the same: they claim the sites facilitate wanton copyright infringement.

But this is the first lawsuit to be concluded at the trial-court level, and the outcome favored the file sharing site.

In dismissing the case Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Howard Lloyd of San Jose ruled (.pdf) that San Diego-based Veoh -- financially backed by Time Warner and Michael Eisner – complied with the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act's so-called safe harbor provisions.

While the first-of-its-kind decision is not binding on other courts, YouTube chief counsel, Zahavah Levine, said  "it is great to see the court confirm that the DMCA protects services like Youtube that follow the law and respect copyrights."

The court ruled that Veoh promptly responds to takedown notices, terminates repeat infringers and informs its users of its copyright policies. Veoh, the judge ruled, "has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its web site and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its site."

In the YouTube case, pending in New York district court last year, the social-networking site, like Veoh, is accused (.pdf) of not having "authorization, permission or consent to use the registered copyrighted works owned by plaintiffs that have appeared and continue to appear on the YouTube site." Viacom is seeking $1 billion in damages from YouTube, which is owned by Google and has implemented a content-filtering program on the site.

(It should be noted that the Veoh decision is not binding on the YouTube or other similar cases. But the ruling is likely to become legal fodder.)

Here is our sister blog, Epicenter's Take I on the story and Take II.

Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney, said the ruling "specifically rejects the argument that 'transcoding' content to facilitate access disqualifies a service provider from the safe harbor." Veoh transcodes user-generated videos into Flash.

See Also:

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(Read Original Article - Via Threat Level.)