Update: More analysis of the decision here.
Finally, a judge who may have actually visited the Internet once or twice before deciding a case. Judge Howard Lloyd, a judge on the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, threw out adult entertainment company IO Group’s 2006 copyright infringement case against Veoh today. At the time Veoh had some user-uploaded porn on its service that belonged to IO Group. Despite quick takedowns from DMCA notices, IO Group sued anyway.
A key issue of the case turned on whether or not Veoh should lose DMCA safe harbor protection because they transcoded user uploaded videos to the Flash format, something every online Flash video site does as a matter of course.
IO Group argued that the transcoding made Veoh a direct infringer and that the materials were under their direct control. Lloyd disagreed, saying “Here, Veoh has simply established a system whereby software automatically processes user-submitted content and recasts it in a format that is readily accessible to its users. Veoh preselects the software parameters for the process from a range of default values set by the thirdparty software…ButVeoh does not itself actively participate or supervise the uploading of files. Nor does it preview or select the files before the upload is completed. Instead, video files are uploaded through an automated process which is initiated entirely at the volition of Veoh’s users.”
In other words, nice try but no dice.
Viacom-YouTube and a host of other Internet video related lawsuits continue to rage on, but the good guys won this one. But those of you thinking you’ll find a little adult content on Veoh now that they’ve won the case will be dissapointed. Veoh banned it permanently back in 2006. This case was about nothing but money.
The full order is included below.
Finally an intelliegent, learned decision.
Now we have to worry about appeals -which usually have older Judges sitting
does veoh have any of its own deals or just links to other sites?
“IO Group argued that the transcoding made Veoh a direct infringer and that the materials were under their direct control.”
Somebody should have stopped the IO lawyer from trying to make this case before he did it. The use of automated online services between peer users has already been struck down as a potential target.
http://www.tech...by-texas-judge/
Whether that medium is text messaging or video does not matter.
This is very obvious and there was plenty of precedents. It’s the same reason the phone company is not responsible for peers that say things during calls. IO just blew a whole lot of money on a whole lot of nothing.
should be “This is very obvious and there were plenty of precedents.”
Is it true that Titan Media made the porn and then uploaded it? I thought that Titan Media made clean content like Titan Greens. Is this just a rumor?
…if you have to ask if it’s a rumor – then it’s a rumor
Now I understood about transcoding. Thanks Michael
{seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/eVujyHaP9b_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:” ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/juMQ4T7kH0″}}}
Thank god now I can finally stream Step Brothers!
- T
http://www.mostemailednews.com
Ok, I am going to launch my user-generated-content site soon – with a new concept that is not currently on the market – and consulted a lawyer specialized in Internet business. He told me that he has another client (a UGC-site) that made it really easy for users to report copyright infringing postings and they never got sued for such things.
It looks like the people who sued are a bunch of morons who don’t play by the rules and they are the real threat to the new developments of the Internet. Just let’s hope that the justice system is keeping up with all innovations, especially the ones popping up on the web.
Porn or not porn – doesn’t matter. Judge Howard Lloyd got all my respect!
@frank – Veoh has direct deals with CBS, ABC, Viacom, WB, ESPN, SonyBMG and a bunch more. The deals allow them to stream the content directly from the Veoh site in the partners’ players.
The only point the judement makes is telling copyright holders to present facts and not show up in court with nothing but four letters sketched on a placard “DMCA” . If you read through it – the judge merely asked the plaintiff to present facts and only reason Veoh got a summary judgement. Viacom and others will be arriving in court with thousands of pieces of documentation – and this decision will in no way impact Viacom’s case against Google. Had this been about anything other than the DMCA, news like this would not even make it to the classified section of a decent newspaper..
Let’s be honest here Michael (you are an attorney yourself) – given how this played out, ending in Summary Judgement in favor of the defendant – we all know this was a sloppy rent-a-desk bunch of lawyer(s) representing IO.
As for the legal team at Google putting out their “design contest for victory signs” – someone there better corral those boys and snap them out of it. The games have not even started yet – hell – it ain’t even the opening cermonies when it comes to the Viacom-Google duel.
Whoa, how come no one is reporting that fact that this is NOT a judicial opinion with any precedential value. This was a decision by a magistrate — which is sort of a judge’s assistant. No other court is going to be bound by this, and it may not even be published in the official reports of decisions.
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i thought its a big crime.