A federal judge has handed online video site Veoh a major victory in a copyright lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group.  This is a major win for all video hosting sites - without Safe Harbor they could be sued out of existance. 

The DMCA safe harbors provide that sites that store user-uploaded content are generally immune from copyright liability, provided that they remove infringing material upon request. UMG had argued that Veoh did not qualify for the protections because the site doesn’t just “store” clips, but also deployed software that created Flash-formatted files and allowed users to stream clips.

Judge Howard Matz in Los Angeles ruled that Veoh is entitled to qualify for “safe harbor” protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, even though the site uses software that transcodes videos uploaded by users and enables others to access and stream clips. ”Both the conversion of uploaded files into Flash format and the ‘chunking’ of uploaded files are undertaken to make it easier for users to view and download movies, and affect only the form and not the content of movies,” Matz wrote.

Viacom’s copyright infringement lawsuit in New York against Google’s YouTube raises similar issues. While the judge in the YouTube litigation doesn’t have to follow Matz’s holding, it could still prove influential.

Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said “Lots of online service providers will greet this ruling with relief.  The ruling should also help YouTube in its ongoing battle with Viacom, which also turns on the continuing strength of the DMCA safe harbors.”

MediaPost Publications - Judge: Veoh Eligible For ‘Safe Harbor’ Protection - 01/07/2009

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