Intellectual Property Law

Once Again, DMCA Protects Online Video Sites

By David Kravets

In dismissing an infringement lawsuit, a Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects California web-video host Veoh.

It is the second time that Veoh, a YouTube-style service, has won protection from the courts under the DMCA, which immunizes web hosts from liability if they remove infringing content at the owners request via a takedown notice.

Universal Universal Music Group, which  brought the copyright case, claimed Veoh was a copyright scofflaw, allowing its users to post material that repeatedly infringed its copyrights.

The two rulings, (the first one was brought against Veoh by a gay porn site) are not binding on the appeals courts or the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the issue. The same legal spat is now before a New York judge in Viacom’s $1 billion suit against YouTube.

An interesting line from Friday’s Veoh decision says that web hosts do not have to enable copyright-filtering technology, even though many do, including Veoh and YouTube.

“UMG has not established that the DMCA imposed an obligation on a service provider to implement filtering technology at all, let alone technology from copyright holder’s preferred vendor or on the copyright holder’s desired timeline,” U.S. District Judge Howard Matz of Los Angeles ruled.

The ruling finalized a preliminary decision from January.

Universal vowed to appeal the latest order.

“The ruling today is wrong because it runs counter to established precedent and legislative intent, and to the express language of the DMCA. Because of this and our commitment to protecting the rights of our artists and songwriters who deserve to be compensated for the use of their music, we will appeal this ruling immediately,” the music company said in a statement.

See Also:

• 10 Years Later, Misunderstood DMCA is the Law That Saved the Web …
• Feds Consider New DMCA Anti-Circumvention Exemptions
• Coupon Hacker Defeats DMCA Suit
• It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying
• RealNetworks: MPAA Is ‘Price-Fixing Cartel’

Full post as published by Threat Level on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).