Splicetoday

Digital
Aug 28, 2008, 10:18AM

YouTube May Dodge RIAA-Style Smackdown

Earlier this year media giant Viacom leveled a billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube for facilitating the distribution of copyrighted content. This is a similar legal strategy to the one employed by the RIAA against targets like Napster and Kazaa. But a judge recently ruled in a related case that video hosting sites have some limited immunity for the copyrighted material offered by their sites.

Do user-generated content (UGC) companies like YouTube and Veoh qualify for "safe harbor" protection under the DMCA, or can they be held financially liable for not cracking down harder on copyrighted material uploaded to their servers?

That absolutely key question has been the basis for Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube, while video host Veoh has also come under legal assault from Universal and separately by porn producer Io. A federal judge ruled yesterday on the matter in the Io case, saying that Veoh does indeed qualify for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor. But Viacom says its case will continue regardless.

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