It has recently been ruled that Veoh, a video-sharing site, is not guilty of illegally uploading copyrighted videos. Universal Music Group attempted to sue Veoh for copyright infringement, claiming that Veoh has been illegally uploading their company's videos without their consent.
Howard Matz, the federal judge ruling in this case, stated, "Veoh is not guilty of any copyright infringements because the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act] applies in this case, concluding that Veoh is not liable for copyright infringement."
The DMCA was unanimously voted in by the US Senate and signed by President Clinton in 1998. It was designed to extend the reach of copyright, and to limit the liability of online service providers for copyright infringement by their users.
A similar case occurred in 2007 when Youtube and corporate parent Google were sued by Viacom for copyright infringement. Viacom sought about one billion dollars for estimated damages, claiming that 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming were available on Youtube and that these clips were viewed 1.5 billion times by Youtube's users. Youtube and Google hope that the DMCA will shield them from these charges like it did in the Veoh lawsuit. However, this case's ruling will not be decided until early 2010.
