Veoh sues Universal Music before Universal can sue Veoh

by Brad Linder Aug 10th 2007

Video sharing sites like Youtube and Veoh have become easy targets for lawsuits from content owners. But when Universal Music threatened to file a suit against Veoh, CEO Steve Mitgang he didn't want to wait for Universal to follow through on that threat. Instead, Veoh filed a preemptive suit against Universal.

Basically, Mitgang's position is that Veoh is protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision. In other words, the company can't be held responsible for every users who uploads copyright infringing content to the site -- as long as Veoh agrees to take action if alerted to illegal material.

Veoh is asking the court to issue an injunction that would prevent Universal from suing Veoh. If this works, we could see a lot of other companies following suit. But as much as they'd like to, we can't exactly see Daily Motion, Metacafe, and others filing preemptive suits against every content owner in the world. Our guess is they'll need a reasonable basis for their suits (like threats from Universal Music) if they don't want to be laughed out of court.

Tags: lawsuit, legal, universal, veoh

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Steve said 9:45PM on 8-23-2007

I just noticed that my Veoh browser add-on has just stopped working.... ie it doesn't offer to download anymore.... is this to do with the law suits i wonder...

Cultadium said 1:18PM on 10-15-2007

I think it has to do with Veoh forcing everyone to get Veoh TV beta. Which is a big issue right now for people who can't get it to work right. It's working for me though (and probably most people) so I don't care :)

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters