There's good news today for user generated video sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, and MetaCafe. A federal court in California has ruled that Veoh did not violate the copyright of a pornography company by automatically transcoding video uploaded by a user.

Let's back up a second here. If you upload copyrighted material to an online video site to share with others without the copyright holder's permission, you may be breaking the law. But the question of whether the video site itself is violating the law is a bit murkier. The IO Group, which owned the video in question filed a suit agains Veoh in 2006 claiming that the video service could not hide behind safe harbor laws by saying that the user, not the video site was responsible because Veoh took the action of transcoding the video into Flash for online viewing.

Of course, the process of transcoding a video is pretty much automatic, and the judge in this case seemed to understand that Veoh's action in transcoding the video were about as deliberate breathing. The ruling basically states that as long as a video site can demonstrate that it warns users that they should not upload copyrighted video without permission, removes copyrighted videos promptly when faced with a DMCA takedown notice, and at least makes some effort at sniffing out illegally uploaded videos, the company is lawsuit-proof. Or at least lawsuit-resistant up to a few meters.

[via TechCrunch]

Some online video sites like Hulu have gotten a lot of flack for being unavailable outside of the US. But you know what? It's expensive to stream video over the internet. And it's even more expensive to secure the right to stream copyrighted works internationally. It's also much easier to sign advertising deals in some countries than others, which helps justify the streaming costs.

So how do other online video sites like Veoh pay for worldwide video streaming? It turns out they don't. This weekend a number of Veoh users around the world started reporting on Wikipedia that access was blocked in their countries. And today NewTeeVee confirmed that Veoh has turns off service for all but 33 countries.

Veoh says it's maintaining service in the countries where it has the most viewers, and that only 10 percent of its audience comes from the countries that are experiencing service cuts. The company reportedly is not running out of money, but is trying to focus ont he countries where it has the best chances of actually making money. Again, this all makes perfect sence. But it still stinks if you live in Venezuela, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Romania, Thailand, South Africa, or any of the other countries where Veoh is reportedly no longer available.

Online video sharing site/portal Veoh has added full length television episodes to its lineup. Selected Fox and NBC shows including Family Guy, 24, and Heroes are available. But Veoh hasn't made any deals with Fox or NBC. Rather, Veoh is using the embedded video from Hulu, much the same way Hulu ripoff sites OpenHulu and TV Paradise do. The difference is that we kind of thought Veoh wanted to be the next YouTube, not the next ripoff artist.

Oh yeah, sure, Hulu makes their players embeddable, which gives anyone the ability and possibly even the right to place content on their own site. But when a startup like OpenHulu decides to clone Hulu.com it looks like a gimmick. When Veoh does the same thing, it looks like the company is too lazy to work out a real partnership with Hulu.

Of course, we probably shouldn't be surprised. This is the same company that launched VeohTV earlier this year. VeohTV is a standalone application for watching online video without a web browser. And some of that content comes directly from network web sites, even though Veoh did not get permission from those networks to include programming at launch.

[via NewTeeVee]

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.

No one has filed a lawsuit against VeohTV yet, but it could just be a matter of time. The service is something of a cross between YouTube and Joost, giving you the ability to surf for online videos without using a web browser.

The problem is that many of those videos don't come from Veoh, but from sources like NBC, CBS, and YouTube. That includes full length streaming episodes of shows like 24, Heroes, and 30 Rock. And Veoh doesn't ask for permission to distribute those videos.

The company's argument is interesting. Since the networks and other sites are streaming these episodes for free, Veoh says all its VeohTV player does is provide a new interface for streaming the content. Any video advertising included by the content owner remains intact.

But NBC and YouTube officials tell the New York Times that they're not too happy with the service. If viewers can access their videos without going to their web sites, they lose out on potential advertising revenue. So either Veoh's going to have to work out licensing agreements with content owners, or we're going to see this battle headed to court. Unless of course Veoh fails to make a dent in the marketplace. Then we doubt anyone will really care. VeohTV is still in private beta.

Now that VeohTV beta's been out for a few days, we've had a chance to take it for a spin (thanks to our friends at NewTeeVee).

Overall, it does a really nice job of presenting a single full-screen interface for finding and watching online video. You can search multiple sites, including YouTube and Daily Motion for videos of your choice. And there are pre-configured channels for tuning into to popular feeds like Rocketboom.

Best of all, VeohTV does something that we've been waiting for. It gives you a single interface for accessing full screen streaming TV episodes from most of the major networks. ABC is nowhere to be seen, but VeohTV prominently features CBS, NBC, Fox, and the CW, as well as a teensy weensy bit of PBS content.

You'll still have to put up with the ads which the network inserts, but that's only really annoying because it means watching the same commercial four or more times in an hour.