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Veoh: Increased Protection for Service Providers, Or a Trapdoor?

BY Steven R. Masur
January 30, 2009

The August 2008 ruling in Io Group, Inc. v. Veoh Networks, Inc., No. C06-03926 HRL, 2008 WL 4065872, (N.D. Cal. Aug 27, 2008), has been widely heralded as a win for online service providers in the legal maelstrom surrounding social media. Veoh is an Internet TV platform, similar to YouTube, that hosts user-uploaded content. When clips from adult movies owned by Io Group appeared on Veoh's network, rather than issuing Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices to Veoh requesting that their content be removed, Io went to court with a copyright infringement suit. But Io Group lost.

A Lesson for Content Owners

For content owners, the Veoh ruling reaffirms the importance of utilizing the DMCA takedown provisions, which require sending a take-down demand notice first, rather than running straight to a judge with a copyright infringement complaint. Had Io Group issued a DMCA notice before going to court, Veoh would have been under a duty to remove or disable access to the offending material. However, Veoh was able to claim the protection of the DMCA safe harbor because, by failing to send notice of the alleged infringement, Io Group could not prove that Veoh knew or should have known about infringing activity on its site.

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