A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a copyright infringement case against online television service Veoh.
The copyright infringement suit was filed by adult entertainment company Io Group, and the complaint argued Veoh had not done enough to prevent users from uploading copyrighted clips of 10 Io adult sex films.
Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Veoh actively policed the site to protect copyright owners and qualified for “safe harbor” protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
“The issue is whether Veoh takes appropriate steps to deal with copyright infringement that takes place. The record presented demonstrates that, far from encouraging copyright infringement, Veoh has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its website,” the judge wrote.
Io argued that Veoh should have to prescreen videos to avoid copyright infringement.
“The court finds no reasonable juror could conclude that a comprehensive review of every file would be feasible,”the judge wrote.
The decision provides a measure of hope for YouTube, which is facing a $1billion lawsuit for copyright infringement filed by Viacom.
“It is great to see the Court confirm that the DCA protects services like YouTube that follow the law and respect copyright,” YouTube Chief Counsel Zehavah Levine said in a statement.
“We work every day to give content owners choices about whether to take down, leave up, or even earn revenue from their videos, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better.”
