Archive for the ‘Video Encoding’ tag
Veoh, Safe Harbor, and Encoding
An intersting argument had been put forth in the case of Veoh vs Universal Music Group. Universal alledges that Veoh could not invoke the protections afforded to hosts under “Safe Harbor” because the video providor encoded the files from the original format to a web-friendly FLV format, thus enabling the infringer. As Xbiz reports, XBiz: U.S. Judge Rules for Veoh in Infringement Case, the judge ruled that this did not eliminate safe harbor provisions:
Veoh claimed in its response that UMG had failed to provide “any information about the alleged infringement that would allow Veoh to adequately assess UMG’s threats,” but UMG countered the argument, claiming that Veoh did not qualify for safe harbor provisions on the grounds that some functions of Veoh’s software, including those that create copies and deliver videos to users, were ineligible for protection.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz rejected this argument and ruled in Veoh’s favor because “Veoh, he found, had no ability to prescreen content, and there was no evidence that Veoh fostered infringement for profit,” according to DRM Watch, a website that publishes analyses of all things DRM.