What if you could organize your social network around your media consumption habits?  How about using your network to filter video and music content?  uPlayme thinks it may have found the content sweet spot with its new application that sits on your desktop, sees the content you play on applications like iTunes and websites like Pandora and YouTube, and creates a social network that lets you chat, connect and share with new friends online.

 
uPlayMe from uPlayMe on Vimeo.

The catch is that uPlayMe will depend on you to find and share content from non-pirated sources (YouTube is a bit suspect) and from sources that have already paid the hefty licensing fees to broadcast music (Internet Radio is hanging by a thread).  If it manages not to increase the flow of pirated content, uPlayMe should be able to legitimately make moneywithout paying licensing fees or getting permission from rights holders.  It’s an interesting model that mixes clearly non-infringing content (iTunes) with content that almost certainly infringes (YouTube).  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

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On August 27, 2008, U.S. District Judge Howard Lloyd in the Federal Court sitting in San Francisco dismissed a copyright infringement claim against video-hosting service Veoh, saying that the company had done what was required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to respect copyrights.  Namely, it adopted and implemented an appropriate policy for identifying infringing content, removing the content, and disabling the accounts of repeat infringers.

Adult entertainment company Io Group filed suit against Veoh when several video clips of its registered content appeared on Veoh.  However, Io Group did not send Veoh a DMCA takedown notice. IO argued that Veoh should be responsible for reviewing every video uploaded to its site before they were made available for viewing by its users. Judge Lloyd disagreed, stating that Veoh did its duty under the DMCA when it removed the videos, holding that “the DMCA was intended to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce, not squelch it… The court finds no reasonable juror could conclude that a comprehensive review of every file would be feasible.” 

In summing up his reasons for dismissing the copyright infringement suit against Veoh, Judge Lloyd went on to offer some guidance for falling under the safe harbor provision of the DMCA:

“the court does not find that the DMCA was intended to have Veoh shoulder the entire burden of policing third-party copyrights on its website (at the cost of losing its business if it cannot). Rather, 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 and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its website. In sum, Veoh has met its burden in establishing its entitlement to safe harbor for the alleged infringements here.”

Those of you hosting user-generated content may want to read the entire opinion for tips on playing nice with the DMCA (and avoiding liability).

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