

Io v. Veoh: Important ruling for sites comprised of 'user-generated content' - jasonbentley
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/required-reading-user-generated-content-sites-io-g
The article is a good summary, but you should really read the entire ruling. Really important stuff for any company that takes advantage of the DMCA safe harbor.
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lux
This is a good day for user-generated site owners, and it sounds like their
willingness to comply with the law is what saved them. I guess that's the
difference between them getting off the hook and other sites who just "play
dumb" to having tons of illegal content and end up being held responsible for
it. Still, with many such sites nowadays, they're just providing search
results, not much different than Google...

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calvin
"Still, with many such sites nowadays, they're just providing search results,
not much different than Google..."

Veoh, YouTube, and "such sites" host the videos and aren't search engines.
Since the videos in violation would be hosted on their servers rather than
merely linked to, they have much different requirements under the DMCA and
copyright law than Google.

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lux
I guess I wasn't clear, but that last line was referring to the other sites,
the ones "playing dumb" about having tons of illegal stuff on them and doing
nothing about it. Generally, many of _those_ sites nowadays are simply search
engines (many torrent sites or sites like binsearch, for example), which seems
to be how they argue around having to care about copyright issues. Thanks for
pointing that out though, better to be clear :)

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MicahWedemeyer
Just remember: Veoh had the deep pockets necessary to fight this in court and
take it all the way to a decision. While that may be the case for larger
sites, it's totally different for the small sites. If you can't afford the
court costs to defend yourself, you lose as soon as the suit is filed.

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aston
Not entirely true. The US runs completely on case law, so having a precedent
like Veoh helps you out a lot. People will be less willing to even take you to
court if they see that it's likely they'll lose under a similar ruling. And if
you do get to court, your burden will basically be to live up to whatever Veoh
did.

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jrockway
Not to mention that a judge will usually throw out a case that looks exactly
like another one. If you are a small site like Veoh and you get sued, this
case will decrease the likelyhood that your case ever goes to trial. (And
that's where the expense is.)

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jrockway
Is Io going to appeal? Personally, I don't get excited until the Supreme Court
rules. This "victory for user-generated content sites" could easily be
overturned.

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ars
Take a look at page 16, line 28 in the decision :) Also page 6 line 26.

I don't know if judges should really be using wikipedia that way - what if it
was vandalized on the day they checked it?

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astrec
Is _"Site complies with law, wins law suit"_ less of a story than _"Judge
cites Wikipedia definitions in ruling"_?

In this city a high school student who cites Wikipedia without a secondary
source gets a (provisional) F.

If Wikipedia is an authority sufficient for the judiciary the world really has
transitioned from the Britannica era.

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jrockway
I don't think that's particularly important. What an IP address is and what a
Flash video are weren't really important to the case. It sounds more like the
judge was curious.

If Wikipedia was vandalized and the judge based his ruling on incorrect
information, that would be grounds for an appeal, I'm sure.

Wikipedia may not be 100% correct, but I think we all use it as a starting
point. A lot of times it _is_ correct, and it gives us the background
information we need to understand other sources. Not something I'm going to
complain about. (Cue the inevitable responeses -- "I hate the Wikipedia
admins", or "I'm so smart I never need to look anything up." Yeah, yeah. Tell
someone who cares.)

