Vimeo Held Covered By DMCA Safe Harbor

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a recent 56-page decision (PDF) in Capitol Records v. Vimeo, LLC, a federal court in Manhattan found Vimeo to be covered by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, rejecting Capitol Records' arguments that it was not entitled to the statute's "safe harbor". However, Vimeo is not yet out of the woods in this particular case, as the Court found factual issues — requiring a trial — as to 10 of the videos on the question of whether they were uploaded at the direction of Vimeo users, and as to 55 of the videos whether Vimeo had actual knowledge, or red flag knowledge, as the existence of an infringement."

Comments

Re:Backstory?

[Kjella]

I'm not reading a 58 page pdf and the linked blog story is no longer than this summary. To save others the work, evidently Vimeo employees uploaded videos of people lipsyncing to tracks owned by the labels. Vimeo is trying to claim Safe Harbor protection because they had no way of knowing users were uploading infringing material.

Close. The one's employees didn't go near at all are those dismissed under the DMCA. All the ones any employee touched in some way, even as little as clicking a "like" button, put on a favorite list or whatever are the ones going to trial because there's doubts as to Vimeo's awareness of infringement. The really brief summary is: If you're looking for DMCA protection, the content is poison. Don't look at it, don't touch it, don't discuss it. Have automated content monitoring and user flagging, but don't go looking on your own and don't mention any specific cases even in internal emails. You have to go very far out of your way avoid knowing what is going on to be punished for "willful blindness".