Video Startup Sues First

While the Viacom-Google lawsuit is the mother of all copyright disputes at the moment given the $1 billion Viacom wants YouTube to pay, there's another case making news this week...Veoh, an online video site that - like YouTube - lets users upload content for all to see, preemptively filed a lawsuit yesterday against Universal Music Group.

According to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, "given that the lawsuits tend to flow one way against the video startups, this is a major surprise." Veoh's CEO Steve Mitgang told Arrington that Universal had been threatening to file a copyright infringement suit against his company so Veoh filed a suit first, asking for protection under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Universal issued the following statement, which appears in The Wall Street Journal (sub required): "Universal Music Group is enthusiastic about using technology to build communities, as evidenced by our deal with YouTube...But that's not what Veoh is all about. Rather, it's about trying to build a business on the backs of our artists and songwriters without fairly compensating them for the use of their works."