• Associated Press, Friday, August 10, 2007 10:45 AM

Veoh Networks is looking to neutralize the threat of a copyright infringement suit from Universal Music Group by preemptively suing the music giant. The online video sharing site declares that it has no liability to UMG, even if its users illegally upload videos to the Veoh site containing UMG music. Veoh, like Google in its suit against Viacom, claims protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It also takes down copyrighted material when asked and does not outwardly encourage illegal activity.

But why sue? Because UMG notified the site in July it was considering legal action against Veoh for "massively infringing" its copyrights. Once upon a time, UMG also threatened to sue Google's video site YouTube, but the two parties eventually agreed to a partnership instead.

In a statement, the company tried to pass off that deal as a success (which is doubtful), saying that Veoh is "about trying to build a business on the backs of our artists and songwriters without fairly compensating them for the use of their works." Of course, for most content owners, YouTube is guilty of the same thing.

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