Could Veoh’s Porn Problem Haunt YouTube?
Wouldn’t it be a gas if pornography — or rather, the absence of pornography — turned out to be YouTube’s undoing? If you think, like billionaire with a bullhorn Mark Cuban, that the idea has legs, you should be paying close attention to another vid-share site, Veoh, which is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Titan Media, a publisher of gay erotica. The lawsuit is a potentially important legal test of Web video companies’ liability for copyright infringement claims, and yesterday Veoh was compelled by the court to begin revealing information about its traffic, its users, and its process for monitoring uploads. At the most basic level, Titan wants to show that Veoh has the ability to supervise infringing activity, whether for porn or otherwise, and thus they’re liable for the infringement. Here’s Titan’s strategy so far, and how Veoh has fared: 1. Demonstrate that pornography on Veoh attracted a lot of traffic: Last June, a day before the lawsuit was filed, Veoh removed all pornograp
