12/20, 7:05pm
Hosting services protected from liability
A federal appellate court today upheld a lower district court ruling that the safe harbors created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) did protect video hosting site Veoh from copyright liability. The case originated in 2007 when the Universal Music Group sued Veoh for allegedly allowing the site's users to upload protected Universal music videos. Ironically, Veoh filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010, in part due to the financial burden of defending itself against the charges.
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07/15, 1:25pm
Widget Bazaar now out
Subscribers to Verizon's fiber optic Internet and cable service, FiOS, now have access to the Widget Bazaar, which lets them check out Twitter apps and log onto Facebook right on their TVs. Users won't be able to post Twitter updates or view their friends' pages, as the young version of the app only allows users to get updates on what they're watching and standard community Twitter updates. The Twitter app remains on the screen as a vertical ticker, even when users are watching TV.
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09/05, 1:30pm
Joost quits desktop client
Joost will soon announce it will stop making its desktop client and focus instead on a browser-based player for delivering web videos, according to a Friday report from GigaOM. The move will not quite step down to the level of YouTube or Hulu, which are strictly web pages, as it will require a browser plug-in that promises to deliver better video quality through peer-to-peer technology than the competition's traditional approach. The current interface (pictured) was designed to provide a more TV-like experience to users, who so far haven't embraced the idea.
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