A federal court in California has thrown out a copyright infringement lawsuit that was filed by the adult entertainment company IO Group against video sharing website Veoh Networks, stating that the firm was protected by the safe harbour provisions in DMCA (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

IO Group’s videos had been apparently uploaded to Veoh without permission. The group had claimed that the firm was guilty on the count of copyright infringement. However, the judge disagreed. The U.S. District Court (in San Jose) Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd wrote in the decision:

Veoh has a very strong DMCA policy. It takes active steps to limit any incident of infringement on its website and the company works diligently to keep unauthorised works off its site.

The case has a few similarities with Viacom’s suit against Google - specifically its YouTube unit. While the ruling might not serve as a legal precedent since the Viacom-Google case will come for hearing in the New York federal district court, but it might prove influential. According to media reports, YouTube praised the decision regarding the dismissal of copyright suit filed against Veoh, and expectedly so.