Dmitry Shapiro, founder of also-ran online-video startup Veoh, wanted his staff to bare their backsides.

Conservative wingnut Michelle Malkin was honest with herself.

Intergalactic Boing Boing editrix Xeni Jardin inhaled paint fumes.

Michael Buckley, the gayest YouTube microstar in Connecticut, popped a pill.

Funemployed journalist turned social media consultant Courtney Reimer racked her brains.

Special bonus: Denver writer Gil Asakawa sent us a direct tweet. He wanted to teach us how to use Twitter. Thanks, Gil, but we're good!

• Wendi Deng Murdoch, MySpace China
• Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, MySpace
• Max Levchin, Slide
• Robin Li, Baidu
• Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos
• Elon Musk, SpaceX
• Ali and Hadi Partovi, iLike
• Mika Salmi, MTV
• Dmitry Shapiro, Veoh
• Quincy Smith, CBS
• Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
• Peter Thiel, Clarium Capital
• Evan Williams, Twitter
• Andrew Zolli, PopTech

When Veoh allowed adult material on the site, it was all about customer service:

Veoh employees occasionally “spot check” videos after publication for compliance with Veoh’s policies and to ensure accuracy in the description and categorization of the content. For example, Veoh has, on occasion, edited the video description field. And, when adult content was still permitted on veoh.com, Veoh employees sometimes reviewed files to ensure proper ratings on any file containing sexually explicit material and reviewed sexually explicit files to determine whether they should be identified as “gay” or “straight” and added tags as needed.

Lloyd also made it clear that "reasonable" steps to keeping serial infringers off the site does not have to include blocking IP addresses, since those only identify the computer, not the user:

Here, Io has presented no evidence suggesting that tracking (or verifying) users’ actual identity or that blocking their IP addresses is a more effective reasonable means of implementation. There is no material dispute that, while IP addresses identify a particular computer connected to the Internet, they do not distinguish between users (e.g., family
members) who may share the same computer.

The plaintiffs also argued that Veoh, in transcoding video into Flash and pulling stills for thumbnail preview images, exempted it from the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. Again, the judge disagreed:

Essentially, the issue is whether Veoh is disqualified from Section 512(c)’s safe harbor because of automated functions that facilitate access to user-submitted content on its website. In the context of Veoh’s business, this appears to be a matter of first impression. Based on the record presented, this court concludes that Veoh is not disqualified from Section 512(c) safe harbor on this basis.

In the end, it's a big win for Veoh and for other online video sites — users can upload all the copyrighted ass-fucking they want, but as long as they follow standard DMCA procedure, they can rest assured that they won't be held liable.

The stated budget for the series of twelve episodes is $3 million, and the magazine, along with production partner IMG, will guarantee 83.4 million video views on social network Bebo alone — which works out to $35 per thousand, plus whatever Vogue takes off the top. The show will also be distributed on Hulu and Veoh, and on Vogue's online video outlet Vogue.tv, so any views over and above the Bebo number brings the CPM, or cost per thousand views, down for Express.

As one fashionista friend remarked, you wouldn't think Vogue would even let Express advertise in the magazine. Trendy knockoff retailer H&M would seem the better fit. But then I'll be getting enough product placement from the new season of Project Runway.

Sure, some may label it as stealing candy from helpless billion-dollar corporations, but Veoh's evil genius outweighs its spendthrift sloth. By using Hulu's embed code, Veoh avoids pesky licensing fees, bandwidth costs, and negotiations. Instead, it gets to create a programming destination for a TV-starved audience. And NBC and News Corp. may well get the last laugh. While Veoh sells bottom-of-the-barrel banner ads around the embedded video, Hulu sells pricey preroll ads right in the video itself.

First step: Figuring out how to shut down increasingly crafty uploaders, who are putting copyrighted shows on Veoh and labeling them with nonsensical names to escape the reach of movie and music companies' takedown notices. And to do so, he'll have to batttle former CEO and founder Dmitry Shapiro, who's becoming Veoh's "chief innovation officer." As such, he'll no doubt continue to mouth platitudes about respecting copyright — and then come up with "innovations" like VeohTV, a piece of software which makes it easy to grab video from anywhere on the Web and store it on a user's hard drive, where, again, it's hard for media lawyers to find it.

A few days ago, video sharing site Veoh pulled its "adult" category — over 15 percent of its total content — and banned nudity in its terms of service. The obvious, but wrong, reason was that Veoh, aching for some legitimate deals, didn't want to be known as the porny YouTube. After all, YouTube and all the other video sites ruthlessly kill porn vids.

But the real reason came to light yesterday, when the Wall Street Journal reported that gay porn maker Io Group Inc. (aka Titan Media) sued Veoh for letting users share Io's copyrighted works of art. The period of infringement: June 1 to June 22, the time leading up to Veoh's buzzkill.

Veoh spokesfolks said the porn may return — as soon, I assume, as they can confirm it's all user-generated smut.

Veoh Cleans Up Its Act, But Some Users Cry Foul [Stupid walled-garden WSJ]
Veoh Faces Copyright Suit, A Test of Web Video [!%$@ing subscription-only WSJ]