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Universal Music Group is continuing its litigious ways as they have now filed another lawsuit, this time against Veoh, an online Video company backed by former Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner. The lawsuit alleges copyright infringement.

In the complaint, Universal said: “Veoh follows in the ignominious footsteps of other recent mass infringers such as Napster, Veoh’s rampant infringement will not stop until Veoh, and those who own, control, and run it, are enjoined and held financially responsible.”

This should be an interesting and entertainment interaction betweent the two companies, as Veoh filed a lawsuit against Universal in August, in what could be called countersuing what Universal was eventually going to do.

As with most Internet companies, Veoh claims it's protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which backs companies if they take down the copyrighted material once they're contacted. At least that's the assumption to this time.

I don't think any of this is going to be resolved until a case is finally decided in court on whether the DMCA protects companies in this way or not.

The case study will probably be the results of the Viacom (VIA-B) lawsuit against Google (GOOG). Of course that could take years and the results could be challenged and taken to higher courts.

A lot of this now is probably all the companies positioning themselves one way or the other once a decision is made, hoping to cash in on the results.

I've said it before, the music industry should be concentrating more on innovating and looking for new ways of generating revenue than trying to stop every video uploaded that includes some of their music.

CEO Steve Mitgang said, “UMG’s action is not surprising and reflects their limited understanding of Veoh and of the online video space as a whole. Veoh is recognized by many media companies as a DMCA-compliant company and is committed to respecting the rights of content owners. In fact, we’re currently working cooperatively with major media companies and the MPAA to develop standards for copyright protection. It’s unfortunate that UMG prefers to continue their pattern of litigation rather than contribute to the important discussions going on within our industry.”