After $6M and 17 Years Fighting the Record Labels’ Copyright Lawfare, the Court Awards Vimeo $16k in Costs–Capitol Records v. Vimeo

The record labels sued Vimeo for user-caused copyright infringement in 2009. The case is still ongoing in 2026. How old is this lawsuit? If it were a person, it would be GenZ and thus older than every Gen Alpha person on earth. This case was part of a broad-based copyright owner litigation campaign that included Viacom v. YouTube and UMG v. Veoh. All of these lawsuits were designed to permanently shut down the video hosting category by finding a hole in the Section 512(c) online safe harbor so that copyright owners could sue UGC sites even if they didn’t send individual takedown notices. YouTube settled, Veoh went broke, and Vimeo soldiered on (and on and on…). In January 2025, Vimeo scored a major win in the Second Circuit. When the dust settled, the court summarizes: “Vimeo ultimately achieved complete victory on all of Plaintiffs’ claims after many long, hard-fought years spent litigating this dispute.” Vimeo sought a 505 attorneys’ fee shift for its $6 million in defense costs…