Would like to start a video sharing site like youtube, megavideo, veoh etc. but would like to know some facts about its legal issues. The site will be operated within Canada and the host is in the US, say if a user uploads copyrighted content. will the copyright owner only send me a take down notice or can they do more than that? & when they send notices to take down the video, do they give out some sort of time limit? say if the video is not removed within 2-3 days, are they going to take further actions?
Youtube has a DMCA take down provision yet they are being sued. The short answer is that most people will not file a lawsuit if you take down the copyrighted material, but that doesn't mean you won't be sued. You certainly don't want to operate a site that uploads full-length movies or other content obviously copyright protected. Defending a lawsuit could easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars even if you win, so you might want to form a holding entity that would afford you some liability protection. I would certainly consult an intellectual property rights attorney.
checkout the wikipedia entry about the dmca for full terms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
It doesn't matter if they are not hosted on your site. Even providing links to copyrighted material can get you in trouble for contributory infringement.
It is probably best if you are proactive in removing all the offending contents rather than to wait for the C & D letters. Thus it be best for you to go through each and every single video clips which is uploaded to your site.