It also got picked up by Gawker.TV. Sort of. Late Wednesday night, Improv Everywhere founder Charlie Todd was informed by a friend that Gawker Media’s video-obsessed blog had posted about Star Wars Subway Car.

The catch was that, instead of embedding the YouTube version of the video, the video blog ripped the video from YouTube, removed Improv Everywhere’s logo, and reposted it using the Gawker.TV player. And the video link at the bottom went to Buzzfeed.com, not Improv Everywhere. “Usually when a big blog covers Improv Everywhere I know right away because I see the traffic in my logs,” Todd said via email. “But since they didn’t bother to link to our site, I didn’t catch it.”

Todd first wrote a sarcastic and angry blog post about the issue (from which the above screenshot is borrowed), then emailed Gawker.TV to request that it replace its video with the original YouTube version, along with a link back to ImprovEverywhere.com.

Gawker.TV editor Richard Blakeley answered Todd’s request promptly (as you can see in the current version of the post), claiming that it was a “mistake and an oversight.”

However, Todd told NewTeeVee, “While it was cool to get the post fixed, the damage had been done as it had already been up for a day and had long since moved off their front page.”

For Improv Everywhere content, like other viral videos, the first 24 hours of a video’s life are key to their spread — the more views they get in a short time, the more likely it is that they’ll make it onto YouTube’s Most Viewed listings. So for Todd, “It’s pretty important for our YouTube video to be the one and only version people are watching and spreading.”

According to lawyer Cydney A. Tune, who leads Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP’s Copyright practice section, “Looking at this situation, there’s definitely copyright infringement going on, because there’s been a copy made without permission.

“The funny thing about it is that it’s so easy to do it right,” she added. “It’s not the type of infringement problem where they can argue there was no other way to get it, that it’s fair use for some reason. Instead of doing it the right way, which is easy, they’re choosing to do it this way for a reason.” Tune said that there would be no doubt of Todd having a legal claim to make against Gawker.TV for lost ad revenue and views, though she declined to say if she thought it would be successful.

According to Todd, though, “It’s honestly not about the money. We’re not going to make much revenue off of Google AdSense text ads popping up a few thousand times on a blog. It’s more about respecting content creators. It’s just dirty to take someone else’s content and hijack traffic for your own site.”

Gawker.TV did not respond to repeated requests for comment. We’ll update this story if that changes.

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The delayed online broadcast of Perry et al v. Schwarzenegger et al will be the first of a recently-approved pilot program for airing footage from non-jury civil trials, and true to the nature of compromise, neither side of the dispute is happy about the decision. Anti-Prop 8 activists campaigning for the trial to be broadcast on television are asking supporters to weigh in with their thoughts before Friday morning, when Judge Walker will close public submission of comments. Meanwhile, anti-gay marriage opponents are seeking to ban cameras entirely from the courtroom, stating as a primary concern potential harassment of witnesses for the defense.

The video will be distributed via the official YouTube channel for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Because this is the first implementation of the program, the channel so far only has one video up, a test of the split-screen format that will in theory be the model used for broadcasting the case (in fact, the test video already sports text branding it as from Perry et al v. Schwarzenegger et al).

While television broadcast would in fact increase awareness of the trial on a larger level, the move to use YouTube to distribute video could potentially reach a larger audience. Given how this theoretically local debate is truly one of national interest, that could prove to be an advantage — or, alternately, simply continue the echo chamber of debate.

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Judge David Folsom, presiding in federal court in Texas, awarded TiVo $2.25 per DVR subscriber per month from April 18, 2008, through July 1, 2009, when the court most recently stayed the order holding EchoStar in contempt. The award will include $110 million in compensation based on the jury’s award and about $90 million in sanctions, as well as reimbursement of court costs.

TiVo had been asking for $1 billion in damages, a figure the judge said was unreasonable.

TiVo released the following statement:

We are pleased by the Court’s ruling to impose contempt sanctions of approximately $200 million against EchoStar for its continued violation of a Court-ordered permanent injunction, and to award TiVo its attorney fees and costs incurred during the contempt proceedings. This brings total damages and sanctions in this case to approximately $400 million through July 1, 2009, plus attorney fees, and is exclusive of potential further damages and sanctions.

Dish and Echostar released their own statement:

We are pleased that the district court rejected Tivo’s request to award a billion dollars in sanctions and that it found that any violation of the injunction was not willful. While we disagree that any amount of sanctions was warranted, the decision confirms our belief that we designed around Tivo’s patent in good faith. We believe that we ultimately will prevail on appeal.

This is far from the last time we’ll be writing about TiVo’s legal issues. In addition to this ongoing case, last month TiVo sued AT&T and Verizon for patent infringement as well.

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Report: Adobe’s DVRCast Launching Within a Week; product makes live video events instantly available on-demand, so you don’t have to miss anything shown. (Zatz Not Funny!) UPDATE: An Adobe rep wrote in to clarify this story. From their email: “At the Streaming Media East panel, Kevin Towes discussed an upcoming offer for a free sample piece of code (DVRCast), which will help Adobe’s customers use the DVR functionality feature available in FMS 3.5. That code will be available later in the month at www.adobe.com/go/fms_tools.”

Web Video Coming to Verizon FiOS TV; subscribers will be able to watch vids from Veoh, Dailymotion and blip (not Hulu or YouTube) on their big screen TVs; will require software installation on PCs first. (Multichannel News)

Nielsen: 3.3 Million Homes Not Ready for DTV Switch; that’s down from 3.5 million just two weeks ago. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Hulu Releases Video Panel Widget; new tool allows users to post an entire series or a group of videos to a blog or personal web site. (Hulu blog)

VideoSurf Opens API to Developers; video search company encourages people to build tools around finding and retrieving video. (VideoSurf Blog)

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Universal Music Group Can’t Sue Veoh’s Investors; judge throws the part of UMG’s complaint that accuses Shelter Capital, Spark Capital and Eisner’s Tornante Company of “vicarious copyright infringement” and “inducement of copyright infringement.” (TechCrunch)

A Breakdown of Super Bowl Ads Online; 4,000 clips of ads from the big game have been uploaded and have received more than 75 million views. (Visible Measures)

SAG Feud Goes to Court; drama over the ousting of the union’s former executive director and chief negotiator continues, judge denies SAG president’s request for a restraining order against the union and the national board. (The New York Times)

PlayOn Releases Beta; software moves Hulu, CNN and other content from Windows PC to TV-connected boxes like Xbox 360, PS3 and other DLNA and UPnP devices. (Zatz Not Funny!)

Jaman Gets Indie Distributor E1′s Titles; deal will expand movie rental company’s library with roughly 3,000 feature films, documentaries and TV shows. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Blinkx Changes Up its Homepage; new buttons such as “Entertain Me” and “Inform Me” deliver automated entertainment and news streams. (Contentinople)

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Clearleap Gets $3.3 Million; company looking to a combo of set-top boxes and partnerships with TV service providers to deliver broad choice of video to the living room. (VentureBeat)

Warner Bros. Bringing Legal Movie Downloads to China; official online distribution a move to fight rampant piracy. (LA Times)

Netflix Getting Out of the Used DVD Biz; company shifting focus to rentals and direct streaming. (Netflix Blog)

Starz Bulks Up Its Movie Catalog; company gets movies from Summit, Lionsgate, IFC and others for its 16 TV channels as well as its broadband video service. (Broadcasting & Cable)

CNN President Credits UGC for Success; Jonathan Klein says reliance on social networks, Twitter and amateur video helps his network reach younger viewers. (Contentinople)

Astronauts Cast Absentee Ballots; crew makes a get out the vote video from space. (io9)

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