YouTube caught a break yesterday, as a federal judge dismissed some claims for damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against the video giant.

This decision wasn’t about Viacom versus YouTube. Rather, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that plaintiffs in a separate class-action lawsuit, including Cherry Lane Music Publishing and a Britain’s Premier League, could not request damages for non-U.S. copyrights that appeared on YouTube. Stanton wrote that U.S. law “bars statutory damages for all foreign and domestic works not timely registered” with the U.S. Copyright Office. Additionally, Stanton said that the plaintiffs could not seek punitive damages.

Viacom is not a member of this particular class action lawsuit group, though it is cooperating with it and parts of its case have been rolled into this case.

Dish Network subscribers will still be able to use their DVRs (for now) after a federal appeals court yesterday granted a stay of a lower court injunction against the service.

After losing its patent infringement case against TiVo, Dish (formerly known as EchoStar) developed a DVR workaround, but last month a Texas court ruled that this workaround still violated TiVo’s intellectual property. Dish was found in contempt, was ordered to pay TiVo an additional $103 million, and told to disable roughly 4 million DVR receivers on its network within 30 days. Dish was given a temporary stay of that order immediately following the decision.

That temporary stay will last a little longer as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Dish was able to “demonstrate that it has a substantial case on the merits.”

The case is being expedited, and Dish will now file its opening brief by July 17; TiVo’s brief will come August 25; and Dish’s reply is due September 4.

Julius Genachowski Confirmed as FCC Chairman; Senate also confirms Robert McDowell for second term; two spots remain open on the five-member commission. (GigaOM)

Qik Offers Live Video on iPhone 3GS; live-casting app not sold through the official App Store because Apple and AT&T won’t allow video streaming from the phone. (TechCrunch)

Totlol Tries to Keep the Kid Vids Going; economic pressures forced the site to initially close down, but audiences implored to keep it up; site now features obtrusive ads and registration before they can go any further. (CNET)

Five Launches Broadband Soap Channel; the UK terrestrial broadcaster’s new Holy Soap consolidates the individual sites for shows like Neighbours and Home & Away. (itvt.com)

Gigantic Group Launching Online Movie Service; will focus on indie fare, movies will cost $2.99 and can be watched over three days. (Variety)

BitGravity Partners with Veeple; BitGravity to offer Veeple’s video content management services, Veeple to standardize its offering on BitGravity’s network. (MediaPost)

CinemaNow to Power Movie Streaming for Zip.ca; Canada’s top DVD-by-mail company to offer online service by the end of the year. (Video Business)

Stickam Develops StreamAPI for Facebook; application allows customers to stream live events on the popular social network. (emailed announcement)

RapidShare Fined $34M; German court orders file-hosting service to filter content in ruling on lawsuit by music publishing group. (TorrentFreak)

Rich Media Ads with Video “Overwhelmingly” Outperform Other Formats; Google’s DoubleClick conducted study that found purchase intent dramatically increased by video. (MediaPost)

Qualcomm Flo to Lower Prices; will sell mobile TV directly to consumers for less than $10 per month, will also launch add-on device for phones like BlackBerries and iPhones that don’t have receivers. (New York Times Bits Blog)

TNS Research Calls for TV Measurement Upgrade; says traditional ratings should incorporate available details about audience behavior. (release)

Nokia Trials Full-Length Content Delivery in UK; users can download video from BBC Worldwide, ITV, Sky and Paramount over 3G or Wi-Fi. (New Media Age)

BitGravity CTO Replaced; co-founder Barrett Lyon’s role now appears to be filled by Edward Crump, promoted to VP of technology from director of engineering. (Contentinople)

LG Electronics Adopting ARM Processors; newest TVs feature so many functions, like widgets and the ability to display web pages, a more general-purpose microprocessor is needed. (VentureBeat)

White House YouTube Privacy Update; the code still sends cookies back to Google when a video is watched, but Google doesn’t store the information anywhere. (MediaMemo)

WetPaint Unveils TV Fandex; service tracks “fan engagement” of popular TV shows on Facebook, Twitter, Google and WetPaint’s own network of fan sites. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Break.com Launches MadeMan.com; site to go after (surprise!) guys with info on gadgets, sports and night clubs, as well as such Break-like videos as “Hot Babes Test Bras on a Roller Coaster.” (MediaWeek)

Soon-to-Be SyFy Network Buys Up Negative Domains; network braces for backlash over rebranding by purchasing names including SyfySucks.com and NoSyFy.com (NoSyfy slipped through their grasp). (Broadcasting & Cable)

JibJab Makes Barack Obama a Superhero; new original animated music vid, He’s Barack Obama, packs some presidential punch. (JibJab)

After a bump in the road that lasted four whole months, the national switch to digital TV transmission is upon us. We presume that this won’t impact most of our tech-savvy readership, but there are still nearly 3 million U.S. homes completely unprepared for the transition. While that’s a sizable chunk, it’s better than the 6 million that were unprepared around the original switch date.

Some 641 TV stations were shut off by the original switch date back in February and there’s been a test since then and the world didn’t implode, so hopefully today will be a non-event.

Our colleague Jennifer Martinez over at GigaOM, did a nice wrap-up of some of the companies benefiting from the switch:

For the string of companies affected by the delay, it will be a sweet way to end the week. Verizon can finally begin its LTE deployment, Qualcomm can expand its MediaFLO service to new markets including San Francisco and Miami, and Cox Wireless can move ahead with its launch of 3G and 4G trials on the spectrum.

According to Knowledge Networks, the DTV transition has also been a boon to pay TV services and HD TV manufacturers and retailers as people upgraded their old equipment.

Of course, as with any government mandated change, there are conspiracy theorists who say the switch will lead to mind control, weather control and a massive destructo-beam.

A French court struck down yesterday part of a recently passed anti-piracy law that would have shut off Internet access to those accused of repeated copyright infringement. The Constitutional Council said, in effect, that given the importance of the Internet, a court approval was needed before denying someone web access.

The court’s decision is a blow to copyright holders, who loved the law and saw its strict measures as a model for cracking down on file sharing. The three strikes law, which passed last month, would have created a new government agency called HADOPI (the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet) that would issue notices (at a copyright holder’s behest) to illegal file sharers. Upon receipt of a third notice, the accused would have been disconnected from Internet access for anywhere from two months to a year and blacklisted from signing up with another ISP. The law would also allow ISPs to be ordered to block certain sites, such as The Pirate Bay.

But the Council put the kibosh on that plan. The New York Times writes:

The council said the proposal was contrary to French constitutional principles, like the presumption of innocence and freedom of speech. The latter right “implies today, considering the development of the Internet, and its importance for the participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, the online public’s freedom to access these communication services.”

France’s culture minister said that, based on the court’s decision, the law could be taken back to the French Prime Minister for re-tooling.