UPDATED: Leading Internet and media companies teamed up today to set ground rules for dealing with copyright infringement in videos uploaded to user-generated content Web sites — and demanding stronger efforts on the part of content hosts.

Those companies — which Include CBS Corp., Microsoft Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.’s Fox and MySpace units, and Walt Disney Co. – today released guidelines spelling out a series of “obligations” they want user-generated-content (UGC) sites to adhere to, such as searching for and removing copyrighted video that has been posted without permission.

Video uploading and sharing sites DailyMotlon and Veoh also endorsed the guidelines. Google, which owns YouTube, was noticeably absent from the group that Issued the guidelines, but sources close to the matter told InternetNews.com that the search leader had some Input in their development. Read more