GooTube faces serious copyright infringement problems

YouTube deletes 30,000 files after Japanese group complains about copyright infringement. That’s what MIT’s Technology Review reports.

If we think of all the other copyright infringement situations that people are predicting, should Google really NOT be concerned ? We all know that this was a pretty easily recognizable situation. When a bigger company buys a smaller company, lawsuits can appear simply because the larger company has more money to settle with, thus the increased likelyhood for the complainters to receive some cashflow.

More from the initial article in Technology Review:

The popular U.S.-based video-sharing Web site YouTube has deleted nearly 30,000 files over copyright concerns after being asked by a group representing Japan’s entertainment industry.

The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 files such as video clips from TV programs, music videos and movies posted on YouTube’s site without permission, said Fumiyuki Asakura, an official from the organization, on Friday.

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Cristian Mezei

I am myself.

6 thoughts on “GooTube faces serious copyright infringement problems”

  1. It seems that the expectations became true. May this be a bad investment for Google or do they have another surprise for us and will settle the problems ?
    I am curious to see what is going to happen ;)

  2. I already thought of the possibility that google bought YouTube not to get it’s money back directly, but as a sign of power. It actually didn’t bought a video-sharing company, it bought at least 60 seconds from every TV channel in the world, and millions of news spread over the web.

  3. It is a shame because I believe YouTube has the opposite impact.

    For me, I believe it helps stimulate sales for these companies. Type in ‘Ong Bak’ watch some scenes of Tony Jaa in action, and tell me you dont want to buy that.

    It is the only martial arts movie where computer graphics weren’t used to enhance the scenes. It is also the result of six years of training for the movie.

    The real motivation I believe would be some cheap publicity. People were questioning, ‘experts’ were talking it up and analysts were concerned, so why not be the first to have a swing at Google.

  4. 2 Steve:
    Actually it will work the opposite way (better for consumer in any case) – if you see something crappy on YouTube you won’t buy it. As for that being potentially beneficial to the publishers, I agree.

    I also expect more complaints and attempts to get money from YouTube/Yahoo now that everyone knows that YouTube actually has money.

  5. well, all this japanese trouble is probably over the anime on YouTube. We anime lovers HATE paying for it. For example, 3 episodes go for $35 at times!! WTF!! Thats $300 about for a season!!! To hell with that!! No to mention, the delay from Japan to US television is hellish, so i can go on Youtube and watch them the day after they came out in Japan, subtitled ofcourse. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

  6. Pretty much I run a small anime store and the number of people that come in and state they download all of their anime off of youtube has surprised me, I would say about 1 out of 8 customers brag about it. I wonder how many don’t mention it at all. Youtube’s policy to make the removal of copyrighted material the copyright holders responsiblity is not reasonable. Afterall who really wants to pay people to police someone else’s business. Pretty much copyright laws are designed to protect the people who create intellectual property. Not to fill a search engines coffer with free money from advertising revenue based on someone else work. I am all for free videos, but only if the original copyright holder allows it. Would Google run Youtube if they were not making money hand over fist from the advertising revenue.

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