YouTube bought by Google

i think google is very much ready to inherit youtube's legal challenges.:notworthy :gaga:

 

And yet the next day Google's market value went up more than what they paid, so they actually made money on the deal.

 

Has any one heard if Google is coming to Lenior?

 

Not these guys......

YouTube deletes clips on Japanese media demands


The online video site removed 29,549 video files after receiving a demand from a group of Japanese media companies over copyright infringement.

October 20 2006: 6:48 AM EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Google Inc.'s YouTube.com removed 29,549 video files from its popular Web site after receiving a demand from a group of Japanese media companies over copyright infringement, an industry group said Friday.

The television, music and movie clips had been posted without the permission of copyright holders, the Tokyo-based Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers said in a statement.

The group, which represents 23 media companies including TV networks and movie distributors, said it would ask YouTube to set up screening and other measures to block postings of unauthorized files. It also called on Internet users not to post video clips in violation of copyright laws.

YouTube, which serves more than 100 million videos a day on its free Web site, has drawn complaints from some copyright owners, as the site says it can't track which videos are pirated.

YouTube officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

 

I ran into a google spider once and it slurped me

 

As far as I'm concerned anything I can get to on the iNet is public domain. If I can save it, copy it, photoshop it or use it I will. People should realize this when they post to the public. I'd have told those Japs to kiss my ass but would have wiped those files anyway just to get their hairy vagina's off my site.


:grossergrinser:

 

Wow. Your legal illiteracy is stunning.

 

More copyright issues with YouTube. This time from Viacom's Comedy Central.......

YouTube removing Comedy Central clips

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oh my God, they purged Kenny!

The New York Times reported Monday that video sharing site YouTube is removing copyrighted material from cable network Comedy Central, including episodes of "South Park" (whose character Kenny is killed in every episode) as well as "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."

Comedy Central, a unit of Viacom (Charts), has clips of the shows on its own Web site, but YouTube has become a popular destination for those wanting to watch "South Park," especially past episodes which can't be found on the Comedy Central site.

Jeff Reifman, who the Times reported broke the news on the news sharing blog NewsCloud, received a notice from YouTube that a number of clips he had posted to the site were being taken down as a result "of a third-party notification by Comedy Central claiming that this material is infringing:"

The notice, which Reifman also posted on his blog, further warned "Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others."

Internet search engine Google (Charts), which has its own exclusive deals to present some copyrighted video clips over the Web, agreed to buy YouTube last month for $1.65 billion.

The Times reports that YouTube did not respond to repeated messages left over the weekend.

Some media executives have speculated that YouTube would face copyright lawsuits once it was owned by a deep-pocketed media company that it did not face when it had relatively little in the way of assets. In September, billionaire Internet mogul Mark Cuban said at a forum in New York that anyone who bought YouTube would be a "moron" because of the litigation risks associated with the company since some videos posted on the site could violate copyright infringements.

The official Web site of "South Park" included a frequently asked question segment that appeared to give fans the go ahead to download episodes onto video sharing sites.

"Matt and Trey do not mind when fans download their episodes off the Internet; they feel that it's good when people watch the show no matter how they do it," said the site's August 2003 posting, referring to the show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Reifman questioned whether the push to remove copyrighted material now that Google is buying the site will hurt its value, and also hurt Comedy Central, which saw the popularity of its shows grow as people shared clips of favorite episodes.

"Apparently, all good things come to an end when there is money and attorneys involved," Reifman wrote. "With Google purchasing YouTube, ComedyCentral figured there was now an opportunity aka profit center to target. And they've assumably made these...requests to YouTube."

Google is not the only company buying online video sharing sites. Sony (Charts) bought online video firm Grouper for $65 million in August. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric (Charts), paid $600 million for iVillage, a network of sites that focuses on women, in March. Time Warner (Charts), which also owns CNNMoney.com, bought three firms with social networking or online video ties this year. And News Corp. (Charts) paid $590 million last year for Intermix, parent of the social networking phenomenon MySpace

 

Viacom sues You Tube for $1 billion

And away we go!!!!!!!!! Mark Cuban called this one.

Viacom sues You Tube for $1 billion

It looks like Google got it wrong.

Just days after Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that media companies will have no choice but to work with online sites such as YouTube, the first of the big media companies has responded -- with a $1 billion lawsuit.

Media giant Viacom (VIA, news, msgs) is charging that the video-sharing site, now owned by Google, has shown 160,000 of its videos without permission.

"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws," Viacom said.

Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in a statement that the company has "not received the lawsuit but (is) confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree." Reyes said the suit would not "become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube."

One intellectual-property expert said he was "not surprised" by the suit.

"I think this is a problem for Google," said Justin Hughes, director of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law's Intellectual Property Law Program. "Google has had a series of situations where it looks like corporate arrogance regarding intellectual property."

In buying YouTube, Google bought a business model largely based on infringement, Hughes said. Google's Book Search Library Project also suggests a corporate disregard for intellectual property, he added.

Schmidt's earlier comments may have been a way to put pressure on Viacom and other media conglomerates as the one-time video upstart tries to negotiate terms for licensing deals.

Last month, after talks about a licensing deal failed, YouTube said it would remove 100,000 Viacom clips, including a number from Comedy Central shows.

"The growth of YouTube, the growth of online, is so fundamental that these companies are going to be forced to work with and in the Internet," Schmidt said last week in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Conversations with Judy Woodruff."

The lawsuit "is an initial attempt to move negotiations along," Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck wrote in a note to clients today. "Both sides would be better served with an agreement."

But not everyone agrees. "Viacom's Web traffic is increasing nicely since it pulled content from 'GooTube,' " Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, told Reuters. "There is certainly an opportunity for YouTube to do a deal with Viacom, but Viacom does not have to have a YouTube deal."

The problem with YouTube, Viacom and the other big media players say, is that it will pull copyright clips only after its been asked to do so, putting the burden of policing content on the copyright holders and allowing users to re-post illegal copies as soon as they are removed.

Google and YouTube are relying on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, which criminalizes technology whose primary purpose is to circumvent measures that control access to copyright works -- even when there is no actual infringement.

If a site removes content "expeditiously" when it receives notice from the copyright holder, then the site has a so-called safe harbor from lawsuits.

The problem, Hughes said, was that the act, written during an earlier, pre-Napster Internet era, was not designed for infringement-based business models. While the act is unlikely to be rewritten, Hughes said it is open to judicial interpretation -- and added that a judge could come down hard on Google.

Meanwhile, media companies have been investing in their own Web video capabilities in an attempt to drive video traffic to their own sites.

Although Viacom, the owner of MTV Networks, Comedy Central and several other cable channels, as well as Paramount Pictures, is the first of the big media conglomerates to sue YouTube, it may not be the last.

News Corp. (NWS, news, msgs), General Electric's (GE, news, msgs) NBC Universal and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have also criticized YouTube. News Corp. and Cuban have both gone to court to force the company to identify people who illegally uploaded copyright material.

Bob Tur, a freelance helicopter reporter who shot video during the Los Angeles riots in 1991 and who has sued YouTube over the publication of his videos, told CNBC that YouTube's business model is like that of TV's Sopranos: They "don't pay for anything, get your content for nothing and sell it to the highest advertiser. It's a wonderful business model, except it's illegal."

 

Youtube will roll over and give credit to those that posted. That gets them off the hook. If Comedy central was worried about their programs, they wouldn't post the whole fucking show on their own site.