News Corp. Subpoenas YouTube Over Pirated Shows
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Fox television Attempts to identify user who posted recent episodes of "24" and "The Simpsons".
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(InfoWorld) - Google Inc. sold advertising to two men who allegedly marketed an application designed to find and download pirated movies online, a business relationship that has angered big movie and TV studios, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The extent of Google's involvement with this allegedly rogue operation has been detailed in sworn depositions taken as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit major Hollywood studios filed against these two men in October 2005. The defendants said under oath that Google assigned them account representatives who assisted them with their Google ad campaigns, including offering them credit and suggesting they use keywords like "bootleg movie download" and "pirated" to promote their Web sites, the Journal reported. A Google employee "largely" backed up the statements from defendants Brandon Drury and Luke Sample, both residents of Missouri, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the case, in which some depositions have been sealed. EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com generated US$1.1 million in revenue between 2003 and 2005, and Google received $809,000 for advertising, the Journal reported. Upon learning that the defendants used Google to market their software, the plaintiffs, which include News Corp., Viacom International Inc., Sony Corp., NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc. and The Walt Disney Co., complained to the search engine company, according to the Journal. Google responded by holding a conference call with the media companies on Friday in which it pledged to remove certain ads the companies object to, create a list of approved advertisers and stop selling keywords meant to drive traffic to pirated material, the Journal reported. Google also committed to monitor keywords more closely and to train its ad sales team on avoiding selling those types of ads. The flap comes at a time when Google is trying to negotiate with large media companies over the use of their material on YouTube's video uploading and sharing site, which Google acquired last year for $1.65 billion. Those negotiations are proving tough, as evidenced by fiascoes like this month's decision by Viacom to demand that Google remove over 100,000 of its video clips from YouTube. Viacom, whose properties include MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures, gave up afterÂ months of negotiations, saying Google and YouTube proved "unwilling to come to a fair market agreement." EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com, which are no longer operational, didn't host any movies. Instead, they sold an application for $29.95 designed to allegedly help users search for and download pirated movies from P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file sharing networks. The defendants dispute the allegations that they induced and facilitated piracy and are thus guilty of copyright infringement and unfair competition. Asked to comment about the Journal's report, a Google spokesman said via e-mail that Google forbids advertisers from using its ad platform to promote the sale of copyright infringing materials. "We are continually improving our systems to screen out ads that violate these policies," he wrote. Â
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A Japanese entertainment group is not happy with YouTube's progress in weeding out copyrighted content, and is asking the social video site to implement stricter policies on video uploads.
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Top executives from YouTube are due in Tokyo next week for talks with some of Japan's largest video content producers over copyrighted material available on the popular site.
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The parent company of MTV and Comedy Central is seeking $1 billion in damages, citing âmassive intentional copyright infringement.â
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A broad group of companies and associations covering most of the Japanese entertainment industry is calling on YouTube to be more proactive in policing its Web site for copyrighted material.
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By SETH SUTEL  NEW YORK - Media company Viacom Inc., which owns the cable networks MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, asked YouTube on Friday to remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its hugely popular video-sharing site.
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By Seth Sutel THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  NEW YORK -- Media company Viacom Inc., which owns the cable networks MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, asked YouTube on Friday to remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its popular video-sharing site.
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Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. sued Google Inc. and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion on Tuesday in the biggest challenge yet to the Web search leader's strategy to dominate the online video market.
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(InfoWorld) - Top executives from YouTube are due in Tokyo next week for talks with some of Japan's largest video content producers over copyrighted material available on the popular site. The meeting is due to take place Tuesday, just over two months after a group of Japanese content producersÂ sent a letter of complaintÂ to YouTube, urging the company to do more to keep copyrighted material off its service. YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and Chief Technology Officer Steve Chen are among those due at the talks, said a spokesman for the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC). JASRAC sent the original complaint, which carried its signature along with that of 22 other companies and groups. Among the signatories were all of Japan's TV networks, the Motion Picture Producers' Association of Japan, the Recording Industry Association of Japan, and Yahoo Japan. The complainants are unhappy about the amount of their content available on YouTube. They demanded in the original letter that YouTube make it easier and quicker for content to be removed once it has been identified as violating copyright, and for the company to make it tougher for users to upload copyrighted material. YouTube respondedÂ to the complaint in mid-December and said they could visit Japan to discuss the issue. The letter indicated that YouTube is keen to work with the content providers because it is interested in starting a business in Japan, according to JASRAC. The December complaint followedÂ YouTube's deletionÂ of just under 30,000 files that violated the copyright of Japanese rights holders. The files were discovered during a five-day audit of YouTube in October. However, as soon as the files were deleted, new unauthorized content started appearing.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. _ In a move that could end up setting the terms for how content is distributed on the Internet, Viacom demanded YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized video clips from its site Friday morning after a months-long negotiation over licensing terms broke down.
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After months of unsuccessful talks, the media giant asks YouTube to remove over 100,000 unauthorized video clips from the hugely popular site. By the Associated Press.
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The parent company of MTV and Comedy Central demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 clips of its programming.
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NEW YORK -- Media company Viacom Inc., which owns the cable networks MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, asked YouTube on Friday to remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its hugely popular video-sharing site.
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Viacom is up in arms over a new YouTube proposal, and Google is searching for an attorney to help the company tackle the media-sharing issues that the search giant inherited with its controversial YouTube acquisition.
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YouTube is offering no refuge for users who uploaded copies of Fox Television&#8217;s 24 and Simpsons according to Internet.com&#8217;s ASPnews.  A 20th Century Fox spokesperson says that Google and Live Digital have complied &#8220;with subpoenas issued by the U.S. District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally [...]
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Universal Music Group, the world's  biggest record company, is stepping up pressure against popular  online sites YouTube and MySpace, accusing them of infringing  the copyrights of its artists' music videos.