YouTube vows to protect video makers in InVideo ads
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(InfoWorld) - Google has promised to give content makers control overÂ advertisements overlaid on video clipsÂ they post to its YouTube video sharing Web site. The company is seeking further feedback on the video advertising service as a rising number ofÂ YouTube users threaten to leave the siteÂ if the advertising feature is not improved. Only videos from content creators that have signed up for the advertising scheme, called InVideo, will host ads, leaving the majority of videos on YouTube free of the overlays, a Google spokesman said Friday. Advertisers will still be able to reach a large audience through YouTube videos even if the company only places ads in a small portion of videos. "And our users are not shy about telling us what they like and what they don't, so it behooves us to be careful," said Shashi Seth, YouTube Group Product Manager, in an e-mailed statement. YouTube launched the InVideo adsÂ on Wednesday. They start as an overlay on the bottom 20 percent of a video and people can click to watch the advertisement, or if not, the ad will simply disappear. Clicking on the overlay pauses the video, which resumes after the ad finishes. So far, responses to the new advertising system, posted on YouTube's blog, have been negative. People are passionate about the issue, with many threats to leave YouTube for other sites, such as Myspace.com or Break.com. "As a viewer of videos I don't want to see any of the content of the video covered up. I only had one video posted myself, which I have just removed. Bye!," writes user KPDover, in a comment. As of early Friday, the total number of comments had reached 669, with many repeats, but still a substantial increase to the 132 comments posted Thursday at around the same time. YouTube hopes it can change people's minds about InVideo ads, and sees them as a way to generate revenue for the site without being too intrusive. They are designed to interfere as little as possible with viewing and be relevant to the video. Warner Media, part of Time Warner, is one company that has signed up to allow overlays to be used on its music videos, and some of the ads are for other Warner music. Still, YouTube users complain that 20 percent is a huge amount of space on the small video screens, enough to detract from the viewing experience. YouTube plans to continue on with the InVideo overlays, and hopes "to make the ads an important part of the advertising model for online video," said Aaron Zamost, from Google corporate communications. The InVideo ads users are seeing on YouTube videos are the result of two months of testing. The company tried other methods of video advertising, including pre-roll video, but the in-video ads simply worked better. Videos that started with pre-roll advertisements were shut down 70 percent of the time, according to Google, while only 10 percent of in-video ads were abandoned. In addition, the number of people clicking to play an InVideo ad were 5 percent to 10 percent greater than the number of people clicking on a standard banner ad, the company says. The company uses software to match ads to videos, and can pinpoint an audience closely. For example, an advertiser could place an InVideo ad targeting 18-24 year old soccer fans in Los Angeles, to be played between 6pm to 11pm local time. The ads are placed by genre, demographic, time of day and geographic location. The technology behind YouTube's InVideo was all developed in house, but Zamost points out, the company never said it invented overlay technology. It did not. Time will tell if YouTube figures out a way to ensure its community grows accustomed to InVideo advertisements. Early on, YouTube rivals may have an opportunity to scoop up disaffected users. There are plenty of alternative video sharing Web sites on the Internet. But whether YouTube users like it or not, the company is committed to moving forward with InVideo ads. Â
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Google says it will soon begin testing a long-awaited system that can block unauthorized copyrighted clips from being uploaded to YouTube.
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YouTube announces nice international versions of its popular web video service.
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Chad Hurley, the chief executive of YouTube, spoke about how the rapidly growing video Web site will cope with advertising, copyright law and other challenges brought on by its success.
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YouTube continues to  attract attention from the labels, managers and aspiring  artists.
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New NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker blasted Google-owned YouTube on Wednesday, complaining YouTube wasn&#8217;t doing enough to stop users from uploading copyrighted clips of NBC shows such as Saturday Night Live: &#8220;YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It&#8217;s proven it can do it when it wants to,&#8221; [...]
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The ability to view and upload videos to YouTube is coming to some LG Electronics Inc. cell phones later this year.
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SAN MATEO, Calif. -- There's no sign outside the office of Internet video sensation YouTube Inc., located in a second-story loft along the main retail strip of this small Silicon Valley town. Two glass doors, sandwiched between a pizza place and a Japanese restaurant, lead to a clunky elevator,...
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InfoWorld - YouTube will start displaying a notice in Japanese on its Web site warning users against uploading copyright content, its two founders told representatives of a broad group of Japanese copyright holders on Tuesday in their first&#160;face-to-face meeting.
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Blog: The video is safe, but the download mod it advertises is not.
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YouTube is expected to launch a form of advertising on some of its video clips today, employing a user-controlled method that is gaining ground as marketers and Web sites look for ways to make money while keeping viewers engaged.
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YouTube said it is ready to discuss copyright issues with some of Japan's largest producers of video content afterÂ they complainedÂ earlier this month about the amount of their material on the popular video Web site.
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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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(InfoWorld) - 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. In a letter sent Monday to YouTube Chief Executive Officer Chad Hurley and Chief Technology Officer Steve Chen, the group requests YouTube start a system that proactively identifies and removes copyrighted material rather than making rights holders find it and send in complaints. "Taking into account the current status of your service, we believe that your company should not just wait for rights owners to take the 'Notice and Take down' procedures but should bear the responsibility to prevent, in advance, copyright infringements such as illegal uploads and distributions, or to avoid those infringements," said the letter, a copy of which was distributed to media Tuesday by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC). Monday's letter is signed by JASRAC and 22 other organizations including the Motion Picture Producers' Association of Japan, the Japan Video Software Association, the Association of Japanese Animations, all of the major commercial TV broadcasters, the Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association, the Recording Industry Association of Japan, and Yahoo Japan Corp. It comes a month and a half afterÂ YouTube deleted 29,549 filesÂ based on a complaint filed by JASRAC. The association said the files in question infringed on the rights of 23 Japanese content companies. Neither that complaint or YouTube's action didn't stop users uploading content to the site, and plenty of clips from Japanese TV shows can again be found on YouTube. "We are seriously concerned about the current situation where the Notice and Takedown scheme, aimed [at preventing] copyright infringements, is not functioning well due to the large amount of illegal uploads," the letter said. "While we expect you to promptly take adequate and necessary measures to prevent copyright infringement on the YouTube Web site, until you do so, we request you to take provisional measures ... in order to prevent illegal uploads of audio-visual works, which copyrights are neither owned by the persons posting the works on the Web site themselves nor licensed by the right owners." The preventative measures requested by the group include the posting of a message in Japanese on the YouTube home page warning that posting copyrighted material can be illegal; that users may be liable to civil or criminal prosecution; and a register of names and addresses of users posting content and the termination on-request of user accounts that are used or have been used since June 2006 illegally to upload copyrighted material. The group also requests a reply to the letter by Dec. 15. YouTube could not be immediately reached for comment. Â
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NBC and Fox are set to launch an advertising-supported online video site that hosts programming from varied entertainment companies in a bid to seize viewers from Google Inc.'s YouTube, the broadcasters said.
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YouTube says it will comply with Viacomâs request that it remove more than 100,000 clips from the Web.
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The popular user-generated video sharing site YouTube will begin testing video recognition technology in conjunction with partners Time Warner Inc. and The Walt Disney Co.