YouTube the Godzilla of online video is embroiled in another copyright controversy, this time with Japan. It seems the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) is not too happy with infringement taking place on the video site.
In a letter sent to Chad Hurley YouTube chief executive officer and Steve Chen chief technology officer the group requests that YouTube put a system in place to remove copyrighted material that is uploaded to the site. Currently rights holders have to find content on the site and then notify YouTube of the illegal material.
In the letter JASRAC said,†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.†In a previous complaint from JASRAC YouTube removed nearly 30,000 files from their site in October. Still that did not deter users from continuing to upload copy written material to the site.
The Japanese group made specific requests to YouTube. They want a posting on the Web sites homepage in Japanese warning of the legal issues surrounding the uploading of copy written material. They also request that YouTube respond by December 15.
It will be interesting to see what happens in this latest saga over copyright infringement. Japan is clearly not happy with YouTube and how they respond will be the key to a peaceful resolution.
Posted by Mike Sachoff
Staff Writer
