Google Misses YouTube Anti-Piracy Deadline

Google rings in the new year without its promised anti-piracy protection scheme

Although YouTube rang in 2007 with a virtual New Year's Eve festival complete with a performance from Warner Music, live performances and participation from hordes of online members, the company failed to meet its self-imposed deadline to implement anti-piracy protection on its site. In an agreement with Warner Music Group, YouTube promised in September to have an anti-piracy system in place that would feature an "advanced content identification and royalty reporting system."

The anti-piracy system to be in place by the end of 2006 was a part of a deal which allowed Google to distribute Warner music videos, artist interviews and other music-related content. When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion USD in October, it was widely expected that Google's deeper pockets would give YouTube the financial backing to implement such anti-piracy measures.

Missing the year-end deadline could be seen as a virtual pothole on the road to a more controlled distribution channel, but YouTube still can save face by getting the system live within the opening weeks of 2007. "It is hugely important, especially from the rights holders' perspective, that the best efforts are being made to corral the stuff flowing through YouTube," said Michael McGuire of Gartner Research. "Rights holders are making specific bets on paths of distribution and are expecting serious effort to make uncontrolled distribution difficult for most folks to do."

For now, YouTube is leaving the ball in the user's court when it comes to copyrighted music by telling users that uploading content "shall be at your sole risk."

(c) www.dailytech.com

Japanese Media Still Unhappy with YouTube

 by Geoff Duncan

Japanese media groups have called YouTube's response to copyright violations "unsatisfactory," but are still hopeful things can be worked out.

Just after its acquisition by Internet titan Google, popular video sharing Web site YouTube pulled down nearly 30,000 Japanese video files from its service in response to complaints from JASRAC, the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. However, Japanese publishers are far from happy with YouTube's efforts to remove copyright violations from its service, characterizing the company's response as "unsatisfactory." However, publishers are still hopeful a solution can be reached without litigation.

On December 4, JASRAC outlined a series of of preventive measures it would like to see taken to deter copyright infringements on YouTube until a comprehensive system can be put into place. JASRAC asked for Japanese-language notices on the YouTube site warning that copyright violations are illegal, that YouTube collect names and addresses of users uploading video material to the site, and that YouTube terminate accounts of users who post copyrighted material. JASRAC sets a deadline of December 15, 2006…which came want went with only a brief reply from YouTube's Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

In their response, YouTube said they're working on Japanese-language versions of their copyright warnings, and has been terminating accounts of users who repeatedly violate their terms of service. YouTube also offered a simplified version of tool enabling publishers to request take-down of infringing material. However, YouTube noted that it does not currently require any sort of user authentication but would "strive for improvement"—but offered no concrete information or timetable. YouTube also indicated it wanted its senior staff to meet with Japanese publishers in regard to business development in Japan.

(c) www.digitaltrends.com

Facebook Would Like To Remind You It Isn't For Sale (Wink Wink), But Is Now Worth $8 Billion

It was reported earlier this week that Yahoo was prepared to shell out up to $1.62 billion to buy Facebook, based on the inflated expectation that it could generate a billion-dollar profit by 2015. Apparently Yahoo's offer of $1 billion to Facebook got rejected, and the company never got another chance to bid. While most rational people would have taken the money and ran, Facebook now says it's no longer for sale, with a board member saying they want to build the company up. We'd like to again take this opportunity to point Facebook to the history of Friendster, which is the classic example of not knowing when to sell out -- the company was being shopped around for $5 million earlier this year, after Google had offered to buy it for $30 million worth of pre-IPO stock in late 2003, and a price of $200 million was mentioned for it in 2005. But, true to form, Facebook is following the Skype billion-dollar buyout plan (most recently enlisted by YouTube): a board member says that the company isn't for sale... but that it's worth $8 billion -- as much as that fly-by-night youth-oriented business MTV. Clearly the Skype blowout buyout business model is seeing the effects of inflation (otherwise known as a bubble), which is mildly amusing given talk that Skype is having some trouble meeting the targets to trigger the $1.5 billion earnout that was on top of the $2.6 billion eBay paid for it in cash and stock. Getting the cash up front, then running as far and as fast as you can, really seems like the best play for these companies.

[Thanks goes to  www.techdirt.com for this article]