James Delahunty
11 Jul 2007 4:17
Google's policy on the uploading of copyright protected videos to its services has been heavily criticized by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). The group released a list of the top 50 videos it found on the Google Video search engine, uploaded by users who might be guilty of copyright infringement. Among the list were hits such as Michael Moore's Sicko, Walt Disney Pictures' Cars and Meet the Robinsons, Picturehouse's Pan's Labyrinth and episodes of HBO's Da Ali G Show.
All of the above titles were apparently easily found using Google's Video search utilities. "It's difficult to know for sure whether all of the content included in the top 50 list is being hosted in violation of copyright laws -- NLPC makes no assertions," chairman Ken Boehm said. "But it's a reasonable assumption that much of the content has been uploaded without the copyright owner's knowledge or approval."
The group's intention is to raise awareness of piracy online. "We realize that this is probably a drop in the bucket in ferreting out copyrighted content among the millions of videos posted on Google Video, YouTube and other popular video sites," Boehm said. "But we hope that our efforts serve as a resource for copyright owners to check if their content is on the sites without their knowledge or approval."
Google never fails to defend itself when confronted with attacks on its policies with regard to copyright issues however, and this time was no exception. "For all of the content we host, whether from premium content providers or creative end users, we require the content provider to hold all necessary rights to the material. We cooperate with copyright holders to identify and promptly remove any infringing content," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said.
He said that no system is bulletproof, but that Google will continue to take the lead in providing DMCA tools for copyright holders. Boehm doesn't agree with Google however, and felt compelled to point out the holes in the "tools" that Google provides. "Google has been dragging its feet for months in coming up with a solution to pirated content. It still requires copyright owners to go through the laborious process of issuing DMCA take-down notices before the content is removed, while smaller companies are beginning to show real leadership on this issue," he said.
Source:
Reuters