Search Results for: youtube

Copyrighted content uploaded to YouTube has been a problem ever since the site launched in 2005. In fact, "Me at the zoo," the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, is dated April 23, 2005. The first time Viacom took legal action against YouTube was exactly one month later, on May 24, 2005, when it issued a subpeona for information about a user who uploaded copyrighted material to the site.

In late 2006, YouTube and Viacom reached a content syndication agreement, but after Google completed its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube, the company retracted its agreement, pulled all of its content from the site, and sued Google for over 63,000 counts of copyright infringement.

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On its five year anniversary, popular video streaming site YouTube announced it streams two billion videos every day.

"What started as a site for bedroom vloggers and viral videos has evolved into a global platform that supports HD and 3D, broadcasts entire sports seasons live to 200+ countries," it said in the official YouTube Blog on Sunday. "We bring feature films from Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers to far-flung audiences. Activists document social unrest seeking to transform societies, and leading civic and political figures stream interviews to the world."

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The key issue at the heart of Viacom's case against Google and YouTube, filed in March 2007, concerns whether an Internet service that probably knows that files are traded or shown illicitly or without license there, deserves the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protect ISPs from liability for their customers' actions. In a summary judgment motion filed yesterday with US District Court in New York and unsealed this morning, Viacom is bidding to have the judge wrap up the case -- an obvious signal that it believes its case is already strong enough.

As US law stands now, a service such as Grokster or the original Napster (not the Best Buy division that today uses that name) is liable when it intentionally establishes its service for the express purpose of trading in illicit files. It's especially liable when it finds some way to advertise itself for that purpose. An Internet Service Provider such as Comcast or Cox is not liable when its service is used for accessing one of these sites, when it doesn't advertise or offer these services explicitly, and when a customer can access them without direct intervention from the ISP. And a video site such as Veoh is not liable when any measure it might take to stop customers from sharing illicit files may also conceivably infringe upon the free speech rights of other customers who may not be trading such files.

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This week, documents from Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement were published, and the three-year-long-and-counting lawsuit has again been brought to the public's attention. In case you haven't been following the case, here's a quick timeline of the major events that led up to the lawsuit, and those that occurred since the original complaint was filed:

May 24, 2005- Viacom subpoenas YouTube for information about a user who uploaded clips from Paramount Pictures' "Twin Towers."

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In the official YouTube blog today, the popular Google-owned video sharing service announced it will be launching a streaming rental service on Friday in partnership with the Sundance Film Festival.

It will only include a handful of movies (five from Sundance 2009-2010, and "a small collection" from other US partners across different industries) that will be available to rent until Sunday, January 31.

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Google today announced YouTube Direct, an open source platform that lets media organizations directly connect with YouTube users to request and rebroadcast their YouTube clips.

The application allows custom YouTube uploaders to be built into another site, so users can submit their videos directly and track the viewing metrics in their own profile. Google highlights the rise of citizen journalism as a major reason for the program.

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YouTube Insight really is an amazing free tool. For users who have uploaded content to Google's popular video sharing site, YouTube Insight provides extremely concise metrics for a video's viewership. It includes maps that show where in the world your video has the most viewers, your audience's demographic makeup, and even a second-by-second audience attention metric.

Today, Google announced that YouTube Insight has been tied into YouTube's Content ID, the management tool that lets broadcasters, studios, labels, and individual copyright holders to identify videos uploaded to YouTube containing their intellectual property.

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YouTube UK has lifted the six-month long "premium" music video blackout after arriving at a deal with the Performing Rights Society for Music over royalties.

The description of "premium" music videos included those that have been uploaded, or claimed as property, by record labels. The blackout only prohibited UK YouTube viewers from watching these videos, fan-uploaded copies were not included in the sanction.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting this evening the internet's most popular video streaming destination YouTube is now in talks with movie studios to offer rental streams of new release movies which could potentially be released day and date with their DVD and Blu-ray counterparts.

The site already works with a number of content owners to host ad-sponsored streams of classic television shows and films, but the site has not yet attempted the rental model with these studios. Details are scant at this point, at the WSJ only cites information provided by unnamed sources "familiar with [YouTube's] plans." A $3.99 rental price is reportedly being discussed because that is the cost of a Standard Definition new release movie rental on Apple's iTunes and Amazon Video on Demand.

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Let's face it: RealPlayer hasn't been a viable media player for almost ten years. As Technologizer's David Worthington wrote for Betanews in 2000, "A once useful media player's standard installation was transformed into a bloated menagerie of components and add-ons with the release of RealPlayer 7. These needlessly suck away system resources and add useless functionality..."

Today, RealNetworks finds itself competing not so much against Windows Media Player as with the likes of DownloadHelper. Real is now working to generate interest among free media consuming types with the launch of RealPlayer SP, which lets users download unprotected Flash videos to keep.

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The streaming-enhanced device market may still be dominated by Netflix, but video on demand service Vudu continues to fight its way into the picture. Today, the company announced its partnership with South Korean company LG will put Vudu directly on connected HDTVs.

Vudu debuted its own streaming set top box nearly two years ago, and managed to be one of the first companies to pump out HD streams. Though it had partnerships with such companies as Sharp and Best Buy, the streaming service was only available on Vudu's own hardware. Netflix, Amazon on Demand, and CinemaNow meanwhile all moved to put their services on hardware from a number of different manufacturers.

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Microsoft's scaling back of its social media initiatives continues, with the news today first reported by paidContent.org, learned during an interview with Corporate Vice President Erik Jorgensen, that MSN Video's Soapbox service will be shutting down completely. Soapbox has been its portal for user-submitted videos, but Jorgensen indicated to Fried that sponsorship for those videos -- which constituted about 5% of MSN Video's content portfolio -- was too low for the service to be sustained in the present economy.

In an interview with CNET's Ina Fried last month, Jorgensen stated then his team's intentions to scale back Soapbox, though he was careful at that time not to reveal the extent. The paidContent.org interview indicates that user-generated content may still be feasible on a revised MSN Video service, or whatever it should be called, although Microsoft is unlikely to give that content its own portal.

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In February, the US Senate cut nearly $250 million in aid to the motion picture industry from the economic stimulus bill. Legislators determined that Hollywood studios didn't need the "bailout" after enjoying several months of record-breaking sales.

Yesterday, however, the Motion Picture Association of America attempted to show lawmakers how important the entertainment industry is to the global economy, releasing a study (PDF available here) which suggests, "The production and distribution of motion pictures and television programs is one of the nation's most valuable cultural and economic resources," and therefore worthy of hefty tax breaks.

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The YouTube Symphony Orchestra gathered last night at Carnegie Hall to play an original Tan Dun piece composed specifically for the global competition that brought the group together. It's lovely. But I'm willing to bet that instead you were listening to a heretofore obscure singer absolutely flatten a roomful of doubters with a show tune.

Like a lot of us, I've been watching the Susan Boyle video repeatedly this week, trying to get at what it means for the Internet to have taken to heart, as the Britain's Got Talent audience took to heart, a middle-aged Scotswoman with ungroomed eyebrows and a frumpy Best Dress and a voice that seems to have broken something that needed breaking in hearts around the world.

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In the midst of a Draconian new South Korean law passed April 1 that could force some ISPs to enable lawmakers to suspend their customers' Internet accounts or face fines, Google's YouTube division has turned off some features that could, if misused under the new law, land its customers in prison.

The South Korean National Assembly narrowly passed a sweeping new law whose purpose was to create a system of accountability for the nation's Internet users. While ostensibly the new law is designed to discourage piracy, Korean journalists such as Korea Times' Kim Tong-hyung provide evidence that the law's true purpose may be to enable government authorities to keep tabs on all kinds of online behavior, including political and social networking.

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