Search Results for: youtube

After a plethora of user-submitted videos that served as fuel for the banter among the eight Democratic presidential candidates at yesterday's CNN/YouTube political debate at the Citadel in South Carolina, the unasked question today remains this: Is it really a debate?

Granted, the task of situating eight candidates together for a two-hour political spectacle is in itself a logistical nightmare. In the interest of fairness, time has to be precisely allocated. Thus, producers measure the intervals they allot for candidates' responses in seconds rather than minutes. That fact alone prompts candidates to practice appropriate, attention-grabbing responses to questions well ahead of time. Spontaneity typically languishes after having been encapsulated within sound bites.

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The iPhone's exclusive hold on YouTube on the mobile phone will be short-lived. LG said Tuesday that it had come to an agreement with the social video site to bring videos to its line of phones later in the year. Unlike the Apple arrangement, LG plans to offer its customers an option that allows a user to shoot video on the handset and then upload it to the site.

YouTube had already launched a version of its site formatted for use on mobile devices. However, the agreements such as the ones with Apple and LG tie the site more closely with the phone. LG had previously worked with Google to put applications such as search, maps and Gmail on the company's phones in the past.

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Apple said Wednesday that its update to Apple TV to allow viewing of YouTube videos was available, along with announcing similar functionality for iPhone. But the lack of 3G connectivity will limit the feature's usefulness.

iPhone users will likely not be able to stream their videos across the mobile network as EDGE is often too slow to support higher-quality full motion video. Thus, the functionality would only be usable via Wi-Fi.

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YouTube launched nine localized versions of its popular social video site on Tuesday, which will at first only place navigation and functionality in the country's native language.

Eventually, the site plans to offer localized content as well, with the featured pages targeted towards the individual tastes of consumers in each market. This would include ratings specific to that country in addition to localized comments.

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YouTube plans to launch a video identification system that will help the company sniff out copyrighted material, it said earlier this week. Tests begin initially with Walt Disney and Time Warner.

In about a month, the company will start using clips supplied by the media companies to identify unique characteristics within clips posted by users. If a match is found, the content owner is alerted.

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Microsoft on Friday re-opened MSN Soapbox, the company's competitor to Google's YouTube, after two months of being closed to the public due to copyright concerns. The updated Soapbox now lets anyone view videos without being signed, and includes filtering of content.

The filtering technology, provided by Audible Magic, is intended to allow Microsoft to identify when potentially copyrighted material is uploaded to the service. In turn, the company can more easily block access and avoid the lawsuits that are piling up against YouTube from Viacom and others.

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Google said Thursday that it had signed a deal with EMI that allows users of its YouTube social video site to view videos and content from the label's artists, as well as use portions of the video in their own content. With the signing of the agreement with EMI, the site now holds agreements on content with all four major worldwide labels.

"We're excited to add EMI Music's stellar roster of artists' content to our site and make it available to our community," YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley said in a statement. The deal further insulates YouTube from lawsuits brought by content providers over the use of copyrighted content on its site. Recently, it has been sued by Viacom, which is looking for $1 billion in damages.

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In the latest intellectual property rights holders' legal attack on YouTube, and perhaps using the most blistering language to date, England's predominant football (soccer) league has launched a class-action lawsuit against Google and its YouTube division. In its complaint, the Premier League literally accuses the newly merged companies of forming an organized "protection" racket, whose methods are to deceive Congress while extorting low license fees from selected partners in exchange for IP protection.

"In a Twenty-First Century embodiment of an age-old scheme," the League's attorneys write for a filing in US District Court in New York last Friday, "Defendants have agreed to provide 'protection' against their own infringing conduct through a series of 'partnership' agreements with various copyright owners. Put another way, when the license fee sought by a copyright owner is low enough to be deemed satisfactory to Defendants, Defendants find themselves able to shed their blinders and employ technology to safeguard the rights of their new 'partners."'

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In its response filed Monday to a complaint against it by Viacom in New York District court, claiming its YouTube division is guilty of copyright infringement against Viacom properties, Google formally invoked the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, effectively claiming it's exempt from responsibility for the content shared over YouTube because it doesn't know what that content is.

While YouTube and its new parent, Google, have been taken to task in the past by former prospective content partners for not having adopted controls against IP infringement quickly enough, it could be the lack of such controls which is providing Google with its defense against Viacom: a "safe harbor" against liability by virtue of lack of control.

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A YouTube user responsible for creating a 44-second clip mocking Thailand's king Bhumibol Adulyadej removed the clip sometime Thursday, however a ban on the site within the country still remains. According to the Thai government, two offensive images were still on the popular social video site, and until those are removed the ban would stay in place.

Adulyadej is revered as near-divine in Thailand and criticizing or offending royalty is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. However, the country has also been criticized for its shaky commitment to democracy, and has seen 18 separate coups in just the past 75 years. In responding to the Thais, YouTube said it would look into the matter, although it aims to provide a community where users are free to express themselves.

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In an editorial for the Washington Post this morning, Viacom general counsel Michael Fricklas defended what observers are remarking may be an unpopular position. Fricklas argued that YouTube cannot effectively shield itself from prosecution using the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying there's no way YouTube's millions of customers can be aware that copyright infringement takes place on the site while the company itself remains oblivious.

"YouTube's own terms of use give it clear rights," Fricklas writes, "notably the right to take anything down. YouTube actively monitors its content. For example, its managers remove pornography and hate content and, as was recently reported, claim they can detect and remove 'spam.' Without knowledge and control, how could YouTube create 'channels' and 'featured videos' sections on its site? YouTube has even offered to find infringing content for copyright owners - but only if they do a licensing deal first."

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In its lawsuit against Google and its YouTube subsidiary which came to light yesterday, Viacom not only alleges that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement by allowing its users to post unauthorized content without restrictions or filtering, but the corporation goes one step further: It accuses YouTube of actually reproducing and posting some unauthorized content itself.

"YouTube itself publicly performs the infringing videos on the YouTube site and other websites," Viacom's lawsuit proclaims. "Thus, YouTube does not simply enable massive infringement by its users. It is YouTube that knowingly reproduces and publicly performs the copyrighted works uploaded to its site."

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The case that will likely determine the future of the online video sharing industry at least, and the Internet media economy at most, has been filed. Viacom, one of the world's largest media rights holders, has sued Google in federal court in New York, seeking $1 billion in damages for an estimated 1.5 billion separate infringements of copyright.

Viacom's legal team released a four-paragraph statement this morning, which is best read in its entirety:

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In carefully calculated statements made yesterday at a financial analysts' retreat yesterday in Palm Beach, Florida, new Fox Interactive Media president Peter Levinsohn was quoted by Variety as saying the on-again/off-again talks between his parent company, News Corp., and representatives of other major media companies to collectively build an online video sharing destination, are on again. He later hinted that MySpace -- the jewel in the FIM crown -- would be the platform on which that destination would be built.

"We're in very active negotiations with all of the media companies to create the most robust video offering from professional content on the Web," Variety quotes Levinsohn as saying, in a response that may have arisen to a simple inquiry about FIM's efforts to protect its content online.

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Access to YouTube from within Turkey was blocked Wednesday after prosecutors pointed out videos insulting the founder of the modern version of the country were appearing on the site.

Laws within the country forbid such comments that place Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or Turkey in general in a bad light, and are punishable by a prison term.

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