Online video is hot, and you can judge that from the break neck growth of You Tube. The San Mateo, California company was founded in February 2005, and a year later it is serving more than 3 million video views a day, receiving about 8,000 video uploads a day from users and transferring 16 terabytes of data a day. Add to the mix Google video and half-a-dozen others, and you get the idea that video-sharing is the hottest thing on the Internet. But many of these videos that are being shared are infringing on copyrights of some content creators.
Google Video, thanks to its massive infrastructure has become a repository for all sort of foreign films. I have personally watched dozens of Bollywood movies, many of them released recently. Here is a little sampling. Since the time I got in touch with Google last week, a lot of material has been taken off their site, but some Bollywood songs etc still remain. I guess, this is going to be a policing issue going forward for Google and everyone else. You Tube still features a lot of Bollywood content like this and this. Its not just fare from overseas markets, but I found a lot of music videos and television show clips, which make me wonder about how these video sharing services are going to protect against copy right infringements. I pinged Google and asked them about the said copyright infringements. A spokesperson emailed me this response.
As for infringement, Google respects the rights of copyright holders … 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 work to identify and remove any infringing content that may appear on Google Video using the process set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If we receive a notice or otherwise have reason to believe that content submitted by a particular user infringes another person’s copyright, their account may be terminated.
You Tube in an email statement pretty much said the same thing.
“All of the content on YouTube — including videos, comments, and ratings — is posted at the direction of users. We take copyright issues very seriously. Our terms of use make it clear that
users should own or have permission from copyright holders to post any videos. We encourage copyright holders to contact us appropriately if they have any objections about specific postings.”
The news of Bollywood movies being shared on Google video hit the news wires this morning in India. Sunil Thakur, founder of WahIndia!, a website that syndicates its entertainment segments online to sites like Sify and Planetguru told IANS news service, that “he received a response in which Google suggest(s) he “contact the user directly”, to remove content, or “file a complaint” using standard form to contact Google Video. These users (that Google asks us to contact) are usually untraceable and could be from anywhere in the world. While one waits for the issue to resolve, the filmmaker could be losing real money as new releases are downloaded and passed around on PC, iPOD, Sony PSP.”
I am not sure if this is a problem that is going to go away. Online video companies will have to figure out a policing mechanism… after all if CSI shows start showing up on Google video (not the store), Google’s partners at Viacom are not going to be too thrilled. Similarly SNL videos now for sale on iTunes store, available for free are going to become a headache of sorts for folks at You Tube.
Archives: Did MySpace Censor You Tube?
Hat Tip, Manthan
Om,
Chill out! Nothing will happen to Google. I am sure Eric has equally smart lawyers working for him ;-). Google is a Platform and as you said, users agree that they hold all RIGHTS on the stuff they are uploading. In earlier days of Dot-Com so many fraudsters looted people on eBay, what happened ? Nothing, eBay’s growth continued… However, what is really bothering me is the POOR QoS. Google video consumes 100% of CPU time… If I sit down to test it seriously, I can log atleast 5 show stoppers but who cares as long as you are set to KILL the Evil.
Eric better have smartes lawyers. Otherwise soon Google video will be populated by 4 min clips of one person staring at the camera while a song owned by RIAA playing in the background.
Om,
Lucky you! You get to watch all those bollywood potboilers free of cost; but we poor chaps in India still need to shell out few hundred bucks to wath’em ; coz here, Google video lets you play the video only for few seconds and then tells you to click on the video to watch the entire clip. Once you do that it says “Thanks for your interest in Google Video. Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn’t available in your country.
We hope to make this feature available more widely in the future, and we really appreciate your patience “. So you can’t blame Google completely; they protect copyrights in selected geographies 🙂
Om,
I blogged about this problem last week here at http://www.emergintex.com/blog/?p=133 . I believe this is a bigger problem for Google, as there are no set guidelines within the service which can distinguish legal from illegal uploads. Moreover this is very viral, as compared to other channels (Torrents…) as Google lets you start watching movies right away. No downloading no waiting etc…
Moreover it is upto the Bollywood productions and distribution units to aggresively follow this. Thats the only way this can be resolved.
I dont think this is so much of a problem for Google on the legal front, since the content uploader is responsible for the content. But what worries me is, this is a known problem and nothings being done to take care of it.
Google Dark: Hiding under DMCA
Om Malik has an excellent post on the Dark Side Of Online Video. In the post, he notes that he pinged Google and asked them about their policy on copyright infringement, and he got the following response:
Venkatesh, if this is not a problem for Google, then why did Napster get into trouble for just locating the music file, let alone hosting them?
What a mess!
Wanna watch the full movie “Na Tum Jaano Na Hum”? Here it is. free of cost. not that it’s a particularly good movie, but $0.00 price tag makes it bearable. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=NA+TUM+JANU+NA+HUM really, someone please tell me Google doesn’t have a problem.
Every review of google video seems to tell me that the thing is falling flat and that the content is week. Will they get it together? Probably…it’s google…they are smart people. Will sites like youtube and http://www.veoh.com continue to pressure them with better features, content and safer legal ways of downloading? Yes. Internet-TV and internet video is coming. It might take a while to even things out on the edges but who doesn’t want the on-demand lean back in your seat and be entertained experience that is on the horizon.
From what I understand, the DMCA protects service providers like Google and YouTube as long as they respond to takedown notices and remove content that they “know” to be under copyright. So the burden is ultimately on the rights holder to have stuff removed. The only way to really keep up with what content is copywritten or not, is to empower the community (users) to identify stuff. I think we’ll see video services provide a method for flagging content similar to how Craig’s List uses flagging for spam or inappropriate posts.
The people who think the Google Video content is weak don’t understand that Google is supplying the marketplace, not the content. Think eBay. Think long tail. Think 30% transaction fees at 99% margins.
There are huge differences between Napster and Google Video: Napster never even pretended to care that it was being used for copyright infringement. Napster participated in the consumption of near-perfect versions of what was ordinarily being sold; Google Video content is seriously inferior to that that is charged for. Napster supported very little legitimate activity. Napster did not provide a way for content owners to monetize.
JD Lasica has written a fantastic book, DarkNet, about the copyright and the future of ‘user-generated’ content and how ‘Hollywood’ needs to deal with it…highly recommend it…
OM, a quick question
How it is different from what Napster did before it started their business in the legal way?
Their stand was also same on the copyrights violation. But media biggies could not let them stand for too long.
However Google being much stronger than some of the media brands in the world, they can play around with it for sometime to get popularity of their google video.
nitin
i think sooner or later this is an issue google and all online video services will have to face. you are absolutely right – this is just a newish version of napster all over again.
I’m really curious to see how this pans out, and wonder if the current DMCA setup lasts. The most watched video on YouTube, by a pretty big margin, is the SNL Chronic of Narnia video. I’m pretty sure that every reasonable person would “know” that the 104 year old YouTube user ‘youtubedude’ http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=youtubedude isn’t the rights holder.
Maybe it’s not in NBC’s interest to protest at this point: it probably helps drive interest in SNL, YouTube’s content is not really being monetized now, and NBC isn’t offering any alternative. But when either of those last two factors change, things could get harder.
But does the YouTube experience even comes close to approximating that of Napster or the original content? Napster gave you perfect copies of copyrighted material, not imperfect streams of amateur material.
out of curiousity…in the case of stuff like tv shows being put on youtube and ……do viewers get in any trouble for watching them?
It’s a comment on out times of the emperor’s new cloths that believe’s that somehow google can get away with wrong-doing.
Modern history re-teaches us that content is king, and that no matter who you think you are, rights holders have the rights to close your business down if your infringing.
On the other hand, people claim there’s no real competition between streamed and downloaded, what I forsee very quickly is that competition and technology (e.g. see http://www.forbidden.co.uk) will force parity.
Google is not going to be able to simply use the excuse that it didn’t know, when a large number of its users systematically break copyright – new/better technology will have to be implemented, though more likely is that video will follow almost the absolute exact path that music did, almost ending with iTunes!
What’s no ones figured out is how will the model of flickr and professional companies like getty, be applied to video with services like http://www.clesh.com or youtube.com in relation to the worlds video-archives.
I believe the only solution to eminent legality and Quality-of-Service is the implimentation of content/service-charging beyond infrstructure (inc. where one subsidises the other) (when you have to pay to upload/download, watch adverts, etc, the mindset is different).
It is evolution.
Kind wishes,
Shakir Razak
It is worth pointing out that Revver (http://revver.com/) have a zero-tolerence policy towards copyright infringement – and as a result the tone of that video site is very different to the likes of YouTube (in addition to the other significant distinction which is that they share revenue with video creators). That is not to say that there is no infringing material on Revver, but they are doing far more than their competitors.
I am against uploading full-length features to video sharing services. But from what I have seen, Bollywood content is especially being targeted by none other than Indians themselves, especially those living abroad such as Om here.
But this is doing no service to neither Bollywood, the content owners or the fans. Matter of fact, I have seen Google taking down almost 95% of Bollywood content that I was aware of until 4 days ago; including movie previews and song clips which are legal and available elsewhere on legit Bollywood-related websites.
Thanks for your help Om!
Has anyone heard about DeluxTv.com ? I heard Brightcove is helping them start a site like RipeTv.com,,,Have you heard of RipeTV? Its very cool the late night guy is very funny…Scott
whats up dogg what are u doing im just chilling and im tring to get some girlsand im tring to fuck them
Kobe 81 video
The government lies. YouTube will be the only portal freemen will have. Was it worth it? Now as I sit here in this stinking hoval, i think it was. As i wrestled with the issue I could feel my muscles tearing away from my very bones. No pain was felt. I was in the zone. I ripped it limb from limb. Yes…it was worth it. I cleaned myself up. Yes youtube will be the only outlet for whats left of free thought. Those SHILLS at Google won’t laugh when the final hour comes. But thats another story. They see me. In the tower. DON’T BLINK.
youtube is the one website that can keep you laughing… even when you are the one putting the video up… in fact me and my sister put one up of my mom getting stepped on by the cat.. it was hilarious… check it out… it is called Pam and stink… and then it says OWWWW somewhere in it
I found Full episodes of Sopranos on YouTube and Google Videos. No one seems to stop these people who download and upload stuff but gives a guy a parking ticket cause he/she parked near the exit door. Personaly i dont care if someone downloads as long as it doesnt hurt someone emmotionaly.
what i meant by the last comment If someone puts up Child Porn or Private Videos like soo many freaks out there I think those need to goto Jail.
Cheers …
I wonder why youtube doesn’t have download feature 😉
Heres what I found: http://zfreez.com/web/Ut.htm
You can download YouTube video from that site.
Unlike all other download service out there, the downloaded files from this site are in .flv format BY DEFAULT so you don’t have to rename or change extension or anything. It also named your file according to the clip name at YouTube 🙂
Give it a shot.
Listen, this is bu**shit. Why do we have to “protect against copy right infringements”? The people have spoken, and they no longer believe in intellectual property. period. If this isn’t obvious by now, then what IS obvious? In a truely democratic society, intellectual property would not exist, because Americans have overwhelmingly opposed it.
Sincerely,
angry reader
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All of yall need to shut the hell up okay because yall dont know what yall is talking about and I dont really care what yall have to say about me because yall aint gonna hurt my feelings okay
GV now allows users in India to watch the videos now…no holds barred. Can’t purchase them yet, but coming soon.
am trying to get singhed to a mainstreem label so i can express myself lyricaly .
I think we all beter hurry and get as many clips as we can before the #$@# hits the fan
Frankfurt Ist geil
I am a big Youtube fan, but lets face it. 80% of the video clips on youtube are clips of copyrighted TV clips, movies, DVD and VHS tapes.
Unless you tube considers uploading a small clip from a DVD that you own not copyright infringement; however, I don’t think that is the case.
ado,
How can you get the clips? They cannot be downloaded… Or can they?
With all the video’s being downloaded there can never be a mechanism that will take out the copyright. Perfect example… This is not even old content. This is new TV as it is happening. Anyone heard of Big Brother… Well, you can purchase live feed to see the house guests 24 hours… There are some sites that are Tivo ing this and creating their own website using youtube as the link to show the videos… ( I won’t give out the website name)
I think this is a big no no… Old stuff I don’t think is a big deal but I guess either way it is copyright infringement.
You fools! Did you not heed my warning!? Google will be the first up against the wall. When the jack booted thugs kick down your door and steal your stolen content then who will you look to?! GOOGLE?! HA! You fools. I lost my right arm for this cause. DO NOT INVALIDATE MY SACRIFICE!!! HEED!
how to put video in you tube?
can you email me on how to put a video on youtube? im a new user.
heres my emaid add http://www.france13_usman@hotmail.co.uk
WAZ UP
HI GUYS I ENJOY THIS WEBSITE!!!!!!!
Can’t you see? We’ve been raised for generations to believe this sort of thing…WAKE UP!
Am I the only Mac user who cannot upload video to Google ( or You Tube?) I have tried uploading a short ( 4:16) .mov file but it always fails. Google support suggests I send it as an MPEG file. How do I change the file name extension?
oi!!!!!!!!!!!
Sou a primeira Brasileira a comentar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I owould like to know how to… upload a movie from a dvd… to you tube..I am having problems with the coding… is there any software that I might can find to help me out.
thanks in avance
i got a free razr from this website and thought i would share 🙂
Hi, there is a new online video service called AapkaVideo that allows you to upload and share videos with others with ease. AapkaVideo is a totally free online service and users have to register an account for free just to upload videos.
AapkaVideo content is aimed at the Indian user. Users can upload videos created by them and also their favorite videos. After registering a free account with the service, users can immediately start uploading videos. Users can share these videos with friends and family by creating sharable links and emailing them to others. There is an option to share multiple videos at a time.
You can easily browse through the categories available and select videos and also upload videos to a particular category you want. By entering relevant tags, users will be able to get better search results. AapkaVideo supports almost all the popular video file types.
AapkaVideo allows users to report videos that are offensive, obscene and illegal. Besides the site reserves the right to immediately terminate the account of a user, who uploads videos that violates the site’s terms of service.
what up pees.
Name the most popular online storage band wagon ?? Not clicking?? Its none onther than http://www.aapkavideo.com. This is a Site targeting purely Indian content. Users can register and upload Vidoes and share the same with their near and dear.
A unique feature about this site is that one can search for a desired video just by entering a few key words in the search video option. Its got a powerful search engine which gets you the video you are looking for.Anyone, even without being a member can report a video as offensive if it has obscene content and prompt action is taken soon.
A registered user on this site gets an access to all the bollywood masti and can Keep oneself updated on movies as they have a special column which captures the latest movies trailors.
Now its time you guys explore .. So Get started Guys !!
I was thinking of starting yet another youtube clone but I presume will have to wait now…scared about copyright issues..and by the way, I dont have lawyers to fight as google 🙂
Best Indian Online Video Entertainment Portal I have seen ever
http://www.videodust.com
One can choose set of videos and play and there are non stop channels. Lot more options for Bollywood, Telugu and Tamil Movie Videos.
Looks like indian Youtube Video Portal.
WAY CAN’T CHILDREN JOIN .
EMAIL ME BACK PLEASE.