Posted by Colin B on 12/06/06 05:11

> "PTravel" <ptravel@travelersvideo.com> wrote in message
> news:aerdh.19501$9v5.8152@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...

>> "Colin B" <Colin B@cb.org> wrote in message
>> news:45763934$1@clear.net.nz...

snip

> They have to wait. If they take responsibility for reviewing submissions,
> they jeopardize their immunity under the statute.

>> Just one example, type in in the search area "Elton John" and see how
>> many videos are likely to be copyright infringers. Do the same for any
>> other celebrity and you can see the huge number of DVD and TV clips there
>> are on Youtube that most likely infringe copyright. If I owned a video
>> sharing web site, I think I would make a concerted effort to take down
>> videos that obviously infringed copyright.
>
> Why? You're not liable and, if you take an active hand in the content,
> you run the risk liablity if one slips through.


Thanks PTravel for this insight. It seems that the idea of Youtube looking
for, and then taking down video which has obvious copyright infringements,
is now being requested by the Japan Society for Rights of Authors. See this
recent article, for example:

http://www.gameshout.com/news/youtube_facing_more_scrutiny_for_copyright_issues_in_japan/article8716.htm

It says in this article that, YouTube Inc. has been asked by the Japan
Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) to install
a system that would keep people from uploading videos that infringe
copyrights. They sent a letter yesterday to YouTube's founders asking them
to preemptively start filtering copyrighted videos right away. Ultimarely,
despite the present law, you can't have a video site which has thousands of
known copyright violations on it! Before long, I suspect there will be a law
change to put more responsibility on site owners to preemptively filter
copyrighted videos, as requested by the JASRAC.

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