TOKYO – Shortly after sealing one of the Internet’s biggest recent partnerships, Google already has bowed to international pressure and removed nearly 30,000 videos from its YouTube video-sharing community, according to The Associated Press.
The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers claims the clips were uploaded without permission, and the group quickly sought the deletion of TV show clips, music videos, and movies from 23 Japanese companies, says Fumiyuki Asakura, an official from the JSRACP. If pressed by the JSRACP, YouTube also may introduce a filter to prevent additional copyrighted clips to be uploaded, he adds.
The company already employs an audio-fingerprinting technology that identifies low-quality versions of licensed clips. YouTube, which already has in place filtering technology to identify low-quality, licensed clips, recently signed deals with a number of major record labels for the rights to post music and video content.
Google recently acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. In August, approximately 8.5 million YouTube visitors were from Japan.
