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Google's piracy policies criticized

11 July 2007 4:17 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 5 comments

Google's policy on the uploading of copyright protected videos to its services has been heavily criticized by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). The group released a list of the top 50 videos it found on the Google Video search engine, uploaded by users who might be guilty of copyright infringement. Among the list were hits such as Michael Moore's Sicko, Walt Disney Pictures' Cars and Meet the Robinsons, Picturehouse's Pan's Labyrinth and episodes of HBO's Da Ali G Show.

All of the above titles were apparently easily found using Google's Video search utilities. "It's difficult to know for sure whether all of the content included in the top 50 list is being hosted in violation of copyright laws -- NLPC makes no assertions," chairman Ken Boehm said. "But it's a reasonable assumption that much of the content has been uploaded without the copyright owner's knowledge or approval."

The group's intention is to raise awareness of piracy online. "We realize that this is probably a drop in the bucket in ferreting out copyrighted content among the millions of videos posted on Google Video, YouTube and other popular video sites," Boehm said. "But we hope that our efforts serve as a resource for copyright owners to check if their content is on the sites without their knowledge or approval."

Google never fails to defend itself when confronted with attacks on its policies with regard to copyright issues however, and this time was no exception. "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 cooperate with copyright holders to identify and promptly remove any infringing content," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said.

He said that no system is bulletproof, but that Google will continue to take the lead in providing DMCA tools for copyright holders. Boehm doesn't agree with Google however, and felt compelled to point out the holes in the "tools" that Google provides. "Google has been dragging its feet for months in coming up with a solution to pirated content. It still requires copyright owners to go through the laborious process of issuing DMCA take-down notices before the content is removed, while smaller companies are beginning to show real leadership on this issue," he said.

Source:
Reuters

Permalink to this article

NLPC blasts Google Video over piracy (27 September 2007)

YouTube expects anti-piracy tech in September (27 July 2007)

Viacom chairman responds to Google remarks (13 July 2007)

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Discuss this article!
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 11 July 2007 8:08
wake up and understand this is not "piracy"...... [ + quote]
cousinkix (Newbie) 11 July 2007 16:11
Michael Moore is a raving socialist. Sharing your movies for free is part of living up to those communal beliefs. So BFD in this case... [ + quote]
madman91 (Junior Member) 12 July 2007 17:04
this is getting pretty sad.. I can't wait till this internet piracy shit storm blows over so people can get back to life. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 17 July 2007 1:46
Uploading snipets of the videos i dont see as privacy they should see that as advertising their crappy products. [ + quote]
Unfocused (Member) 19 August 2007 14:56
It isn't like Google has a big "Download" button attached to the vids. Granted, there are ways around this, but most of the videos they have are of such poor quality, I wouldn't want to keep them for any type of long term archival purposes. For the most part, I view Google and the other vid sites as nothing but big commercials when it comes to the "pirated" content. The rest of the time, I'm watching people get hit in the nuts and cars burning out. [ + quote]