30,000 Japanese videos yanked from YouTube

Filed under: Video, Web services, Google, Social Software

30,000 Japanese videos yanked from YouTube

by Jordan Running Oct 20th 2006

The impact of Google's new ownership of YouTube has revealed itself this week in a big way. According to Ars Technica, the video sharing site removed 29,549 Japanese videos from its database at the request of JSRAC, the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, whose members identified the videos as containing unauthorized materials from Japanese movies, TV shows, and music videos. This is the first such large-scale removal of content from YouTube at the request of copyright holders, and is undoubtedly the shape of things to come. JSRAC says that they are considering petitioning YouTube to implement a better screening process for unauthorized uploads, but unless I'm mistaken Google has previously said they're already working on that. For a little perspective, according to a July report, over 65,000 videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Still, I'm a little worried what this means for one of my favorite blogs, TV in Japan, but at the moment they don't seem any worse for wear.

Tags: copyright, google, japan, jsrac, video, youtube

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Victor Agreda, Jr. said 3:17PM on 10-20-2006

Does this mean the end of Yatta on YouTube? oh no!

Bob Jones said 3:45PM on 10-20-2006

One of YouTubes biggest strengths has been complying with copyright and then working with the studio to get video content in a way that suits and is profitable to the studio, it certainly won't be the end of YouTube because users will still post videos of themselves doing silly things and be able to find videos of copyrighted content - in fact, less work for the users if they're being added by YouTube!

Gavin said 1:09AM on 10-21-2006

Thanks for the nice shout out! It's amazing how many people have mentioned this to me today but I haven't noticed much of a difference at all.

Ever since I've run the blog, the videos have been getting taken down. I'm never really sure what's still up and what isn't, which is kind of a bummer as that's my entire archive of posts.

That said, most of the stuff I'm finding on a day-to-day basis isn't going away anytime soon.

Keep visiting and you'll keep finding gems.

Yours,

Gavin Purcell (Mr. TV in Japan)

ThwartedEfforts said 4:26AM on 10-21-2006

"One of YouTubes biggest strengths has been complying with copyright"

Either you're not serious, or you've never actually been there.

YouTube's strength is in its popularity. It is impossible for anyone to properly monitor even a fraction of the videos uploaded daily, and so the vast majority of files arrive unchecked, and copyright material is obscured by teetering piles of crap.

Like most people, I visit YouTube regularly to catch up on TV shows I missed, and to watch clips that smaller rivals would notice and pull. What's amazing is that while the recording industry makes a fool of itself chasing home users sharing MP3 collections, nobody seems to have noticed the almost unlimited number of music videos, complete films and DVD rips plastered all over YouTube.

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