Japanese coalition slams YouTube

Copyrighted material rife and automated detection system taking too long

By Matt Chapman 03 Aug 2007

Youtube is not doing enough to stop the illegal sharing of copyrighted video clips and should "reset the service", according to a coalition of Japanese music, film and television companies.

"There is no middle ground," composer Hideki Matsutake told a Tokyo press conference.

"We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

Matsutake said that YouTube had to change the way it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips.

"We want them to reset the service," he said.

The coalition has held two meetings with YouTube and Google staff this year and the video site responded to its requests last October by deleting 29,000 files from its service.

Google is currently developing a system to automatically detect when copyrighted material has been posted on the site but Mizuo Sugawara of the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers said it is taking too long.

"What's important to us is what YouTube can do immediately and we have no guarantee that the new technology will even work," said Sugawara.

YouTube launched a Japanese version of its video-sharing website in June.

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