Yahoo Inc.'s problems with Indian bloggers over unauthorized reproduction of their content on its Indian portals may be just beginning.
Bloggers claim they have identified more instances of their content being reproduced without permission on Yahoo's Indian portals. Yahoo's Indian subsidiary has yet to come up with an appropriate response that satisfies the bloggers.
After bloggers complained about Yahoo India's unauthorized publication of recipes from a blogger called Su, the subsidiary apologized on Thursday. In a statement, it said it regretted any inconvenience caused by the inadvertent posting of the recipe without attribution on its Malayalam-language portal.
Yahoo did not refer to Su or her blog by name, and also blamed the mistake on its content provider Webdunia.com (India) Pvt. Ltd. A Malayalam-language version of the statement was posted by Yahoo on its Malayalam portal, but that did not satisfy the bloggers.
The issue is not about Yahoo publishing her content without attribution, said Su reacting to Yahoo's statement in an e-mail Saturday. The bloggers, whose content she said was stolen, are fighting against Yahoo violating their copyrights, she wrote.
Su has demanded a written apology from Yahoo for allegedly stealing her blog content. The blogger describes herself as a housewife from Kerala in south India in her blog.
She said that her next step would be to take the dispute to court on a number of charges including copyright violation, if "Yahoo keeps on washing their hands off and tries to do a mockery of an apology."
Bloggers in India are also compiling a list of content allegedly stolen from them by Yahoo's content provider, and posted to Yahoo's portals in India. The 12 incidents of copyright violation and content theft identified so far may be only be the tip of the iceberg, a blogger wrote Sunday.
The content on Yahoo's seven Indian languages portals is provided by Webdunia.com under the express representation that Webdunia.com has all the necessary rights and authorization for all the content provided by them, Yahoo India said last week. Yahoo India did not comment on the most recent allegations by bloggers, but a spokeswoman said on Monday that the company is likely to issue another statement soon.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Google May Pay Another $1B for YouTube
Google's plans to combat piracy on YouTube may be too little, too late, if Viacom gets its way. The media giant has sued Google for a billion dollars in damages for infringing the copyrights on at least 160,000 media clips snatched from programming on MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable networks.
MTV's parent company Viacom (NYSE: VIAb) Latest News about Viacom is seeking more than US$1 billion in damages from YouTube Latest News about YouTube and its owner Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google for thousands of alleged copyright infringements.
A complaint filed by the media giant in U.S. District Court in New York contends that almost 160,000 clips of Viacom's programming have been made available on YouTube without authorization, and that those clips were viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
In addition to MTV, Viacom also owns a number of other cable networks including VH1, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Stealing Efforts?
The New York-based company charges that YouTube, which Google acquired late last year in a $1.6 billion stock deal, is a for-profit organization that has "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works" in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google.
"There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission," the company said, "destroying enormous value in the process."
The value of those efforts, according to Viacom, rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create the entertainment, as well as companies like Viacom that invest in its development and production.
Legal Battles
Google has been hoping to avoid this type of legal confrontation. In an attempt to fend off growing criticism, the search giant recently decided to tackle copyright issues head on by offering antipiracy technologies to stop unauthorized video-sharing.
The tool is designed to help media companies identify and remove pirated videos uploaded by users, the search giant said.
However, little technical information about the antipiracy software has been forthcoming from Google, said Forrester Research Analyst James McQuivey.
"It is very hard to do," he told TechNewsWorld. "You can't push a button and make it happen."
Protecting Partners
Compounding the issue, said McQuivey, is the fact that Google has told content providers it would release the tool to its own partners before anyone else.
"Then we get into the issue of 'Do we have to sign a deal before they enforce the copyright laws?'" said McQuivey.
Media Groups
Several media groups have been involved in a pitched battle with Web sites like YouTube and MySpace Latest News about MySpace -- which also has been accused of illegally hosting Get FREE CDN for 3 Months. PEER 1 Dedicated Hosting. Click Here. copyrighted material.
Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, late last year accused YouTube of being a serial copyright infringer, and CEO Doug Morris blasted the outfit during a recent Merrill Lynch investors' conference speech.
Generating Revenues
Now, Viacom claims YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, while generating significant traffic and revenues for itself. In turn, it has shifted the entire burden and cost of monitoring YouTube onto the "victims of its infringement."
If Google's momentum is slowed at all as a result of the suit, media companies can expect other firms like AOL Video and iFilm to cozy up to them quickly, says McQuivey -- and the feelings will likely be mutual.
"Media companies are going to want to punish Google a little," he said.
A YouTube representative could not immediately be reached for this article.
MTV's parent company Viacom (NYSE: VIAb) Latest News about Viacom is seeking more than US$1 billion in damages from YouTube Latest News about YouTube and its owner Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google for thousands of alleged copyright infringements.
A complaint filed by the media giant in U.S. District Court in New York contends that almost 160,000 clips of Viacom's programming have been made available on YouTube without authorization, and that those clips were viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
In addition to MTV, Viacom also owns a number of other cable networks including VH1, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Stealing Efforts?
The New York-based company charges that YouTube, which Google acquired late last year in a $1.6 billion stock deal, is a for-profit organization that has "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works" in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google.
"There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission," the company said, "destroying enormous value in the process."
The value of those efforts, according to Viacom, rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create the entertainment, as well as companies like Viacom that invest in its development and production.
Legal Battles
Google has been hoping to avoid this type of legal confrontation. In an attempt to fend off growing criticism, the search giant recently decided to tackle copyright issues head on by offering antipiracy technologies to stop unauthorized video-sharing.
The tool is designed to help media companies identify and remove pirated videos uploaded by users, the search giant said.
However, little technical information about the antipiracy software has been forthcoming from Google, said Forrester Research Analyst James McQuivey.
"It is very hard to do," he told TechNewsWorld. "You can't push a button and make it happen."
Protecting Partners
Compounding the issue, said McQuivey, is the fact that Google has told content providers it would release the tool to its own partners before anyone else.
"Then we get into the issue of 'Do we have to sign a deal before they enforce the copyright laws?'" said McQuivey.
Media Groups
Several media groups have been involved in a pitched battle with Web sites like YouTube and MySpace Latest News about MySpace -- which also has been accused of illegally hosting Get FREE CDN for 3 Months. PEER 1 Dedicated Hosting. Click Here. copyrighted material.
Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, late last year accused YouTube of being a serial copyright infringer, and CEO Doug Morris blasted the outfit during a recent Merrill Lynch investors' conference speech.
Generating Revenues
Now, Viacom claims YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, while generating significant traffic and revenues for itself. In turn, it has shifted the entire burden and cost of monitoring YouTube onto the "victims of its infringement."
If Google's momentum is slowed at all as a result of the suit, media companies can expect other firms like AOL Video and iFilm to cozy up to them quickly, says McQuivey -- and the feelings will likely be mutual.
"Media companies are going to want to punish Google a little," he said.
A YouTube representative could not immediately be reached for this article.
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