Google seeks to turn a profit from YouTube copyright clashes; Guardian, 11/1/09

Katie Allen, Guardian; Google seeks to turn a profit from YouTube copyright clashes:

Group is working to persuade music and video companies to cash in rather than clamp down when their content is uploaded

"Google is seeking to drag YouTube into profit by convincing music and film footage rights owners to make advertising revenue from their content rather than remove it from the video-sharing site for breach of copyright.

The company has been touting a fingerprinting system for rights holders that means YouTube can identify their material even when it has been altered and made part of user-generated content such as wedding videos or satirical clips.

First developed two years ago, the ContentID system is attracting record labels, TV producers and sports rights owners keen to make more money from the web. Google's computers compare all the material uploaded to YouTube – around 20 hours every minute – against "ID files" from a 100,000-hour library of reference material from the rights holders. The system creates reports of what is viewed where and how often.

Rights holders then have the choice to either block their content or make money from it. That means putting advertising alongside the video and sharing the revenues with YouTube, which takes a small cut. They can also make money by linking to sites selling DVDs, downloads and CDs of the original content.

Google declines to give a number but says the majority of rights holders choose to monetise their content. It points to Mr Bean as a recent beneficiary of the system."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/01/google-youtube-monetise-content

Murdoch Calls Google, Yahoo Copyright Thieves — Is He Right?; Wired.com Threat Level, 4/3/09

Via Wired.com Threat Level: Murdoch Calls Google, Yahoo Copyright Thieves — Is He Right?:

"But whether search-engine news aggregation is theft or a protected fair use under copyright law is unclear, even as Google and Yahoo profit tremendously from linking to news...

Better yet, if Murdoch and Zell are so set on monetizing their web content, they should sue the search engines and claim copyright violations in a bid to get the engines to pay for the content.
The outcome of such a lawsuit is far from clear.

It's unsettled whether search engines have a valid fair use claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The news headlines are copied verbatim, as are some of the snippets that go along.

Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that "There's not a rock-solid ruling on the question.""

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/murdoch-says-go.html