News: In response to the letter sent by JASRAC, Japan’s equivalent of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), YouTube reportedly issued the following statement: “We have received the letter and are reviewing it. Meanwhile we will continue to provide content companies in Japan and elsewhere with tools to easily notify us of unauthorised uses of their content so we can promptly remove it, in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” (More here)
Analysis: As I’ve said before, a lurking copyright time bomb for Internet sites like YouTube is the potential liability under foreign copyright laws that do not have DMCA safe harbors or their equivalent. YouTube refers to DMCA in its response, but other countries are under no obligation to follow U.S. law for conduct that occurs within their borders. Having said that, U.S. law can be influential among other countries, especially developed countries like Japan. I do not know whether Japan has a safe harbor comparable to the DMCA., but I am checking.
February 22, 2007 at 2:09 pm |
[...] CNET Japan recently published the results of a survey conducted by a new-to-me research company, Media Interactive, regarding the video sharing site “YouTube”. The complete survey is not available, so this report may appear to be incomplete in parts. My apologies in advance. Recently the issue of respecting copyright on YouTube in Japan has become quite a major topic. [...]
August 12, 2007 at 4:05 pm |
Google eventually complied. What a shame they caved, but I suppose that Japan is an awfully large market for a company to throw away on its own initiative. Still, they should have been greatly encouraged to do so. There have been unanswered issues to resolve, and they won’t get resolved if a certain trading partner is allowed to continue practicing intransigence at no cost to itself and its citizens.
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-Ic4OZGcydKumZcPZUAfwPxBrDATXgr72KXYfNQ–?cq=1&p=139
http://tinyurl.com/3xdqbh
Turning the other cheek is nice in church, but it is madness in trade negotiations or bar fights.