By Jan Libbenga for The Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
A spokesman for GEMA told Germany's Handelsblatt
that the popular video service needs to delete all videos with
non-licensed German music, or pay up.
GEMA says it is currently holding talks with YouTube about
possible arrangements. GEMA didn't want to wait until the takeover
of YouTube by Google was finalised, the spokesman told
Handelsblatt.
With 70,000 new videos every day, there is a lot of unlicensed
music posted by individual users. Currently, there is no
preliminary screening process to prevent copyright clips from being
uploaded.
Last week, German soccer club Bayern Munich also threatened
YouTube with legal action over pirated material. And last month
YouTube deleted nearly 30,000 files after The Japan Society for
Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers complained of copyright
infringement.
GEMA, however, is the first major music industry association
that is trying to settle copyright claims with YouTube.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt denied on Tuesday that his company had
set aside $500m to settle copyright claims by media companies.
YouTube did, however, agree to deploy an audio-signature technology
that can spot a low-quality copy of a licensed clip. Such material
could then be removed automatically.
© The Register
2006
