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October 20, 2006
REQUEST MADE TO YOUTUBE, INC. BY 23 RIGHT HOLDER GROUPS TO
DELETE VIDEOS POSTED ON THE YOUTUBE WEBSITE
APPROXIMATELY 30,000 COPYRIGHT INFRINGING FILES ARE DELETED IMMEDIATELY
A massive amount of Japanese copyrighted works such as television programs have been posted and placed without the permission of right owners and neighboring right owners on the U.S. video-posting website "YouTube." This has been regarded as a problem, and to deal with the situation, 23 right owner groups and companies including broadcasters and video production companies have set the five days from October 2 to October 6 as a "week to strengthen measures against YouTube." The groups have collaboratively requested YouTube, Inc., the operator of this website, to delete these videos from the website.
This measure was taken in unity by these various right owner groups of authors' rights and performers' rights, suffering the damages of the infringements, to make YouTube, Inc. understand the seriousness of this issue caused by the large volume of infringements. YouTube, Inc. has immediately deleted all the files subject to the infringement, which amounts to a total of 29,549 files.
Right owners had previously been requesting YouTube, Inc. to delete individual files based on the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA); however, a large amount of videos continued to be posted one after another without permission. This situation was taken seriously, and a meeting was held on September 8 to discuss how to deal with this issue. As a result, it was agreed to set the above measure-strengthening week and to send the aforementioned request.
We believe that YouTube, Inc. could foresee possible infringement of rights and they should conduct their business by installing sufficient measures to not allow those infringements. Therefore, we will request YouTube, Inc. to take necessary measures in the future, and at the same time, we will ask for the cooperation of Internet users in Japan not to post videos which will lead to infringement of rights.
[What is YouTube?]
A website operated by U.S. based YouTube, Inc. which allows posting of videos. In addition to original videos shot by the public, a large number of Japanese television programs and artists' promotion videos are posted on the relevant website without permission from the right owners, placing them in a condition where anyone can view them freely.
Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc.
Japan Video Software Association (JVA)
The Association of Japanese Animations
Association of All Japan TV Program Production Companies (ATP)
Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK)
The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan
Nippon Television Network Corporation
Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc
Fuji Television Network, Inc.
TV Asahi Corporation
TV Tokyo Corporation
Television Kanagawa, Inc.
Asahi Broadcasting Corporation
Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation
Tokai Television Broadcasting Co.Ltd.
Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association
Space Shower Networks inc.
The University of the Air Foundation
Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS)
Center for Performances' Rights Administration (CPRA)
Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ)
Yahoo! JAPAN Corporation
Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)
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