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Latest Harry Potter movie available on Google video |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Tuesday, 17 July 2007 |
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 Pirated versions of the top grossing film Harry Potter and the Order of
the Phoenix, were available at YouTube's sister site, Google video, on Monday. What is Google doing to help prevent such blatant copyright infringement? Not much.
The film was first flagged by the National Legal and Policy Center, a
watchdog group that tries to prod public figures to act ethically. The NLPC
argues that Google treats the entertainment industry unfairly by allegedly
looking the other way when users post pirated material to its sites.
For all of the content we host, whether from premium content providers or creative end-users, we
require the content provider to hold all necessary rights to the material. We
cooperate with copyright holders to identify and promptly remove any infringing
content. Of course, no system is bulletproof.
Gabe Stricker, a Google spokesman
The original link to the movie has been removed but it has been uploaded again by probably the same user. This could be easily prevented by suspending users that blatantly infringes copyright which does not allow them to upload again. This is not just a problem with Google video. This can be seen in other sites such as Dailymotion, Stage 6 or Veoh where full length movies and TV shows are constantly being uploaded. When removed, it is uploaded again in a relatively short amount of time.
Some might argue that these sites are letting these users upload these copyright infringing content because it brings in a lot of traffic and hence ad revenue. In addition, they argue that they are exploiting the safe harbour provision that makes the host not liable once they remove the copyright infringing material once notified.
These sites should be more proactive in preventing such blatant copyright infringement by putting in technology protection measures.
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