'Harry Potter' and 'HairSpray' appear at Google Video.
The hits just keep coming to Google Video.
Pirated versions of Hairspray, Bruce Willis' Live Free, Die Hard and last weekend's top grossing film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, were available at YouTube's sister site on Monday.
The films were 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 a month, the NLPC has dug up hundreds of full-length films and TV shows at Google Video to dramatical show that the company should be able to find unauthorized videos if a group of lawyers can.
"For all of the content we host," said Gabe Stricker, a Google spokesman in an email, "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."
In addition, while YouTube has long been at the center of a controversy over whether the company is responsible for copyright clips posted to the site, the NLPC is trying to draw attention to the infringing content available at Google's other video property.
One of the things that stumps Ken Boehm, the NLPC's chairman, is why Google doesn't enforce a maximum clip length. At YouTube, the clips must be 10 minutes or less, a restriction designed to prevent feature-length material from being posted.
Another issue Boehm has with Google Video is that the site doesn't appear to be suspending users for posting infringing content. YouTube has said that it boots users for violating the site's user agreement, which specifically outlaws the uploading of copyright content.
"It looks like the link I sent you for the Harry Potter movie was yanked," Boehm wrote in an e-mail. "I found it again. The kicker is that this new link was obviously put up by the same person who posted the first one."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Sure, you can close an account, but you can't stop that person from creating a new account.
Unless they do something draconian like require legal digital signatures, it is not possible.
Besides, posting movies online helps ticket sales, not hurt them. Seeing a movie on a computer screen is not the same as going to a theater. Heck, it isn't as good as playing a DVD on your computer.
When is the entertainment industry going to catch up and embrace new delivery and publicity methods?
Their out of date notions is a key in why they are suffering financially. The low quality is main reason.
Creative commons and public domain, anyone?
- Welcome to digital reality
- by niravabhavsar July 16, 2007 10:42 PM PDT
- Google is notoriously know for the same kind of thievery. It stole
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(4 Comments)Overture's business model and paid 2.5 bil in settlement. Now,
GooTube is stealing billions from various news channels. They
have created a whole business model around this. And, people
are having fun. The argument that it boasts ticket sales are not
correct. You have to live in fools paradise to think people are
gonna watch crappy version for free and go to theatre to watch
full screen version. Pirates always love stuff for free; be it free
software, songs, videos or movies. Piracy is theft, period.