YouTube has announced a series of partnerships in Japan – but the country’s copyright advocates fear producers could still lose out. Google VP David Eun told a Tokyo news conference the site had forged partnerships with six Japanese companies including satellite broadcaster Sky PerfecTV and rising social network Mixi, who will both link to the site; Casio also unveiled a digital camera that uploads to YouTube. The site launched a Japanese version when it unveiled nine international localizations in June, and Eun said youtube.jp is now the most popular after the US.
But Google’s moves in Japan have not soothed local concerns on copyright abuse, which mirror those elsewhere. Instead, some are already criticizing the video fingerprinting technology Google this week said would be online by September:
AFP: “We believe the technology Google plans to introduce will not be good enough,” said a spokesperson for the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, , adding a second round of negotiations, in which he urged YouTube to act tougher on abuse, yielded no progress. “What’s important to us is what YouTube can do immediately. We have no guarantee whether the new technology will even work,” he said.
AP: Composer Hideki Matsutake at a separate press conference on Thursday: “YouTube has to stop how it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service. There is no middle ground. We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately.”