[Infowarrior] - New Anti-Piracy Consortium

[Richard Forno]

Group of Net, Media Companies To Announce Copyright Guidelines
By KEVIN J. DELANEY
October 18, 2007 5:04 a.m.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119269788721663302.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

SAN FRANCISCO -- A group of Internet, media and technology companies plans
to announce today a set of guidelines they have agreed on aimed at
protecting copyrights online, according to a person familiar with the
matter.

The companies supporting the principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion,
Microsoft Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.'s Fox and MySpace units, Viacom
Inc. and Walt Disney Co., the familiar person says. Notably absent is Google
Inc., which had been in discussions about possibly joining the group, people
familiar with the matter say.

The guidelines are meant to address copyright-related issues that have
flared up as user posting of content -- particularly video -- to the Web has
boomed.

The agreed-upon principles include using technology to eliminate
copyright-infringing content uploaded by users to Web sites, and blocking
any infringing material before it is publicly accessible, says the person
familiar with the matter.

Google on Monday unveiled technology it has been testing to automate the
identification of copyrighted material on its YouTube video-sharing service.
It said the technology cannot yet prevent infringing content from being
posted initially, though it can pull flagged content off the site "in a
matter of a few minutes."

Viacom in March sued Google, alleging willful copyright infringement by
YouTube and claiming over $1 billion in damages. Google has said that it
complies with U.S. law by removing any infringing video clips when requested
by the content owners.

Write to Kevin J. Delaney at kevin.delaney at wsj.com