YouTube rattles broadcasters
2007-04-04 10:41
Tokyo - Satoshi Watanabe smiles wryly as he remembers the day YouTube's young founders showed up in Tokyo dressed awkwardly in suits and ties to try to calm a copyright row.
Before jetting home, YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen agreed to post a Japanese-language notice on the hit US video-sharing website warning against illegal uploads.
"They did not offer an apology, but they seemed to be sincere about addressing our requests," said Watanabe, who represented the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in the February meeting.
"They said they were wearing suits and ties for the first time in their lives," said Watanabe.
At the request of the 23 Japanese rights owner groups, YouTube last year deleted some 30 000 illegal uploads.
But Watanabe said he was not optimistic that it would stop the steady stream of unauthorised new clips being added and the right owners would like YouTube to do even more to stop the uploads.
YouTube, which was cooked up by Hurley and Chen at a dinner party as an easy way to share home videos online, has seen an explosion in popularity in tech-savvy Japan.
As its influence grows, Japan's traditional broadcasters are growing increasingly anxious about the mushrooming number of clips from television programmes and other media appearing on the site.
Trawling through a huge pool of clips
Major broadcasters now trawl through the huge pool of YouTube clips to find illegal uploads on the website, which was originally created to share personal videos such as a friend's wedding or a pet dog's strange habits.
A quick search for "Japan" on YouTube brings up an almost endless list of television clips from comedians and musicians and cartoons.
The website's user base is growing more quickly in Japan than any of the other major websites, including Yahoo Japan, Amazon.co.jp or Wikipedia.org, according to the latest report by internet research firm NetRatings Japan.
Even though it does not have a separate Japanese-language version, last month YouTube notched up its 10 millionth Japanese visitor after just 14 months - one-fifth of the nation's entire home internet users.
It took even Google's Japanese site 51 months, while Wikipedia.org needed 60 months to reach the same level, NetRatings said.
But despite YouTube's popularity, some Japanese media companies say they are unfazed by the competition.
Yoshinori Takagaki, an executive at Japan's Usen Corp, one of the country's most successful online broadcasters, said YouTube's lack of credibility was a major hurdle to its business prospects.
"We don't try to create interactive media," he said, calling services such as YouTube "private media" and arguing that they violated Japanese copyright law.
Sharing that goes beyond personal computers
"Private media do not grow as a profitable business. YouTube is illegal in Japan, after all," he said.
But Takagaki said that the website's popularity could be a boost to other online broadcasters as it introduces more Japanese to the possibility of watching films online.
Japan is not a stand-alone case in a world where new information sharing technologies have unleashed a series of clashes between copyright protectors and defenders of freedom of information.
US entertainment giant Viacom has launched a billion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuit against Google, which bought YouTube last year for $1.65bn.
More recently media titans NBC Universal and News Corp announced plans to take on YouTube with their own online video website.
Despite the popularity of YouTube here, the Japanese government is working on an information technology project that could far overshadow the video-swapping website.
To be fully launched in July, the Joho Dai Kokai, or "Great Information Voyage", aims to create a more advanced level of information sharing that goes beyond personal computers.
Project chief Toshihide Yahiro said the Joho Dai Kokai would be much more advanced than Google, which is dominated by text even though it offers searches for images and videos.
He cited the possibility of accumulating different types of information such as people's medical data or driving habits.
"For example, we already have a type of car that automatically hits the brakes when an object quickly approaches," said Yahiro.
"What if your car automatically monitors your health condition and adjusts its functions accordingly?" he said. "What if traffic lights sense your eye movements and sound alarms if you fail to pay attention?"