That group of Japanese rights holders who instructed YouTube to remove 30,000 files off its system back in October has now told the video sharing website that it needs to introduce a string of new measures to stop the future upload of copyright material owned by the organisations it represents.
The group, which includes various Japanese broadcasters plus rights holders represented by the country's author's society JASRAC, sent YouTube bosses a new letter on Monday, which was subsequently made public yesterday. It argues that while YouTube is operating a Notice And Takedown system in line with the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (ie when copyright owners make them aware their content has been illegally uploaded to the site, YouTube remove it), because of the high quantity of content being shared that system alone is not sufficient to protect copyright owners, who cannot, the group argue, be expected to monitor such a prolific sharing network.
To that end they want YouTube to "implement an infringement-preventive system" - ie to introduce measures that would discourage their users from sharing copyright content. This includes explicit warnings on the site, in Japanese, stressing that it is illegal to upload copyrighted content owned by others, and a pledge to cancel the accounts of any users who are found to have uploaded such content.
The rights holders have requested that YouTube respond to their letter by 15 Dec, though they have not indicated what steps they might take if the video sharing site fails to adhere to their wishes. Whether YouTube will try to placate the content owners by offering them a stake in their business, as they reportedly did with three of the major record companies, remains to be seen.