Group of Net, Media Companies Agree on Copyright Guidelines

As reported by the Wall Street Journal > The companies supporting the principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Microsoft Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.'s Fox and MySpace units, Viacom Inc., Veoh Networks Inc., and Walt Disney Co. Notably absent is Google Inc., which had been in discussions about possibly joining the group. 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. 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."

Music Publishers to Join YouTube Suit

The NPA (National Music Publishers' Associatioin) said it was joining a lawsuit indicating that songwriters were not getting correct compensation from YouTube videos. Article