Pirated movies being 'smuggled' into Youtube
Pirated versions of recent movies have been uploaded to video sharing site YouTube, apparently bypassing Googleâs anti-piracy technology, a tech site reported Saturday. A report in PC Magazine said at least 25 movies, including âFast Five" and âScream 4," as well as âCars 2" and âKung Fu Panda 2," had been made available for viewing on YouTube. âThe available movies seem to prove that Googleâs decision to eliminate upload time limits for trusted users may have backfired, with certain users uploading several films along with more innocuous videos. It may also weaken Googleâs relationship with Hollywood, which has strengthened in the past months," PC Mag said. But it said Google was expected to take down these pirated videos. It said the movies appeared to be uploaded from a DVD or from a camcorder secretly brought into a movie theater. In the case of âFast Five," PC Mag found two separate versions of the same movie - one in Hindi, and the other in English. âUnlike previous examples of pirated movies that have appeared on YouTube, the movies arenât named deceptively in an attempt to throw off YouTube. The page where Scream 4 has been uploaded to, for example, is named âScream 4 2011,â" it said. PC Mag said representatives of NBCUniversalâs Universal Pictures, which distributed âFast Five," said they were âlooking into it." Anti-piracy detection The PCMag article noted that YouTube had gained notoriety during its early years for allowing piracy, when it gained attention for pirated clips of popular TV shows and movies. YouTube eventually imposed a 10-minute upload limit for video clips, and introduced âContent ID," which gave content creators an automated way to take down infringing content. Rights holders can also either request that individual films be taken down. âYouTube suspends user accounts that have multiple claims of copyright infringement against them. In each case, the user is notified of a strike on their account and has the opportunity to file a counter-notification if thereâs been a mistake or misidentification," a YouTube spokesperson told PC Mag. â TJD, GMA News