Youtube Ties Up with 6 Japanese Firms

Google's Youtube has been in trouble with Japan and its content providers because of the many illegal uploads that get sent to the video-sharing website.

In a bid to overcome the criticism that Youtube violates copyright protection, Youtube is forging partnerships with:

1. Sky Perfect TV

2. Mixi – a growing social network

3. Casio Computer Co offers digital cameras designed to upload videos specifically to Youtube.

Japan is the second most popular country using Youtube, behind the United States which is number one.

Youtube and Japanese content providers feud over the

downloading of copyrighted materials.

Youtube has a plan for new "fingerprinting" tools to identify copy-righted contents on its site. They are do out in the fall.

The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers are also at odds with Youtube.

Yahoo Japan has round the clock video police checking it Yahoo Videocast.

The short of it is, Google is just a medium. The copyright violators are the one's who post the content, not the ones who show it.

So, does Google or Youtube really need to consider the copyrights in Japan?