Pirated movies being 'smuggled' into Youtube

Pirated versions of recent movies have been uploaded to video sharing site YouTube, apparently bypassing Google’s anti-piracy technology, a tech site reported Saturday. A report in PC Magazine said at least 25 movies, including “Fast Five" and “Scream 4," as well as “Cars 2" and “Kung Fu Panda 2," had been made available for viewing on YouTube. “The available movies seem to prove that Google’s 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 Google’s 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 “Fast Five," PC Mag found two separate versions of the same movie - one in Hindi, and the other in English. “Unlike previous examples of pirated movies that have appeared on YouTube, the movies aren’t named deceptively in an attempt to throw off YouTube. The page where Scream 4 has been uploaded to, for example, is named ‘Scream 4 2011,’" it said. PC Mag said representatives of NBCUniversal’s Universal Pictures, which distributed “Fast Five," said they were “looking 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 “Content 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. “YouTube 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 there’s been a mistake or misidentification," a YouTube spokesperson told PC Mag. — TJD, GMA News