[Harp-L] MUSIC VIDEOS MAY BE PULLED FROM YouTube & MySpace

[BostonMoeJo@xxxxxxx]

MUSIC VIDEOS MAY BE PULLED FROM YouTube & MySpace 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Universal Music  Group, the world's biggest record 
company, is stepping up pressure against  popular online sites YouTube and MySpace, 
accusing them of infringing the  copyrights of its artists' music videos.

Universal chief executive Doug  Morris described video site YouTube and News 
Corp.'s social networking site  MySpace as "copyright infringers".

"The poster child for (user-generated  media) sites is MySpace and YouTube," 
said Morris "We believe these new  businesses are copyright infringers and owe 
us tens of millions of  dollars."

He added, "How we deal with these companies will be revealed  shortly."

"This could be the first salvo from a content player against  business models 
based on user-generated content, much of which relies on  copyrighted 
material."

The runaway success of the free-to-view  online video sites has raised the 
question of whether rights holders such as  record companies and movie companies 
should be compensated, even if the clips  are uploaded by the users.

To date, YouTube has said it will take down  any copyrighted material 
illegally posted on the site once it has been alerted  by the rights holder.

Record companies are keen to avoid repeating the  mistake they believe they 
made when Viacom Inc.'s MTV was set up 25 years ago --  allowing their artists' 
music to be aired for free.

Morris in his remarks  to investors on Tuesday said MTV "built a 
multibillion-dollar company on our  (music) ... for virtually nothing.We learned a hard 
lesson." 
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