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Google Brings Karaoke Closer to YouTube Fans

Google signs copyright agreement with Japan Rights Clearance Inc.

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

31st of March 2008, 07:53 GMT

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Karaoke is quite a popular activity nowadays

The copyright of the content uploaded on YouTube has always been a problem for the video sharing service's parent company Google, as there are numerous firms

which sued the search giant, accusing it of copyright infringement. Because of that, every new copyright deal signed by Google is welcomed, as it keeps the Mountain View company away from copyright lawsuits and brings the users on the legal side. A few days ago, Google struck such a deal with the Japan Rights Clearance Inc., an organization which holds the rights of approximately 5,000 songs.

According to the deal, the users who want to sing one of the songs owned by JRC can do it without any restriction as long as they upload the recording on Google's video sharing service YouTube. Google has to pay an undisclosed sum to the organization, The Hollywood Reporter wrote in an article published today.

"The agreement we have signed with Google is the first of its kind in Japan, although we expect other rights organizations to follow suit soon. Japanese people like karaoke and, particularly at this time of year, we find lots of young people marking the spring end of the school year by making music videos of themselves and their friends," JRC spokeswoman Miki Imai told the source mentioned above.

This is quite an important step made by Google, no matter if we're talking about avoiding copyright disputes or raising the company's popularity in Japan. As you surely know, Google has encountered lots of copyright lawsuits in the past when numerous firms sued it, requesting important damages. The first name that comes to my mind is Viacom, MTV's and Comedy Central's owner, that sued Google for posting clips on YouTube without authorization, requesting no less than $1 billion in damages.

TAGS:

google | youtube | japan | copyright

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