by SEO Consultant
S. Inarejos
The French producers of Flach Film took legal action against Google last week, claiming copyright infringement over their film 'The World According to Bush', which was recently posted on Google Video. According to Google, the film was downloaded over 43,000 times in "a very short period". Although the video was immediately removed from Google France following the allegations, the video was still available last Thursday on the English language version of the search engine. S. Inarejos
Flach Film is only the latest media company seeking compensation for the loss of business on the internet. This lawsuit comes nearly two months after Google's acquisition of YouTube, after which many reporters pointed out the potential copyright infringement issues that the search engine would encounter upon taking on the internet video giant.
'The World According to Bush'
The film in the middle of the dispute is a 2004 documentary titled 'Le Monde selon Bush', or 'The World According to Bush' in English. This documentary follows the allegations made in Michael Moore's award-winning film 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.
The script for 'The World According to Bush' is based on the investigations of Eric Laurent, a correspondent for the French newspaper, Le Figaro. The facts are mainly concentrated on the first four years of George Bush's time in the White House. One of the many controversies presented by this documentary is the business nature of Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the American President, who dealt with the Nazis during the Second World War.
Flach Film v Google
"This isn't a war against the Internet. I'm a big fan of Google and I use it all the time," said Jean-Francois LePetit, owner of Flach Film and producer of the documentary.
However, he expressed his concerns over the difficulties the film industry is facing when confronted with free public broadcasting over the internet - something which seriously undermines their profits.
Although the two hour film has been removed from Google Video worldwide, there is still a seven minute video available on YouTube. Additionally, the full script of the film has been available online since 2004.
Through the lawsuit, Flach Film will try to demonstrate that Google is not a passive entity where users submit videos, but rather an editorial media that can select exactly which videos they publish online. The estimated loss calculated by the French producers is said to be around €500,000.
Google responded to this allegation by saying:
"Our terms and conditions specify that users (internet surfers) don't have permission to use videos which they don't own the rights to".
Copyright infringement law
Copyright infringement essentially involves the unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property, which includes reproducing, performing or making derivative works. Effectively, the scripts which are still available on the internet could be considered as copyright infringement, and anyone who has downloaded the video is also acting against copyright law.
So is it Google's fault? Well, not really. Their terms and conditions clearly specify that videos should not be uploaded unless the user has the rights to do so. The information being held and distributed is massive and therefore increasingly difficult to monitor and control. Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible has become a reality; but trying to blame Google for the world's information and content is just a bit unrealistic.
