Indeed, a perusal of YouTube now displays the words "This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Japan Broadcasting Corporation because its content was used without permission" in red letters, enclosed within a red border.

Mulboyne wrote:I saw quite a few of those notices when I was searching for videos from Kohaku....

The always charming Mari diary wrote about NHK's anti-SPOO policy:

[INDENT]Someone uploaded the culprit TV scene to Youtube. NHK protested to Youtube about copyright and Youtube deleted it and showed this messege instead. However someone uploaded it again and Youtube deleted it, then someone uploaded it again and Youtube deleted it again. It's a squirrel cage. I don't know if you will see the movie or message but if you want, please try THIS or search for Spoo or Spu or ス]

As video-sharing site YouTube rides an enormous wave of popularity, a research firm has expressed doubts about the company's business prospects. Josh Martin, an IDC research analyst, issued a report Thursday asserting that YouTube will struggle to squeeze profits from its video-sharing business, primarily because its audience has grown accustomed to paying nothing for the service... YouTube owns more than 40 percent of the burgeoning video-sharing market, and more than 13 million people log on to watch homemade movies that are uploaded by fans of the site every month. But even while the company's profile mushrooms, and more than a year since YouTube was founded, executives have yet to roll out a business model.

YouTube representatives have said the company will sell ads, which will be introduced slowly in coming months...Introducing ads may alienate viewers. In such a case, "how long until a (YouTube competitor), without advertising, emerges to siphon the YouTube defectors?" Martin asked in his report...Martin said in his report that he expects copyright issues to plague YouTube and its rivals well into the future. He compares the challenges ahead of YouTube to those faced by Napster as it tried to transform itself from a free file-sharing system into a paid-subscription service. "In the late 1990s Napster...achieved similar cult status (as YouTube) but was quickly abandoned when it attempted to become a legitimate business," Martin wrote.

Anyone interested in watching a man catch a snake in his mouth or viewing an invisible octopus need look no further than YouTube, a U.S. Internet site popular with Japanese visitors... Success on that scale invites emulation. Fuji Television Network Inc. and Transcosmos Inc. jointly launched the Watch Me! TV site on a trial basis on Thursday. The full service is expected in October. The Internet advertising agency CyberAgent Inc. also started a video posting service on its portal on Thursday. The U.S.-affiliated search site Ask.jp Co. began a similar service on a trial basis in June. Site operators, however, have to be vigilant in deleting copyrighted material. An official at a major Internet company said video posting sites owe their popularity to illegal content. "Nobody knows whether a site can comply with the law and still be popular," the official said.
... Fuji TV said it plans to release only appropriate clips after they have been thoroughly checked. Service providers expect advertiser-based revenue because it is difficult to charge for posting or viewing video. Still, the business model for video posting sites is unclear. Fuji TV said it expects the new video site to see profits only in its fourth year. "We will think about what sort of business we will make it into after doing something that becomes popular," said Susumu Fujita, president of CyberAgent.

Youtube, the booming American Web site where surfers share short videos, is taking off in Japan, too. The number of Japanese visitors per month has more than quadrupled to 6.4 million since February, an unprecedented success for an English-language Web site. Recently, clips of television shows on a celebrity scandal received 3 million hits in just a matter of days. "It just shows how much people want to see certain videos," and how utterly others have failed to find the content Japan really wants, says Yoshikazu Tanaka, president of GREE, a social networking Web service.

YouTube is shaking the staid world of Japanese broadcasters. When Japanese Internet ventures like Rakuten and Livedoor have tried to buy TV stations for their content, they've been swatted down by big media companies. But the popularity of YouTube, which limits videos to a few minutes, has caught broadcasters by surprise, and so far remains beyond their reach. "It's just baffling," says Internet consultant Satoshi Watanabe. "There's this whole collection of Japanese television shows on the Web, convenient to watch but not supposed to be there."

That may change. "We often get asked how much we have been affected. It's massive, and we just couldn't calculate how many cases there are," says Youichi Ueno, a spokesman for Fuji Television Network. He says two of his colleagues now search for illegal copies and e-mail removal requests (up to a couple hundred a day) to YouTube. Some broadcasters "are now beginning to say something has got to give," says Watanabe.

Popular magazines and Web sites carry worried headlines, stressing the big media view that those who download TV shows are lawbreakers. Experts say the cost of dealing with heavy traffic and the risk of copyright battles may hurt YouTube, since it is not yet selling ads in Japan. But Japanese copycats like Watch Me! TV, launched July 13 by an arm of Fuji TV, plan to sell ads. "To us, YouTube is a pioneer, but not a rival," says its president and CEO Tadashi Tokizawa, adding that Fuji is careful to respect copyrights.

Already, though, YouTube has become a major conduit of the popular buzz. A cartoon aired by a local TV station, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, has become a national phenomenon, thanks to more than 2,000 related clips, including parodies, now available on YouTube. "We used to say 'Did you see this and that program on TV last night?' Since YouTube came, we can talk about it with more people," says Shunichi Kojima, a marketer for a mobile handset company. "I check the site just to keep up with the conversation." It will be interesting to see how long this conversation can survive, in a country that has been hard on Internet innovators

Mulboyne wrote:Newsweek: Japan Too, YouTube?

....A cartoon aired by a local TV station, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, has become a national phenomenon, thanks to more than 2,000 related clips, including parodies, now available on YouTube....

~~Pocky~~ of ani-pock.net/ points us to an anime fan tribute dance craze in Japan.
[INDENT]"In America you have the Numa Numa Dance. In Japan, we have the Haruhi Suzumiya Dance. The dance is from a popular anime . But now everyone recreates their own version it." Link to a YouTube video montage..."[/INDENT]

The BBC has struck a content deal with YouTube, the web's most popular video sharing website, owned by Google. Three YouTube channels - one for news and two for entertainment - will showcase short clips of BBC content. The BBC hopes that the deal will help it reach YouTube's monthly audience of more than 70 million users and drive extra traffic to its own website. The corporation will also get a share of the advertising revenue generated by traffic to the new YouTube channels...more...