YouTube Gets J-Pop Go-Ahead

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Google's YouTube May Post Japanese Songs This Week, Nikkei Says
Google Inc.'s YouTube unit may begin legally posting copyrighted Japanese songs on its Web site as early as this week after agreeing to accept conditions from a group that collects and distributes royalties...The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, or JASRAC, last week agreed to provisionally allow record companies and others who hold rights to music to post copyrighted songs on YouTube, a video-sharing site, Nikkei said. The decision came after Google agreed to accept the group's demands in principle last week, Nikkei reported. The society had asked YouTube to remove items with copyrighted songs and develop ways to stop unauthorized use of music on the site, Nikkei said. EMI Music Japan Inc. and other record companies may start showing promotional videos and other material containing copyrighted Japanese songs as soon as this week, Nikkei reported. The society plans to collect fees retroactively after reaching a formal agreement with Google, Nikkei said.

[Mulboyne]

YouTube and JASRAC have now concluded this contract which gives the online company permission to use the Japanese organization's copyright on around 7 million songs. Like a similar agreement with the smaller Japan Rights Clearance, this primarily means that JASRAC will not object to people posting videos of their own performances of Japanese songs.

[DrP]

Woo hoo - who cares. The most video traffic in Japan is still AV related - agesage and morotube. Plus dont forget NicoNico.....