Islamabad: PTA has directed all concerned operators to shut down website www.youtube.com in view of growing sacrilegious contents on it. It may be mentioned that PTA after all possible avenues were used within its jurisdiction, including using regular channels available on the FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE to launch protest, to avoid appearances of derogatory material available on their websites - which increased in numbers as time passed by, that PTA decided to completely shut down these sites from being viewed within Pakistan. PTA has so far blocked more than 450 links on internet containing derogatory material.
It was not only in line with the Constitution of Pakistan, the wishes of the people of Pakistan but also an extension of the court orders passed by the honorable High Court of Pakistan and directions of the Government of Pakistan. PTA has already announced a phone number and a complaint number to receive complaints on the issue.
The attitude of administrators at FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE was in contravention to the WSIS Resolutions and their own policies advertised on the web for general public. PTA would welcome the concerned authorities of FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE to contact the PTA for resolving the issue at the earliest which ensures religious harmony and respect.
Around the globe, YouTube has become a metaphor for the democratizing power of the Internet and information. YouTube gives unknown performers, filmmakers, and artists new ways to promote their work to a global audience and rise to worldwide fame; makes it possible for political candidates and elected officials to interact with the public in new ways; enables first-hand reporting from war zones and from inside repressive regimes; and lets students of all ages and backgrounds audit classes at leading universities.
Yet YouTube and sites like it will cease to exist in their current form if Viacom and others have their way in their lawsuits against YouTube.
In their opening briefs in the Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit (which have been made public today), Viacom and plaintiffs claim that YouTube doesn't do enough to keep their copyrighted material off the site. We ask the judge to rule that the safe harbors in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA") protect YouTube from the plaintiffs' claims. Congress enacted the DMCA to benefit the public by permitting open platforms like YouTube to flourish on the Web. It gives online services protection from copyright liability if they remove unauthorized content once they’re on notice of its existence on the site.
With some minor exceptions, all videos are automatically copyrighted from the moment they are created, regardless of who creates them. This means all videos on YouTube are copyrighted -- from Charlie Bit My Finger, to the video of your cat playing the piano and the video you took at your cousin’s wedding. The issue in this lawsuit is not whether a video is copyrighted, but whether it's authorized to be on the site. The DMCA (and common sense) recognizes that content owners, not service providers like YouTube, are in the best position to know whether a specific video is authorized to be on an Internet hosting service.
Because content owners large and small use YouTube in so many different ways, determining a particular copyright holder’s preference or a particular uploader’s authority over a given video on YouTube is difficult at best. And in this case, it was made even harder by Viacom’s own practices.
For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.
Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.
Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube -- and every Web platform -- to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.
Viacom’s brief misconstrues isolated lines from a handful of emails produced in this case to try to show that YouTube was founded with bad intentions, and asks the judge to believe that, even though Viacom tried repeatedly to buy YouTube, YouTube is like Napster or Grokster.
Nothing could be further from the truth. YouTube has long been a leader in providing media companies with 21st century tools to control, distribute, and make money from their content online. Working in cooperation with rights holders, our Content ID system scans over 100 years worth of video every day and lets rights holders choose whether to block, leave up, or monetize those videos. Over 1,000 media companies are now using Content ID -- including every major U.S. network broadcaster, movie studio, and record label -- and the majority of those companies choose to make money from user uploaded clips rather than block them. This is a true win-win that reflects our long-standing commitment to working with rights holders to give them the choices they want, while advancing YouTube as a platform for creativity.
We look forward to defending YouTube, and upholding the balance that Congress struck in the DMCA to protect the rights of copyright holders, the progress of technological innovation, and the public interest in free expression.
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When the first ball of this year’s Indian Premier League cricket season is bowled, fans across the planet will have a front row seat in the world’s biggest online sports stadium. Tonight the Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders will face off in Mumbai at 8 p.m. IST, and the YouTube global community will be able to tune in to the IPL’s YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/ipl) for streaming and on-demand access to witness the start of what promises to be one of the most widely-distributed sporting events in history. Fans can watch matches, highlight videos, player interviews and much more all on the IPL’s YouTube Channel.
Named by Forbes as the "hottest sports league in the world" with revenues comparable to the world’s most popular leagues, the IPL season is a 60-match, 43-day tournament that features some of the best talent in cricket today. You can come to YouTube and keep up with the action any time, anywhere, and connect with fans across the globe. Watch as the match happens, or if you missed a match, tune in later to see what happened. The entire season will be streamed around the world on YouTube, except in the U.S., where matches will be time-delayed and made available 15 minutes after the match ends.
On the IPL Channel, you’ll see three tabs:
Today’s Matches: This is where you can watch streamed matches as they happen. (Note that the stream will be delayed by a few minutes.) Click through at any time to see the match scorecard.
Recent Matches: Catch up any time on the full action of matches that have already happened. Watch Sachin cream the ball through the covers, Warney taking his latest wicket and more.
Highlights: If you’re short on time, check in here for short videos of player interviews, match highlights, greatest plays, and more.
And for all of you who want to cheer or commiserate with others, check out our Twitter gadget on the channel page to be part of the conversation. You can keep up with the discussion on Twitter with the YouTube IPL hashtag (#youtube_ipl). Share, rate and comment on videos throughout the channel, or upload your own video responses to the action. There's also a link so you can join the Official DLF IPL community on Orkut (www.orkut.com/ipl).
We'll be watching the donkey drops, the five-fers, the flippers and floaters, the half-yorkers and slow sweeps — and cheering alongside you!
Amit Agarwal, Strategic Partner Development Manager
* A googly is a kind of pitch similar to a baseball pitch or a bowling throw in the game cricket; a wicked googly would be a really good pitch.. .
Jeremy Piven is best known as the sharp-tongued Ari Gold on HBO’s Entourage, but today he’s taking a break from berating Vince and the boys to give the YouTube community a glimpse of his softer side by signing on as a Video Volunteers curator. This month, YouTube, Piven and the ONE Campaign are asking you to make videos supporting a nonprofit working on an issue related to global development, such as extreme poverty, access to clean water and sanitation, and preventing disease. With International Women’s Day on March 8 and World Water Day on March 22, it’s an ideal time to tackle some of the problems crippling citizens in developing nations. Piven agrees: Once you’ve created a video for a nonprofit of your choice dealing with global development, submit it to the gadget at www.youtube.com/videovolunteers. Remember: the video has to be about an organization, not just an issue. Piven and the ONE Campaign will pick their top three videos to go on the YouTube homepage at the end of the month. Happy filming!
This week, I've been in Long Beach, CA, attending the TED Conference. If you're not familiar with it, TED is an annual gathering of thought leaders from a variety of fields: science, music, education, health care, politics, environmentalism, entrepreneurialism, technology, design, and more. The goal of the conference is to share "ideas worth spreading." A few years back, the TED organizers decided to share videos of these talks with the world, and we are delighted that they host them on YouTube, as well as their own site, TED.com. If you've never seen a TED talk video before, you're in for a treat. There is truly something for everyone.
Each year while attending the conference, I take careful notes of the session in my sketchbook. It's the best way for me to ensure that I really pay attention to what's being said and also that I absorb as much of the ideas and information as possible. As it turns out, people have told me that my sketchbooks are a pretty nice way to "page through" the conference, so I'd like to share my notes from the 2009 conference with the YouTube community. For the talks that have been posted online, I've linked from the name of the speaker to the talk on YouTube. Here are just a few of my favorites from last year's conference:
Let me know if you enjoyed seeing the notes; I'm taking more this week at the conference and will be happy to share those too! And if you're interested in TED, check out this playlist of talks, curated by 2010 TED Prize Winner Jamie Oliver.
Today, President Obama had his first exclusive interview after his State of the Union speech with you, the YouTube community. The President engaged in a direct conversation about a broad range of issues, from generating jobs to opening up the health care process to investments in nuclear energy.
The best part of the process was that it was driven by you. Five days ago, as the President began his State of the Union address, we opened up our Moderator platform on CitizenTube, and over 55,000 of you submitted and voted on both video and text questions. Some of them were hard-hitting, others were emotional, and some were even funny.
You can watch the full interview now:
Only able to ask less than 0.2% of the 11,696 questions submitted, it was hard to choose the final handful. Here's how the selection process worked: we tried to cover a range of issues, minimize duplicate questions, and include both video and text submissions. First, we looked at which topics had the highest participation -- like jobs, foreign policy, health care and government reform -- to determine how many questions to ask in each category. We then took the top 5% of video and text questions and picked questions that reflected what you cared about. None of them were chosen by the White House or seen by the President before the interview.
In some cases, we combined questions, grouping similar ones from different categories like health care and government reform:
"Why are the health care meetings, procedures, etc not on CSPAN as promised?" - Mr. Anderson, Texas
"How do you expect the people of this country to trust you when you have repeatedly broken promises that were made on the campaign trail. Most recently, the promise to have a transparent healthcare debate..." - Warren Hunter, Brooklyn
Sometimes the top overall question in the category was a video question:
To try to get as many question in as possible, we had a section called "Good idea/Bad idea" in which we tried to solicit short responses from the President on ideas you sent in that might not be presented to him in traditional interviews. And in all cases, we tried to select the top questions that would solicit conversation, lead to substantive answers, and hadn't been asked in previous programs we've had with the President.
We had many more questions on hand than we had time to deliver, so we're pleased that the White House has agreed to respond to more of the top-voted questions in their blog soon, at whitehouse.gov.
We hope this interview brings us one step closer to creating better access to your government through YouTube -- and we'd love to hear your feedback and any other ideas you have on YouTube's political programming.
Some great news for movie buffs.
You can watch some of the popular Bollywood movies on YouTube for free using this page. These are full-length videos so you can just connect you computer to the large TV screen, grab a snach and watch movies from the couch with your whole family.
The collection is currently limited to Hindi movies from film producers like Shemaroo Entertainment, Rajshri and UltraHindi. And like most other YouTube videos, you can embed these movies on your site as well.
For example, here’s one of my favorite Bollywood movie -- Sarkar (the Indian version of The Godfather starring Amitabh Bachchan). I can watch this movie anytime, anywhere as long as I have an Internet connection.
The movies are available in both High Quality and Standard Quality versions. For a list of full-length English movies that are currently available for viewing on YouTube, go to this page. Thanks Brajeshwar for the tip.
Starting today, when you upload a video to YouTube, you'll see a rapid-fire assortment of thumbnails from the video after it begins uploading to the site. Aside from being fun to watch (it's kind of like a flipbook of your video!), this visual representation of the process gives you further peace of mind that the video is indeed processing and will soon be live on the site.
Shortly after the last thumbnail arrives, your video is ready for viewing and sharing.* If you see the flipbook soon after you begin uploading, this means your video will be processed faster and you won't have to wait long for your video link. Read on for recommendations on how to optimize your video file to do this.
If you're uploading in the .mov or .mp4 (aka Quicktime) format, and you produced your video using Final Cut Pro, iMovie or QuicktimePro, click here to learn how to optimize your files. By ensuring the "index" of your file is in front, we can process your video faster. This is referred to by some as "flattening" a file or creating a "fast start" video file. If you're using FLV, ASF or WMV formats, you're fine. If you're using AVI, we'd want that index in front of the file as well. Most digital cameras producing AVI or MVI formats are fine.
How can you tell if your file is a "fast start file" or not? If you start getting the thumbnails before the upload has completed, then this is a fast start video file. If you get the thumbnails after the upload has completed, then your video file is not a fast start video file.
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET we'll be livestreaming the President's State of the Union address on YouTube. As we announced yesterday, not only will you have the opportunity to watch the speech live online, you'll also be able to submit your questions for the President during and after the speech, and the President himself will respond to a collection of your top-voted questions in a live interview at the White House next week.
When the State of the Union address begins at 9 p.m. ET, we'll open a Google Moderator series on CitizenTube (youtube.com/citizentube) that will allow you to submit and vote on questions (in text or on video) for the President. Be ready to submit your questions right after the speech as we'll only keep the platform open for a few days.
How will we know which questions to bring to the President in the interview? You'll tell us by how you voted. After the votes have been cast, we'll assemble a shortlist of the top questions, ensuring that we cover a range of issues, minimize duplicate questions, and include a mix of both video and text submissions. This is your opportunity for an exclusive interview with the President, so be sure to submit great questions and vote for the ones you think should be asked.
If you're submitting your question on video (which we prefer), please be sure to keep it short (20 seconds or less) and use the highest video and audio quality possible so that we can hear you loud and clear.
After the speech, we'll highlight the video of the entire State of the Union address, so those of you who aren't able to see it live can still watch and participate afterwards. We'll also feature Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's official GOP response to the President's State of the Union, in what promises to be a lively and important discussion of our nation's future in 2010.
Every year, the President of the United States addresses a joint session of Congress to deliver his State of the Union address. Required by the U.S. Constitution, the address is the president's chance to take stock of the current condition of the United States and lay out his political agenda for the new year. Presidents have long used new technology to share their message directly with the American people. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to broadcast the State of the Union over the radio in 1923, and President Truman made history in 1947 when he became the first to deliver his address to a live television audience.
This year's State of the Union speech will also make history. It will be the first time that citizens will have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions during the speech -- and to hear the president's response to those questions. On Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET, during our live broadcast of the State of the Union on Citizentube, we'll open up a Moderator series for you to submit your questions for the president in video or in text (if you have the time, we'd prefer video). Over the following few days, you'll be able to submit additional questions and vote on your favorites too. Then next week (we'll announce the exact timing soon), we'll bring some of your top-voted questions to the president in a YouTube interview from the White House, which we'll also broadcast live on Citizentube. As always, questions are subject to YouTube's Terms of Service.
Already, discussions on YouTube about the State of the Union have been lively. Tomorrow on our homepage, we'll spotlight the responses of four experts to your ideas on the State of the Union. Check out those clips in the lead-up to the speech, then tune in tomorrow night to ask the President your questions. We'll also feature the GOP response to the president's address, in what promises to be an engaging discussion on the direction of the country in 2010.
We live in a time of rapid technological and political change. Groundbreaking technologies give more people more access to information than ever before. Citizens have the means to broadcast their ideas to the world with the click of a few buttons. And increased adoption of the Internet by citizens and political and media leaders have made our public dialogue more diverse than ever before. Amidst all this change, the question of, "What is Democracy", is more relevant now than ever before. And there's just one week left for you to upload your answer, in YouTube's partnership with the State Department's Democracy Video Challenge.
As we found out during the first Democracy Video Challenge, the answer to that question of just what democracy is varies greatly depending on where you're from. Over 900 people from over 95 countries weighed in with their definitions of Democracy - here are the videos from the finalists:
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Just like last year, the winners in 2010 will be determined by an international jury, and then by votes from the YouTube community. The prize is impressive: six regional finalists will receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles to meet with filmmakers and government officials for conversations and film trainings. Here's a clip of the meeting the winners had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Join the discussion on the definition of democracy by January 31st.
Over the past week, citizens and organizations from around the world have rallied around Haiti, offering tremendous aid for the relief effort currently underway. But even though tens of millions of dollars have been raised online via sites like YouTube, Haiti's road to recovery will be long, and more financial support is desperately needed.
That's why tonight, in partnership with a variety of media companies, we're live-streaming "Hope for Haiti Now," a benefit concert for earthquake relief. Hosted by George Clooney, Wyclef Jean and Anderson Cooper, the event will feature performances by Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Shakira, U2, Coldplay, Taylor Swift and many more.
Today's blog post comes from the chilly slopes of Park City, Utah, where we’re getting ready to kick-off our sponsorship of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. So, why are we here?
Independent filmmakers have been critical contributors to our platform ever since we launched our site, almost five years ago. In that time, we’ve increasingly come to understand some of the challenges facing these filmmakers: technology has made it easier and cheaper than ever to produce films; more films have led to more competition for audiences; more competition for audiences has led to more films needing massive marketing budgets to cut through the clutter. And these high costs have made it difficult for independent films to compete, leaving too many films going unseen.
While YouTube has offered an easy and economical way for filmmakers -- as well as content creators of all kinds -- to instantaneously connect with fans around the world, many of them have told us that the ad-supported business model doesn't always meet their distribution and monetization needs. And so, we are excited today to announce our partnership with the Sundance Film Festival to make five films from the 2010 and 2009 festivals available for rent for U.S. users on YouTube starting this Friday and running through Sunday, January 31. In addition to these five films, a small collection of rental videos from other U.S. partners across different industries, including health and education, will be made available in the weeks ahead. We’re also excited to put out the call for more independent filmmakers to join the rental program as part of our "Filmmakers Wanted" campaign at the festival.
These are early days and in the coming weeks we'll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option. Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work -- they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights.
But enough talking! You want to watch movies! To prepare for Friday's debut, take a minute to set up your Google Checkout account and watch the trailers below to decide what to rent. On Friday, we'll post another blog to walk you through how to find and start watching some of these independent films.
HTML5 is a new web standard that is gaining popularity rapidly and adds many new features to your web experience. Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback. This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin.
Our support for HTML5 is an early experiment, and there are some limitations. HTML5 on YouTube doesn't support videos with ads, captions, or annotations and it requires a browser that supports both the video tag and h.264 encoded video (currently that means Chrome, Safari, and ChromeFrame on Internet Explorer). We will be expanding the capabilities of the player in the future, so get ready for new and improved versions in the months to come.
To try it out, go to the HTML5 page via TestTube or visit this page and join the experiment. This will enable HTML5 video for your browser, provided that it's one of the browsers mentioned above and fits in with the parameters we already referenced. (If you've opted in to other experiments, you may not get the HTML5 player.) You can also enable Feather watch (visit http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta) along with HTML5 video for an even simpler, faster YouTube experience.
We are very excited about HTML5 as an open standard and want to be part of moving HTML5 forward on the web.
Dr. King, one of the United States' most beloved national heroes, led the nation through the struggles of the civil rights movement with great courage and impassioned oration. Today, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the Washington Post is inviting people to share videos illustrating which of Dr. King's words inspired them most. We're showcasing videos on the homepage today that feature portions of his speeches -- both the familiar and the lesser-known -- as performed by users.
User baratunde recites a section of a speech delivered by Dr. King at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, condemning the Vietnam War:
Just about every schoolchild in the United States, and many around the world, has heard Martin Luther King's speeches and listened to the messages within. Do you have a favorite section or phrase that you find particularly moving, inspirational, thought-provoking or even controversial? What are you memories or impressions of Dr. King and the words he left behind?
OceanKing97 is a 14-year-old using video to raise awareness about the plight of dolphins. His videos are earnest...and a little awkward (but who wasn't at 14, right?). Unfortunately, some people have picked up on his awkwardness and have posted negative, even hateful, comments on his videos.
Ever seen a situation like this, or been involved in one yourself? We thought we'd take a moment to share a few tips on what you can do if people post negative comments on your YouTube videos.
1. Delete harsh comments and think about blocking the user who posted them so they can't view your other videos or leave more comments. It's easy -- just use our Help & Safety Tool.
2. Report comments that insult your race, gender or a disability you might have by clicking on the "hate speech" button.
3. If specific threats are made against you and you feel unsafe (for example, if the person might know personal information about you like your name and location), tell your parents or teacher and consider whether you should call 911.
4. Avoid making negative comments and encourage your friends to keep their comments respectful too.
Thankfully, OceanKing97 isn't a real user -- he was invented by the National Crime Prevention Council to help teach YouTube users about cyberbullying. Check out his video and do your part to keep YouTube safe and fun for everyone.
Victoria Grand, Head of Community Policy, recently watched "Haiti at Risk"
The excitement of the new decade and our upcoming fifth anniversary has the YouTube team itching to make the site experience better than ever before. We have all kinds of ideas about new things we could build and launch, but we are also taking some significant time in the coming months to do some early "spring cleaning" on the site design and user experience.
What will this mean to you? Well, it means you'll see some things about the site design evolving to be more consistent across the site. And some things that haven't worked as smoothly as we would have liked them to will get the attention they deserve. Lastly, we may determine that some things we tried out just didn't fly and remove them from the site.
We'll be using a number of inputs to build our "to do" list: usage data that shows the things you use the most versus things that very few people use; usability testing that can help us understand what's broken that needs fixing; and, last but not least, we'd like to hear from you directly...
What would you want to see fixed on the site? What would you remove completely, if you had your druthers? We'll use your feedback to help prioritize what we focus on, so we can all experience a cleaner, easier-to-use YouTube.
Please enter your feedback here and/or browse and vote on ideas others have had. We'll take a few weeks to digest your comments and will respond directly to the ideas you're most excited about.
This is absolutely brilliant. You can make your own music using a YouTube video!
Hit the play button, wait until the video loads in your browser and then click any of the piano keys inside the YouTube video itself to play some music.
It’s a very creative use of annotations feature inside YouTube. Thanks @Pogue. Update: You got to click inside the video as shown in the following animation. The annotations will appear only when the video has finished loading.
Also see: Play Video Games on YouTube
The new year can mean change and a fresh start. It's when many of us hit our reset buttons and commit to resolutions we hope will transform our lives -- even if just for a few months. Often these revolve around getting healthy: losing weight, eating better, and going to the gym more often are common pledges made. The BetterYou channel, sponsored by Pfizer, is brimming with videos from partners like Livestrong, Diethealth and Exercise TV to help you meet those goals. Here are just a few examples of what you'll find there:
Browse the channel for videos with a hefty dose of instruction and motivation; the collection is geared toward helping you power through the year.
With awards shows like the Golden Globes, Grammys and Oscars just around the corner, it will soon be the season to celebrate some of the world's most high-profile artistic achievements. But on YouTube, many of you celebrate the arts every day -- for example, you might favorite a video that features a grade-school chorus, watch a film in the Screening Room, or upload a video of your recent dance performance.
At the same time, organizations that support the arts -- from museums to orchestras, ballet companies to musical education programs -- are sorely in need of funding and promotion. That's where you can help. YouTube Video Volunteers and guest curator Dr. Phil want you to create a video that shines the spotlight on an organization that advances the arts in your community or on the national stage. The top three video creators will see their name in lights on the YouTube homepage at the end of the month. Watch this video to learn more and hear how Dr. Phil is supporting the arts himself:
We hope you'll use your artistic talents to help your favorite organization. You could write a song in favor of your city's modern art museum or make a short film about a nonprofit that supports music in schools. Use your creativity to make sure that the arts continue to flourish.
