Japan: go ahead and post TV shows online, just pay royalties

How do you get people to stop posting television clips and full episodes to the internet? You probably don't. But a government panel in Japan has an interesting take on that idea: don't try to stop internet pirates, just regulate them.

The Intellectual Property Rights Policy Work Group is expected to issue its recommendation this week. If adopted, anyone would be allowed to post television programs online without permission of the content owner. But anyone who uploads such video would be required by law to pay a royalty to the content owner.

Under Japanese law, television rights belong not just to a network or studio, but also to the actors, making it very difficult to get permission from every stakeholder to redistribute programming. The move isn't likely to be popular with content producers, since it limits their control over how their material is distributed, and takes away their ability to negotiate royalty fees.

But it makes a certain amount of sense. As the RIAA and MPAA in the U.S. are well aware, going after pirates is an expensive and time consuming process. Sure, it might be almost as difficult to get everyone who is uploading video to pay royalties as it is to sue them into oblivion. But such a law could be a start. It would allow YouTube, for example, to begin charging fees to users who upload copyrighted content, both reducing the amount of pirated material online and increasing revenues for content holders.

[via Ars Technica]

Tags: copyright, intellectual property, IntellectualProperty, japan