IBNLive.com
Sau,
Paulo, Brazil: Video sharing Web site YouTube is blocking steamy footage
showing supermodel Daniela Cicarelli in intimate scenes with her boyfriend,
the company said a day after a judge ordered it to find a way to stop
Brazilian viewers from seeing the video.
''The video in question was removed from YouTube because it violated
our terms of use,'' YouTube said on Friday in a statement attributed
to spokeswoman Jaime Schopflin. ''It was recently uploaded again
and we became aware of it through media reports and users flagging
the content, and we removed these copies immediately.''
YouTube's announcement came after court officials said on Thursday
that the judge issued the injunction requiring the company to prevent
Brazilian Internet users accessing the wildly popular video showing
Cicarelli and Brazilian banker Renato Malzoni making out along a
beach near the Spanish city of Cadiz.
The two sued YouTube in September and won an injunction for the
removal of the video, but Sao Paulo state Supreme Court Justice
Enio Santarelli Zuliani expanded his order this week after the clip
continued to appear periodically, the court's press office said.
Cicarelli, one of the country's best-known models, hosts a show
on Brazilian MTV and was previously engaged to soccer great Ronaldo,
who plays for Spain's famous Real Madrid team. Two Brazilian sites
that ran the video complied with the original order, but Malzoni
went back to court after it kept appearing on YouTube, owned by
Google Inc.
Though the lawyer for Malzoni complained that YouTube's system for
blocking videos was inadequate because people kept loading the video
to the site under different names, the company said it has mounted
a strong effort to block the video and other offensive content amid
skyrocketing site growth.
''We have over 65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube every day and our
community effectively polices the site and flags inappropriate videos
to be reviewed,'' Schopflin said in the statement. ''We have people
reviewing flagged content 24 hours a day, seven days a week and
work hard to streamline the notification process by providing tools
for people to alert us.''
Zuliani is a judge in Brazil's most populous state of Sao Paulo,
where Internet use is heaviest, but has the power to issue an order
affecting all of Brazil, the court's press office said.
YouTube said the company ''is under the jurisdiction of the US legal
system, however we reach a global audience and strive to provide
a community where people from around the world can share videos
in a safe and lawful manner.''
The case now goes automatically to a three-member panel of judges
who will decide whether to make the order permanent and whether
to fine YouTube as much as US$119,000 for each day the video was
viewable, said Rubens Decousseau Tilkian. He represented both Cicarelli
and Malzoni in the first case, but Malzoni pursued the second case
without Ciarelli as plaintiff.
The case is not YouTube's first brush with litigation, although
prior disputes have often been over copyright. In July, independent
news reporter Robert Tur sued YouTube in US District Court in Los
Angeles, claiming footage of his was posted and circulated without
his permission.
YouTube also deleted nearly 30,000 files after a Japanese entertainment
trade group complained, and through negotiations with leading US
copyright holders agreed to deploy an audio-signature technology
that can spot specific clips.
When it bought YouTube in November, Google set aside shares now
worth about US$220 million as a financial cushion to cover losses
or possible legal bills for the frequent copyright violations on
the site.
Meanwhile, Google last September appealed a Brazilian judge's order
to turn over information on users of the company's Orkut social-networking
service.
Google insisted it already had complied with court requests to identify
individuals accused of using Orkut to spread child pornography and
engage in hate speech against blacks, Jews and homosexuals.
The company has said it is open to data requests from foreign governments
as long as they comply with US laws and are issued within the country
in which the information is stored. |