http://uk.intruders.tv/Mike-Dixon-of-testcard-tv-the-controversial-TV-aggregator_a235.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/15/google.youtube

Press Releases
Internet and Media Industry Leaders Unveil Principles to Foster Online Innovation While Protecting Copyrights

October 18, 2007

Several of the world’s leading Internet and media companies today announced their joint support for a set of collaborative principles that enable the continued growth and development of user-generated content online and respect the intellectual property of content owners.

The principles serve as a comprehensive set of guidelines to help user-generated content (UGC) services and content creators work together towards their collective goal of bringing more content to more consumers through legitimate channels. The principles acknowledge a collective respect for protecting copyrights and recognize that filtering technologies must be effective and are only a part of what is necessary to achieve this goal.

The companies supporting these principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks Inc., Viacom Inc. and The Walt Disney Company.

The principles, which are attached and available in full at http://www.ugcprinciples.com, call for a broad range of constructive and cooperative efforts by copyright owners and UGC services. They include:

Implementation of state of the art filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public;
Upgrading technology when commercially reasonable;
Cooperating to ensure that the technology is implemented in a manner that effectively balances legitimate interests, including fair use;
Cooperation in developing procedures for promptly addressing claims that content was blocked in error;
Regularly using the technology to remove infringing content that was uploaded before the technology could block it;
Identification and removal of links to sites that are clearly dedicated to, and predominantly used for, the dissemination of infringing content; and,
Promotion of content-rich, infringement-free services by continuing to cooperatively test new technologies and by collaboratively updating these principles as appropriate to keep current with evolving developments.

Take a look at http://www.testcard.tv too.

Thanks
Simon

Lets face it, tv-links.co.uk was the UK startup industry’s best star, position 182 in Alexa ranks, other than Bebo what UK startup has managed that?

The UK tech industry should be supporting tv-links.co.uk 100%, whether they are doing something illegal or not. They has not been found guilty YET. However, if the UK tech industry does not rally support for these types of cases, we will our ability to compete in the Internet landscape slowly being eroded away. This could be a landmark case and any person in the UK industry should be supporting and watching the proceedings.

There should be fair and proportional representation, tv-links.co.uk should have the best possible legal support in this issue, not to necessarily get them off the hook, but more importantly to ensure that legal precedents pushed through under the industry’s nose. Any legal UK precedents that are set in the Internet sphere should be of interest to all of the UK IT industry.

Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of substantial of validate detail surrounding this case, so the picture of what is actually happening in not totally clear. I have emailled FACT but as of yet have heard nothing back yet.

What is needed is this case is the UK industry to support tv-links.co.uk and ensure that any that legal action that is undertaken is done so fairly and legal precedent is not set that may come back to bite the UK industry in the future.

It is hard to see how UK enterpernuers will be able to compete in the Internet landscape if the playing field is not level. Perhaps FACT has not carried out similar operations on Google’s UK operation or youtube as they would have an extensive legal battle on their hands, with almost unlimited resources fighting it.

We have started a ChipIn to raise money for tv-links.co.uk legal defense, unfortunately we have only raised $110 so far, hopefully the UK tech industry will realise that we had better start taking an interest in our fellow UK startup issues, because if we do not, they may be ours at some point.

http://humanopinion.org/support_for_tvlinks

http://blog.testcard.tv/

Should online tv aggregators be illegal?

Your readers are more than welcome to join us there as we’d very much value an informed debate.

Thanks
Simon

Simon

To clarity the situation - testcard.tv has NOT been taken down by the police. No communications have been received by Testcard Limited from the police or any authority.

Testcard Limited has made a decision, following news that a similar service in the UK has been taken down by authorities, that as it wishes to operate within the framework of UK law it will operate the testcard.tv in an ‘Under Maintenance’ mode until there is further clarity on that framework.

For more information please see http://www.testcard.tv/

Thanks,
Simon

Seems a bit of a lame excuse to point his finger at youtube and google. They might be hosting some of the videos, but it’s not as if they’re pro-actively facilitating piracy like him.