Google Comes Under Fire For Alleged Support Of Pirated Content

The Wall St. Journal reports that a group of major media companies scolded Google for partnering on advertising with two websites that encourage illegal movie downloads. On Friday, Google, whose own video portal site YouTube has been accused of copyright infringement, promised several major media companies it would prevent a recurrence of the episode. Google has not been charged in the lawsuit. The companies include Time Warner, Sony, Viacom, Disney, NBC owner GE and Fox owner News Corp.; despite months of negotiations, Google has been unable to secure a deal to post content from any major media company on YouTube.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch
Commentary: YouTube Reaches Deal To Post Digital Music Group's Classic TV Content, Google Forced To Remove 100,000 Viacom Clips From YouTube, Google and Viacom: A Tale of Two Universes (and Stocks)
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Google (GOOG), Time Warner (TWX), Viacom (VIA), Sony (SNE), Disney (DIS), News Corp. (NWS), General Electric (GE)

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