British filmmaker's copyright infringement issue with Google resolved

Back in May this year, a video produced within Google came to light. The video – dubbed The Selfish Ledger – was mainly in news for the kind of content it highlighted, but there was one more reason. British filmmaker Philip Bloom’s footage was used in the video without his authorization.

Bloom was basically denied any compensation by Google, which said the video was for internal use only. However, the filmmaker argued, saying companies have used his work internally in past, but after obtaining license.

Here’s what he had said:

A fair amount of my footage has been licensed for internal use only, so to hear Google not state that they will compensate me for its use is very surprising. Google via their YouTube platform are pretty strict when it comes to copyright breaches, so this is rather hypocritical of them and most certainly does not set a good example

Back then, Bloom said they will continue pursuing the matter. And now, he has announced the issue has been settled to his “satisfaction.”

https://twitter.com/PhilipBloom/status/1027976640729624576

As you can see, the filmmaker didn’t offer any details on how the matter was resolved. Compensation is one likely resolution, although of course there are other ways as well.

What’s good is Google settled the case to the complainant’s satisfaction. That was important not only because the company was clearly at fault here, but also because Google has always been the flag-bearer of copyright when it comes to infringements on YouTube and its other products.

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