Universal can also YouTube content removed where it is not itself a copyright on. This is evident from a letter from a lawyer from Universal on YouTube. Universal deleted recently a video of uploadsite MegaUpload.
Last week it was announced that the Universal Music Group, a sales video of the popular uploadsite MegaUpload of YouTube had to remove, while the video, no copyright infringement would create. In response, started MegaUpload a lawsuit against Universal. In that lawsuit as evidence a letter from Universal on YouTube.
From that letter it appears that Universal has an agreement with YouTube, on the basis of which the group’s videos can remove it. Ordinarily, the removal of content that violates copyrights, on the basis of the digital millennium copyright act. That law prohibits a person entitled to a take down request to send material that he or she is no copyright on.
In the letter to write a lawyer from Universal, however, that it also has rights to videos based on other criteria to block or remove, writes Ars Technica. These rights would be set out in an agreement with Youtube from 2009, the content of which is not publicly disclosed. The criteria would be independent of the dmca, and also there would be no question worry of copyright infringement. It is unclear, however, on the basis of which Universal more video’s can remove. By now, the video could be on YouTube.
Update, 17 december, 11.00: Youtube has at Ars Technica stated that “our partners only have the right to take videos offline that they have the rights, or if the live performances in which they have signed agreements in place with artists.” Why would Youtube the video put online again.