Via LGF, of all places, comes an update on Japanese movie, TV, and record companies' paranoid, knee-jerk reactions to YouTube. Reuters reports:

Google Inc.'s YouTube.com removed 29,549 video files from its popular Web site after receiving a demand from a group of Japanese media companies over copyright infringement, an industry group said on Friday.

The television, music and movie clips had been posted without the permission of copyright holders, the Tokyo-based Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers said in a statement.

The group, which represents 23 media companies including TV networks and movie distributors, said it would ask YouTube to set up screening and other measures to block postings of unauthorized files. It also called on Internet users not to post video clips in violation of copyright laws.

Good luck with that, guys. I first blogged about Japanese content companies' irrational fear of YouTube here. YouTube is basically paying out of its own pocket to host and stream up to 10-minute-long clips of these companies' shows, commercials, music videos, and what have you. Moreover, YouTube doesn't offer the ability to download and save video clips, so the average user (i.e., one who doesn't turn to hacks and work-arounds) isn't saving these clips to his hard drive or video iPod and swapping them with friends. I don't call that piracy; I call it free advertising.

Example: In surfing around on YouTube a while ago, I came across a clip from Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". I've seen just about all of Disney's modern animated films (e.g., from "The Little Mermaid" onward), but I skipped "Hunchback". Never saw it. I guess when it came out in 1996, I just thought it looked silly, and I wasn't interested. But the YouTube clips — like potato chips, you can't watch just one — showed that the movie had great animation, powerful songs, and a more mature storyline and darker tone than the average Disney film. I mean, just check out this one, for example.

I wanted to see the whole thing, so I hopped over to Amazon.com and ordered the DVD, which is on its way to me as we speak. If I hadn't seen those clips on YouTube, I wouldn't have bought the DVD. It's just that simple.

Some American media companies have recognized YouTube's value as a promotional tool; NBC, CBS, and others already post clips of their shows on the site. I hope their Japanese counterparts come to the same realization soon.

FOLLOW-UP:
Also via the same LGF post, it looks like the tit-for-tat YouTube censorship battle I warned against here is, sadly, in full swing.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
The BBC reports that a British soccer league is demanding that footage of goals scored in its games be pulled from YouTube, too. Sigh.