Google fails to sign industry User Generated Content guidelines

Many of the world's leading Internet and media companies, including CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks Inc., Viacom Inc. and The Walt Disney Company, have pledged their support to a set of collaborative principles that are designed to foster the growth and development of user-generated content online while at the same time protecting the intellectual property of content owners. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that Google, owners of the biggest video-sharing site on the planet, YouTube, is strangely absent. Well, perhaps not so strangely given that both Google and YouTube are currently facing a $1 billion copyright infringement suit filed by Viacom Inc which has signed the User Generated Content principles (UGC) agreement.