Google has enraged a leading film-maker by using his footage in a corporate video that later leaked online.
The technology company used material from more than half a dozen of Philip Bloom’s films to make a provocative presentation about ways it could exploit users’ data in the future.
Mr Bloom makes a living from selling rights to his footage, among other activities.
Google insisted that it took copyright law seriously.
It said that the “thought-experiment” video had been intended to be seen by only a handful of people.
It was made in 2016 by the head of design at X, Google’s research and development division.
Google added that the executive had now been reminded about its strict copyright rules.
However, despite being aware of Mr Bloom’s claim since last Friday, the technology company declined to say whether it now intended to make a payment.
“My footage is represented online by two major stock-footage companies. And I license it for all sorts of projects and uses, from commercials to broadcast to corporate films,” said Mr Bloom.
“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.
“They have used 73 seconds of my footage from seven different videos without permission and they know they are in the wrong… so therefore I expect to hear from them regarding compensation.”
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported a $12.6bn profit in its last financial year.
Source: BBC news
