At the same time the European Union is investigating a pretty flimsy anti-trust complaint against Google, it’s conspiciously ignoring a case in Italy where three Google executives have been found guilty on a ridiculous charge. Here is the bizarre story.

An Italian court yesterday convicted two current and one former Google exec in a trial over a video showing a teenager being bullied. The Google Italy employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video of bullying of a teenager with autism to be posted on YouTube Google Video in late 2006.

Despite the fact that Google removed the video within hours of being notified of its existence, Judge Oscar Magi (pictured) absolved the three of defamation but convicted them of privacy violations. The three executives have received a suspended six-month sentence, while a fourth defendant was acquitted. Google is appealing the sentences on their behalf.

Google has responded in a justifiably vociferous blog post calling this a “serious threat to the web in Italy”. Frankly they are right.

As Google explains:

In late 2006 Students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that’s where our involvement would normally end.

However, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict the four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes. These guys left the company in 2008.

The charges were for criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code.

Now, why did someone not explain to this idiot judge that the video was NOT uploaded by these Google executives?

Hello?

Now Drummond, Fleischer and Reyes have been convicted.

In other words an Italian court has found that employees of an internet company are criminally responsible for content that users upload.

The court is ignoring existing European law which gives hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence.

It’s at this point one wonders if we should just give up on Italy as ever getting the Internet.

Google is appealing the decision, obviously.

Look, Italy needs to get its act together and fast.

I’m calling on Italian entreprenuers, many of whom I know and respect to get involved in this issue.

At a time when European countries are weighed down by regulation and stupid rulings like this one, especially during a period of huge economic upheaval, it is not enough to stand by and watch travesties like this go by.

Do the young people of Italy and the rest of Europe, so many of whom are huge enthusiasts of the Web and the power it gives them to drag themselves up by their bootraps without the need for state help, deserve to have decrepit judges decide their economic future?

I think not.

UPDATE: As commenters note below, the Judge in question is on Facebook, so he presumably knows what user generated content is. In which case why this bizarre judgement?

Not that you’ve ever paid a single cent for anything Google has given you, but just so you know, Google is going to stop selling videos via Google Video. On Wednesday, August 15th, Google will stop selling download-to-rent and to-own videos. It makes sense now that it owns YouTube and has a real means of making cash of videos. I’d say leave the content distribution to Apple and Joost. They really know what’s up.

After the jump, an e-mail a Google Video customer received:

Google’s permanent video sales less-than-permanent [The Register]

As a valued Google user, we’re contacting you with some important information about the videos you’ve purchased or rented from Google Video. In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007.

To fully account for the video purchases you made before July 18, 2007, we are providing you with a Google Checkout bonus for $2.00. Your bonus expires in 60 days, and you can use it at the stores listed here: http://www.google.com/checkout/signupwelcome.html. The minimum purchase amount must be equal to or greater than your bonus amount, before shipping and tax.
After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.

If you have further questions or requests, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,

The Google Video Team

Oh, Google Video. How I loved you so. Your hour long clips of Penn & Teller doing magic tricks, your full versions of pirated movies, leaked to your service. You had so many good things going for you. Then Google bought YouTube and you started getting ignored. Don’t worry, I still used you. I like videos longer than 10 minutes! But I guess that wasn’t enough.

Now Google has done away with you for good. Your page has become but a mere search engine for browsing online video. Most of the search results end up taking you to crappy YouTube links and it just doesn’t feel the same. No worries though, Google Video, as your spirit will always live on inside my cache. I’m just too damn lazy to clear it out. Maybe when I die and go to CrunchHeaven™, I’ll see you there along with Bo Jackson. It’ll be sweet.

Love, VV

No More Google Video! Long Live Google Video [Softpedia]

The original Diet Coke and Mentos video that the pair made was much more entertaining and brought them a reported $35,000 when they posted that video on Revver. Reeling in viral video stars with promises of revenue sharing has been Revver’s strategy – apparently they got beat at their own game when EepyBird got this Coke, Mentos and Google deal.

The official Google Blog said today that this was just the first of what they hoped would be many Sponsored Videos. This is not a long tail approach that’s being taken so far to monetize Google Video content. People interested in participating in the Sponsored Video program are directed to a Google Video page that says it is for publishers with more than 1000 hours of video available. The advertising on the EepyBird video is a very produced post-roll. This isn’t massive upload of user generated video content with AdSense wrapped around it. Perhaps that will be the role of YouTube and Google Video will be for relatively high-brow, formally produced video footage.

It’s fascinating to see Google, the creator of possibly the best long tail monetization engine in history, launching a video program focused on elite producers only. On the same day Brightcove launched a free for all network aimed at a much larger number of video producers and Metacafe took the bulk approach with their new Producer Rewards program. Metacafe is paying publishers $5 for every thousand views of a video after the first 20,000.

I’m sure that things will change with time, but perhaps Google has come to terms with the fact that hipness isn’t what its in-house video service has to offer. Perhaps it’s class they are seeking. If, in this world today, high class means hundreds of exploding Diet Coke bottles followed by an advertisement then perhaps what they are doing makes sense. Whether Google can split large advertising revenues with elite amateur video producers and build and sustain a vibrant, creative and authentic video community out of that is doubtful. The second EepyBird video sure felt stale.

This may or may not mean Google is allowing, or preparing to allow, porn. Videos containing nudity are clearly available on the site, and many were uploaded months ago (for example, is this porn?). But nothing hardcore seems to be on the site.

Also, the box requiring uploaders to certify that content is not pornographic is still in certain areas, such as the “edit video” area of the site. And the terms and conditions still prohibit pornographic material.

It’s strange that Google is allowing classification of content as “mature and adult”, and allowing video containing nudity (which is arguably porn), but still restricting pornography through the terms and conditions and in the video edit section. Either they’re just testing the boundaries of what their users will allow, or in the middle of making changes that could allow more hardcore content. Either way, porn is big business, and I’m sure Google has thought long and hard about how to get their piece of it.

More if and when this develops, and see Google Blogoscoped for their view. Thanks for the tip Razvan.

See our profile of Pornotube, a porn specific YouTube competitor, as well.

Note: There are some statements above about Google removing the no-porn check box, etc. that I can’t confirm. If there are any hard-core users of Google Video out there that have corrections or clarifications, please let me know. Better yet, if you are a Google employee and know what the real story is, please leave a comment.

To see it, view any video (like this one), then replace the URL with “javascript:setCookie(‘np’,'old’);window.location.reload();” and hit enter. A yellow-highlighted option to “Try our new page layout” will appear in the top right. Click that and you’ll see the new layout.

The key differences seem to be a smaller, resizable video screen, more descriptive data and comments (a recent addition) below the video. Google is also showing related videos on this new screen and more ways to embed the video on other sites.

Old (top) and new interfaces are shown below:

Hitwise shows exactly what happens to a site when it’s removed from, or added to, the Google home page. Google Video soars, Froogle plummets.

Google Video is also testing out new YouTube-like features (screen shot here). We sure don’t see this kind of product attention showered on Froogle.