YouTube blocks hottie's sex video

Sau, Paulo, Brazil: Video sharing Web site YouTube is blocking steamy footage showing supermodel Daniela Cicarelli in intimate scenes with her boyfriend, the company said a day after a judge ordered it to find a way to stop Brazilian viewers from seeing the video.


''The video in question was removed from YouTube because it violated our terms of use,'' YouTube said on Friday in a statement attributed to spokeswoman Jaime Schopflin. ''It was recently uploaded again and we became aware of it through media reports and users flagging the content, and we removed these copies immediately.''


YouTube's announcement came after court officials said on Thursday that the judge issued the injunction requiring the company to prevent Brazilian Internet users accessing the wildly popular video showing Cicarelli and Brazilian banker Renato Malzoni making out along a beach near the Spanish city of Cadiz.


The two sued YouTube in September and won an injunction for the removal of the video, but Sao Paulo state Supreme Court Justice Enio Santarelli Zuliani expanded his order this week after the clip continued to appear periodically, the court's press office said.


Cicarelli, one of the country's best-known models, hosts a show on Brazilian MTV and was previously engaged to soccer great Ronaldo, who plays for Spain's famous Real Madrid team. Two Brazilian sites that ran the video complied with the original order, but Malzoni went back to court after it kept appearing on YouTube, owned by Google Inc.


Though the lawyer for Malzoni complained that YouTube's system for blocking videos was inadequate because people kept loading the video to the site under different names, the company said it has mounted a strong effort to block the video and other offensive content amid skyrocketing site growth.


''We have over 65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube every day and our community effectively polices the site and flags inappropriate videos to be reviewed,'' Schopflin said in the statement. ''We have people reviewing flagged content 24 hours a day, seven days a week and work hard to streamline the notification process by providing tools for people to alert us.''


Zuliani is a judge in Brazil's most populous state of Sao Paulo, where Internet use is heaviest, but has the power to issue an order affecting all of Brazil, the court's press office said.


YouTube said the company ''is under the jurisdiction of the US legal system, however we reach a global audience and strive to provide a community where people from around the world can share videos in a safe and lawful manner.''


The case now goes automatically to a three-member panel of judges who will decide whether to make the order permanent and whether to fine YouTube as much as US$119,000 for each day the video was viewable, said Rubens Decousseau Tilkian. He represented both Cicarelli and Malzoni in the first case, but Malzoni pursued the second case without Ciarelli as plaintiff.


The case is not YouTube's first brush with litigation, although prior disputes have often been over copyright. In July, independent news reporter Robert Tur sued YouTube in US District Court in Los Angeles, claiming footage of his was posted and circulated without his permission.


YouTube also deleted nearly 30,000 files after a Japanese entertainment trade group complained, and through negotiations with leading US copyright holders agreed to deploy an audio-signature technology that can spot specific clips.


When it bought YouTube in November, Google set aside shares now worth about US$220 million as a financial cushion to cover losses or possible legal bills for the frequent copyright violations on the site.


Meanwhile, Google last September appealed a Brazilian judge's order to turn over information on users of the company's Orkut social-networking service.


Google insisted it already had complied with court requests to identify individuals accused of using Orkut to spread child pornography and engage in hate speech against blacks, Jews and homosexuals.


The company has said it is open to data requests from foreign governments as long as they comply with US laws and are issued within the country in which the information is stored.