Google launches video ID tools for content publishers

Filed under: Internet, Video, Web services, Google

Google launches video ID tools for content publishers

by Brad Linder Oct 16th 2007

YouTube may or may not have become the phenomenon that it is without illegally uploaded clips of copyrighted content like music videos and clips from movies and TV shows. But the truth of the matter is that an awful lot of the videos on YouTube are copyrighted. And they've been uploaded without the copyright holder's permission.

Today Google announced the launch of their much anticipated content identification system. This is supposed to appease the lawsuit-happy content publishers who want to make sure that teenagers aren't uploading Saturday Night Live clips.

But here's the thing. Google's new system kind of passes the buck onto the content publishers. In order to work, the owner of the copyrighted video will have to upload a copy to YouTube, and then Google's machines go to work analyzing that file and making sure that nobody else has uploaded an exact duplicate. There's a few problems with this:

Content owners want Google to take preemptive action, not reactive
As far as we can tell, there's no way to prevent modified versions of the video from being uploaded, since the data analysis will be different. And some content owners have complained about things like music being played in the background of an amateur video. Google's new tools would be useless in identifying such videos.

In other words:

Users will probably continue to upload copyrighted videos without permission
Copyright holders will complain that the burden shouldn't be on them to check for illegal videos
Google will shrug
The world will move on and either Google will continue fielding lawsuits or content owners will find ways to make their content available online so that users don't feel the need to upload illegal copies.

What do you think? Did Google pass the buck? Or is this the appropriate way to design a content identification system?

Tags: content-identification, copyright, lawsuit, youtube

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mysterius said 8:04AM on 10-16-2007

*shrugs* Personally, I don't think it should be Google's job to go all the way and pick up the full burden of enforcing copyrights for the copyright owners. That should be their job.

Google should respond effeciently to clear requests, of course, and maybe facilitate copyright enforcement as they've done here. But telling Google/YouTube to search its users for illegal clips on behalf of copyright owners is like telling an ISP to watch for criminal activity among its users on behalf of law enforcement; it's not their job.

robbyrob said 8:04AM on 10-16-2007

hope that doesnt change the service for the user!

www.spymac.com/details/?2277567

robbyrob said 8:04AM on 10-16-2007

well remember that google bought youtube!!

http://www.spymac.com/details/?2271810

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