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YouTube rolls out anti-piracy tool
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 16th October 2007
YouTube has rolled out a new piracy prevention tool, which detects pirated content when it's uploaded.
The automated system checks all video as it’s uploaded to the site and attempts to match it to a database of visual abstractions from copyrighted material. However, the catch is that the copyrighted material has to be in YouTube’s database before it can be detected.
This means that the burden is now on the content owners, who have to provide copies of the copyrighted content to YouTube, so that the company can add it to its database.
Depending on the content provider’s wishes, there are a number of outcomes for when copyrighted material is detected by the system. YouTube will either block it, post it or put advertisements into the content, with revenue being shared with the content owner.
The Internet giant first talked about all of this in a US District Court at the end of July, saying that it would be rolled out by the end of September. Obviously, it’s a little later than planned but according to YouTube executives, this is the first image-recognition software to be implemented on a large scale.
Viacom, one of the companies that has filed a copyright lawsuit against YouTube, is “delighted that Google is stepping up to its responsibility and ending the practice of profiting from infringement.” However, the company has always maintained that a filtering system would not end the current lawsuit because the company believes it’s owed damages for past infringements.
Bob Tur, the journalist who was the first to file a lawsuit against the video sharing site was less than happy though. “What a slap in the face to copyright holders,” he said, “Help us not infringe your material. Please give us a copy of everything you’ve copyrighted and we’ll do the rest.”
Do you think this is a good move, or is it a slap in the face for the content owners? Share your thoughts in the forums.
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Comments (9)Stats: 0.027 seconds
Hitachi best speed up the rollout of those 4TB drives think Google will be doing a bulk purchase.
If I worked for Fox or Viacom I would be uploading my entire back catalog now, bring Youtubes servers to its knees then wait for the flame from Youtube blaming me of a denial of service attack.
I don't think Google / YouTube will need to keep a copy of everything uploaded (though they probably can and will - Google's bandwidth and storage capacity is almost unfathomably large, and a mass upload of a network's back catalogue would bring the network's servers to its knees before Google even noticed the additional bandwidth usage). Instead, this will work in a similar way to Shazam, which analyses samples and produces abstracts (as stated in the article), which are effectively signatures or fingerprints and are MUCH smaller than the original content. Uploaded video is then compared (using Google's unparalleled search expertise) against the database of fingerprints to see if it matches. It is really quite a clever and - I guess - effective system.
The problem is that it goes against the fundamental principle of copyright law in that it places the onus on the copyright holder actively defend its rights, rather than automatically protecting the rights of content owners. Much like the Google Books, which was much derided for offering to remove content specifically complained about by the copyright holders or to refrain from uploading content where specifically asked to do so by publishers, rather than requesting permission individually from the copyright holder of each and every work (which would have been utterly impractical!). It is unfortunate, because the Books project was potentially amazing - an immense online searchable library of everything. Similarly, if YouTube fails in its endeavours because of copyright holders' compaints on this technical point of law, it will be a sad day.
Edit:
Not sarcastic BTW, if everyone benefits, it sounds good to me, i don't mind watching 2 mins of adverts in family guy or whatever, better then it being blocked
RIAA etc:"you are sharing our copyrighted material"
Google:"you didn't give us a copy to compare stuff with, so its your fault"
RIAA etc:"oh *runs away with tail between legs*"
Artist to record company:"it was your job to protect my work *sues*"
end of RIAA etc
arggg :)
Its retarded that our world is hell bent on throwning ad's and media down our throats, BUT dont share it! Retards. I pay for my satellite, so why do I get ads on it? Come on people, wake up...