YouTube will launch a system in September designed to prevent copyright-infringing material from going up on the site, a Google lawyer said in court on Friday.
Google, which acquired YouTube in October 2006, plans to generate a library of digital video fingerprints that would be used by a computer system to screen clips being uploaded to YouTube, according to Philip Beck, one of the attorneys representing Google and YouTube. Beck added that the screening process would take only a few minutes to determine whether a clip is copyright material.
Google, Viacom and the class of copyright holders that have filed suit against Google and YouTube within the past year, were in a New York court for a scheduling hearing.
Beck's statement is significant because it would appear to be the first time that anyone from Google has set a firm launch date for a filtering system rollout. The company has frustrated numerous media executives by promising to produce better copyright protections for YouTube, but not delivering. Critics are quick to note that many of YouTube's competitors already screen content.
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When asked about the copyright issue, Google was more cautious. "We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by sometime in the fall," said a Google spokesman in an email. "But this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken and, as always with cutting-edge technologies, it's difficult to forecast specific launch dates."
Louis Solomon, an attorney with Proskauer Rose, who, along with lawyers from law firm Bernstein Litowitz, was appointed interim class counsel at the hearing, indicated that Google's filtering system would have little impact on the massive damages being claimed for past infringement.
In the class action suit filed in May by a group that included several European sports leagues, the plaintiffs have asked for billions of dollars in damages.
"If in fact Google puts this [system] in place, it is obviously way too late," Solomon said. "But we encourage Google to come forward and do what other companies have already done and treat all the content providers fairly. Not just the favourite few who have agreed to share advertising revenue with YouTube."
During the court proceeding, lawyers from both sides estimated that pre-trial discovery could take more than a year, meaning YouTube's copyright issues may not be resolved until late 2008.
Talkback
Isn't it clever of Google/UTube to create a nice piece of software to protect IP holders rights but disavow any reponsibility for the content of their user-created videos. If anyone saw Panorama on BBC 1 last night, I was disgusted by the blase attitude of the executives interviewed - as if their sites had no role in encouraging and perpetrating the horrific scenes that were posted up on their sites and that's without the racist bile that littered the comments section. I wonder, if those victims who had videos of their brutal attacks could hit UTube/Google and the rest as hard in the pocket as IP holders, I bet UTube/Google would hurry to create some kind of policing software (or indeed if that happened to one of their children).
Ebay can do it guys - so can you - get your act together or lose your market or suffer legislation and don't be naive - you have a responsibility to your audience and society just as any newpaper publisher or television producer has.
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