YouTube Says "No" to Copyrighted Videos
Google has recently announced plans to employ advanced copyright protection technology to thwart unauthorized video posts on YouTube. The company expects to have the filtering software up and running by September. Beck assures us that Google’s new defensive software is as advanced as FBI fingerprinting technology.
“The software will enable copyright holders to submit a digital fingerprint. This will be compared with any videos uploaded to YouTube, allowing attempts to upload copyright content to be quickly blocked.”
The announcement was made by Philip Beck, a lawyer that is representing Google in a case initiated by English football’s Premier League and music publisher Bourne Co. The plaintiffs accuse YouTube of encouraging copyright infringements as a means to increase traffic and to attract public attention. While the legal representatives of the plaintiffs were pleased with the news, they also said that earlier action should have been taken. At the moment, YouTube does not have a screening process (that filters out copyrighted material). YouTube does, however, “take down copyright-infringing clips when they are discovered.”
