YouTube pacts heighten copyright vigilance

Google has been working to assuage piracy worries of film and television studios since the Mountain View, California, Internet powerhouse bought YouTube in 2006 in a deal valued at 1.65 billion dollars.

YouTube said alliances with broadcast video delivery and management titans Harmonic, Telestream, and Digital Rapids will let it speedily recognize content from live events posted at the video-sharing service.

Many media companies will be able to give YouTube reference files, or "fingerprints," of video almost as soon as it is produced so fresh content can be identified, product manager George Salem said in an official blog post.

"Our partners will be able to provide us with reference files in a few minutes, allowing them to block, leave up, or monetize videos of their live events on YouTube in near real time," Salem said.

YouTube is meshing its content identifying tools with Harmonic, Telestream, and Digital Rapids technology used by major studios such as Time Warner and the BBC to convert video for broadcast on mobile phones, cable networks, and the Internet.

"By integrating Content ID with this technology, YouTube is effectively inside broadcast headquarters, helping to convert footage into reference files almost instantaneously," Salem said.

YouTube launched Content ID about two years ago to provide tools to stop copyrighted works from being shared at the globally popular service.

Content ID reportedly scans more than 100 years of video daily looking for copyrighted material and lets owners post money-making ads or have snippets yanked.

About a third of the "monetized views" from YouTube videos stem from copyright owners using Content ID, according to Salem.

"We're excited about what our Content ID partners will now be able to do," Salem said, referring to the partnerships announced on Wednesday. "We still have work to do, but we're happy with how far we've come in only two years."

(c) 2009 AFP