YouTube copyright protection system unveiled

Yesterday YouTube unveiled YouTube Video Identification, a system designed to prevent copyrighted videos from making their way onto the site without the consent of the owner. Rather cunningly, YouTube requires that content owners send in a master copy of all their copyrighted content -- y'know, so they can cross reference it against uploads (nothing to do with Google's aim of indexing everything, ever ... no.) Any data that matches the reference data can be deleted automatically, but only if the content owner says so. According to YouTube chief counsel Zahavah Levine, there will be a way for content owners to set it up so YouTube can scan content on other servers -- removing the requirement for a master copy to be uploaded to YouTube -- although Levine said that method "would be more difficult." For who, Google, or the TV and movie studios?

[Thanks, Michelle]

[Philometalist @ Oct 16th 2007 10:52AM]

Ugh

[DJCarbon43 @ Oct 16th 2007 1:52PM]

Googles in ur serverz, scanning ur movies!

[Andrew Camacho @ Oct 16th 2007 10:57AM]

Well played Google. But seriously, copyright owners should really look at Youtube as an opportunity. Get some contracts concerning splitting the revenue from ads, and allow Youtube to show your copyrighted material for you to the world. The copyright owners really wouldn't even have to do anything...

I would imagine piracy would take a big hit. I would argue the biggest draw towards piracy is convenience. Sadly, it is more convenient to pirate a movie than to buy one. If I pirate a movie, I get the file with no DRM which I can play on my computer or any devices I own without a problem. If I buy it, it comes on a disc which I have to keep track of and DRM. If I download it legitimately, again there is just a bunch of DRM issues. But I would imagine streaming it from youtube at will would be pretty hard to beat.

[Josh A Cunningham @ Oct 16th 2007 11:04AM]

Haven't you ever heard of Dvd Decrypter and/or Gordian Knot?

[Johny @ Oct 16th 2007 11:10AM]

haven't you ever heard of other formats besides dvd?
as far as I know it aint that simple to rip a bluray/hd dvd.

and btw, his point was that it is easier to pirate, not that it aint possible the other way around. but firing up dvd decrypter is certainly more of a hassle than downloading a drm free divx.

[Xee @ Oct 16th 2007 11:13AM]

I think ripping and re-encoding a purchased DVD is beyond the skill-level of the majority of people who download movies now. Yes, there are one-click programs out there now (AutoGK for example) but re-encoding still takes time and a pretty decent computer if you want good results, making it still easier to just download a movie.

[Morgan @ Oct 16th 2007 11:34AM]

Oh great, now comes the fun user experiments to figure how to beat the sniffing algorithm. I'm guessing we'll start with people mirroring the image or doing various sized watermarks to create enough discrepancy, then move on to color manipulations or pitch shifting from there.

[jonathan @ Oct 16th 2007 11:27AM]

they have just sighned their own execution

[The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 16th 2007 11:31AM]

Forget movies-- What about TV shows? Last night I watched a whole episode of a British TV show on YouTube and I was grateful for it, as we can't get it here and it WON'T be available on DVD for purchase in America.

And what about people who have projects based on footage from other sources? Dubbing projects, remixes, etc... All will be swept away when the greedy folks decide they deserve a cut, even if the people making them don't profit and actually spend their own valuable time making them for free.

For example, "The Skeletor Show" is pretty good, and wouldn't be possible if Filmation decided they wanted something for the use of the hacked-up episodes of He-Man used in the production of this YouTube favorite. Would Fimation benefit from killing this project? Nope. Nobody's in a hurry to buy old episodes of He-Man, but when used for parody, they have some relevance today... And nobody is making money off them either way.

Jeez. If Timbaland can rip off whole SONGS from regular people on the Internet to "remix" and sell them for mega-profit, then joe schmo on the Internet should be able to rip off scenes from some crappy 80s show and remix them to entertain people for free. The system seems skewed to protect the big guys while making the little guys suffer.

[Traveller @ Oct 16th 2007 11:37AM]

This probably won't be so bad a solution. Realistically, instead of asking Youtube/Google to go looking and comparing, etc... they're handing out the tools for the copyright owners to do their own dirty work. I'm really happy about that, because even though this solution isn't perfect, and will probably break when it comes to mash-ups, the simple fact is that Google and YouTubes resources shouldn't be considered limitless. Just like AOL, they can't be even remotely responsible for what users posts. They can do their best to keep up but ultimately they are not in the business of protecting the copyright holder's copyright, but they've done the right thing for small and large copyright holders to get the job done right if it's something a company or individual wants to enforce. Sounds to me like other companies out there who help target copyright thieves will be getting more business real soon now. Buy your stock now ;D

[bombastinator @ Oct 16th 2007 12:29PM]

What bothers me here is that not only does fial to keep copywrited works off YouTube, it creates a situation where anyone can keep anything off youtube that they feel like.

The way this is set up, the first person to post is considered the owner. The real owner then canot get the thing taken down without what I am going to assume is a big rigmarole.
Conversely, f the first poster doesn't list themselves as the owner then anyone who doesn't like it can list themselves and take it down. This will be handy for anyone who feels that the video in question is for some reason unflattering.

[Traveller @ Oct 16th 2007 2:15PM]

That is an excellent point. However, at least at this stage, there's a place for them to start. They have to start this system somewhere. Obviously proving ownership is going to be somewhat difficult. I would guess there's a resolution system that will be in place, and it'll be interesting to see how it'll work.

[Maff @ Oct 16th 2007 1:46PM]

my advice, use AVI splitter, change the length slightly, edit the file details and name an obscure name, lol, failing that use veoh.com

[Herman Manfred @ Oct 16th 2007 11:47AM]

Must be why - at the time of this post - the YouTube "Most Recent" videos are 16 hours old rather than mere minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=mr

[Constable Odo @ Oct 16th 2007 11:54AM]

Screw that stuff. What's going to happen to all the decent oldies videos that are on Youtube. They got stuff you can't find anywhere else. Lots of artists from the 60's, 70's and 80's. It really should be seen as opportunity for artists to be remembered and maybe even rediscovered. You can see TV shows from all around the world that would never be seen elsewhere but Youtube.

I understand the artist's financial loss problem with new videos and such, but keep the old videos free to watch.

At least dailymotion.com doesn't have much in the way of restrictions of copyrights.

[Muu @ Oct 16th 2007 12:24PM]

As long as the copyright holders agree with your view, there will be nothing done about such music/videos being uploaded. Content providers have already had ample time to see what sort of positive/negative effect that net distribution has caused, and if it really has been beneficial to them in some way, they'll leave it there.

I doubt they'll care about the old stuff anyway; the lost profit's probably mostly coming from the new stuff that are being uploaded w/o permission, and that's likely where they're going to concentrate on strengthening.

[John @ Oct 16th 2007 12:13PM]

I somehow doubt google's ability to cross reference every uploaded video with what would surely turn out to be zetabytes of data, if they were given a "master copy" of copyrighted material. I mean, comparing frame after frame of video.... that's an algorithm I wouldn't want to write. And even if they did find a way, this kind of turns 'fair use' out on its ass

[Luigi193 @ Oct 16th 2007 12:24PM]

I couldn't care less about user created content... I WANT TO WATCH TV SHOWS DANGIT!!!

[octoberasian @ Oct 16th 2007 12:39PM]

The worst thing that this can do is destroy fan-made videos: from anime music videos to music videos made for user's favorite TV shows to user playing their own renditions of their favorite songs on piano or guitar or other.

It'll kill creativity, regardless.

I have seen one of my favorite YouTube videos a fan made for her favorite TV show and it was removed by Warner Brothers. Another video was removed for being a fan made anime music video. One other anime music video was removed because it had anime clips playing to a song copyrighted by Sony.

This is unfair to a lot of users and visitors, and YouTube has signed its death knell.

I wouldn't be surprised videos that have their favorite music artists playing in the background while they perform a skit or what not being removed as well.

No thank you, YouTube. You have probably lost a long time user.

[BananaBoat @ Oct 16th 2007 12:42PM]

Exactly. User created content is not the main attraction of YouTube. Youtube is for watching music videos (since MTV doesn't play them anymore), watching funny clips from TV shows, watching entire TV shows,etc. User made content is, for the most part, junk. So if all that is going to be left, is video of some shirtless dude talking into his webcam, I'm done.

Thanks for buying YouTube, Google. Really, thanks a whole lot >

[Brian @ Oct 16th 2007 1:42PM]

And thus marks the end of Youtube, a great video site until a corporation took it over. Seems to be the case with a lot of things lately. If we are not paying for it, we can't watch, listen, or even stream it, and yet, I am willing to bet that more than a few shows became popular by stumbling across them on Youtube. I know that was the case for me with Grey's Anatomy. Granted, I stopped watching the show, but it did pique my interest and cause me to buy the first season on DVD.

I guess we will have to wait for something to become popular as Youtube again.

R.I.P. Youtube

[Brendon @ Oct 16th 2007 12:59PM]

Many of you may have seen this already, but it's probably the most clever use of copyrighted material to make a point about copyrighted material:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

[Mr. Picklesworth @ Oct 16th 2007 1:59PM]

I hope this spells an end to people cramming awful music into every video they post...

[Mark @ Oct 16th 2007 2:47PM]

How does youtube make money? Are there ads on that site?

[James @ Oct 16th 2007 4:08PM]

Two main points:

* I'd care if YouTube weren't the worst quality video on the face of the planet.

* That said, this will go down in a blaze of litigation the day after it's deployed; the EFF only needs to find *one* instance of obvious, legitimate fair-use getting a takedown (and false positives are assured with an AI system like this) to get an injunction.

[James @ Oct 16th 2007 4:10PM]

Oh, and I almost forgot that this gives me a chance to deploy my TV Trope of the day :

All the losers adding ripped-off soundtracks to their lame videos will just switch to the Jimmy Hart Version (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheJimmyHartVersion).

[JT_X @ Oct 16th 2007 5:15PM]

Why is everyone blaming YouTube for this? What were they supposed to do, just ignore the lawsuits being filed against them?

[brutha-man @ Oct 16th 2007 5:24PM]

well,there goes Youtube..