Google to introduce anti-piracy tool for YouTube

YouTube, the video-sharing website owned by Google, has had a hard time with copyright infringement for quite some time now. In order to minimise or erase the hazards of posting copyrighted material on YouTube, Google is planning to come out with a plan to filter the copyrighted material.

Within the next two months, Google will start checking the videos posted on YouTube for copyrighted material. The company said that it hopes to have technology in place by September 2007 that would prevent copyright-infringing videos being posted on YouTube.

A Google lawyer said YouTube is working "very intensely and co-operating" with content-producing companies to introduce video-recognition technology that would detect illegally copied material before a clip is posted. As of now, the technology stands like this. The companies should find the illegally uploaded videos themselves and alert Google, which will then take them down.

Viacom had sued Google in March 2007 over copyright infringement and had sought $1 billion in damages. The new technology that Google will introduce will add another layer of software protection for copyright holders such as Viacom.

Viacom had several popular television shows such as South Park, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Reno 911. Viacom had ordered the removal of such content from YouTube. The removal order from Viacom caused thousands of illegal videos to be removed from YouTube.

Google maintains their stand that they are doing nothing wrong and are removing the copyrighted material as soon as they are asked.

It is expected that Google will introduce the copyrighted material catching software by September 2007. The company expects the new mechanism to eliminate disputes of this kind in the future.