YouTube's Promised Filtering Technology Still on the Way

Posted on August 2, 2007

Google has continued to promise sponsors that filtering technology to remove copyrighted content would come to YouTube eventualy. A Times Online article says that technology is expected to arrive in September.

Google has said that it hopes to have technology in place by September that would prevent copyright-infringing videos being posted on YouTube, its video-sharing site.
A lawyer for Google told a judge presiding over a copyright action that YouTube was 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.
At present, companies must find illegally uploaded videos themselves and alert Google, which will then take them down.
Philip Beck, who is representing Google in the action, told a judge in Manhattan that the filtering technology would be introduced "hopefully in September". He said that Google hoped the technology would "eliminate such disputes in the future."

For copyright owners the filter would simplify the problem of copyrighted content continuously reappearing on YouTube even after some instances of it have been removed. For people trying to find videos on YouTube the filter might make it more difficult. Today you can easily find some copyrighted video content on YouTube even if the copyright holders are trying to remove it because people continue to upload the material. This is especially true of video footage that is being widely discussed in blogs and on social media websites. When Beyonce slipped and fell at a concert last week BMG tried to have the video footage removed from YouTube. Many of the videos were removed and a BMG copyright claim appeared instead but if you search "Beyonce Falls" on YouTube you will have no problem finding a video showing you the incident.