According to Chris Maxcy, partner development director for YouTube, the “video fingerprinting” tools will be available for testing in about a month.
“The technology was built with the Disney's and Time Warner’s in mind,” Maxcy told the Reuters news service.
As described by Maxcy, the fingerprinting tool will be used to identify copyrighted material uploaded to YouTube, after which copyright holders can decide if they want the material removed from YouTube, or keep it in place and, as part of a revenue sharing deal with YouTube, share in the advertising revenue for ads placed next to the content.
Once it has been established that the fingerprinting technology works, it could also be used to block the uploading of copyrighted materials, as well, YouTube product manager David King told Reuters.
YouTube has been heavily criticized as a depot for stolen content and copyright infringement — as have its adult-specific equivalents, like PornoTube and XTube. While YouTube and parent company Google hope that introduction of the fingerprinting technology will help shield them from liability stemming from contributory copyright infringement claims, legal experts say there’s no assurance that the fingerprinting technology will benefit user-posted and user-generated content sites on the legal front.
“Courts have been mixed on the question of whether exercising ‘editorial control’ subjects the ISP to liability,” attorney Rob Apgood told XBIZ. “It’s very tricky, and at the moment, it sort of depends which court the issue ends up in front of.”
Regardless of how the courts might view it, Apgood said that the fact that YouTube is making the effort to try to prevent copyrighted materials from being infringed upon is a positive development.
“It looks like YouTube is trying to work with copyright holders, and be more copyright owner-friendly,” Apgood said. “On its face, that’s a good thing.”